1. Ballet Today

We must acknowledge that within the worlds of the arts and arts education, the future of ballet is a controversial topic. Its thinking, practices and politics raise pertinent issues relating to the relevance of art, as well as profound and serious questions about education and training and even the morality of its traditional practices. Unless there is a fundamental change “ballet will, overburdened with nostalgia, limp into the 21st century towards its just demise.” (“Balancing the Books” by Susan Crow and Jennifer Jackson, in Dance Theatre Journal 1999.) I believe that the current and traditional approaches to the teaching of ballet must be challenged to achieve synthesis of

• training with educating
• body with person
• technique with expression
• doing with making
• the physical with the perceptual properties of movement
• the actual with the virtual
• ‘steps’ with dance
• position with motion
• theory with practice.

My approach to dance training/education is unique and provocative and impacts significantly on those I teach.

By questioning the value of tradition, through a consideration of the reasons for teaching ballet in the first place, I aim to reveal the need to establish clear pedagogical practice. This in turn supports and constructs a rationale for innovation.

2. Certificate in Choreology for teachers of Dance

I would aim to devise a programme of modules which introduces teachers of dance to movement. The modules will be based on the experience and research from teachers’ workshops which I have conducted since 1995. The objective would be to provide a dynamic education for experienced and practising teachers, given in manageable units of time that allows for study and reflection and dialogue within their teaching lives.

There is, to my knowledge, no programme like this in existence, and it is desperately needed. Teaching programmes today still concentrate on the
teaching of a particular form or style of dance. This programme would not be style-bound, though different modules could be style-specific.

Human movement is the stuff from which dance is made, irrespective of style. My research and work have shown me that knowledge of its scientific, organic and social structure is crucial to the understanding of dance, and that my approach leads to a dialogue which is desirable, exhilarating, and necessary in the dance teaching and learning process.

There is a difference between giving class and teaching dance. I am concerned that the body of knowledge which a choreological approach to dance provides should become available and recognized. Other implicit aims of these modules would be to

• bring teachers together in education and artistry
• bring teaching out from the margins and into the mainstream
• give teachers visibility
• overcome the isolation of teachers, who practise as artists but behind the closed doors of studios
• provide a stimulus for each other
• be a forum for challenging established teaching patterns
• develop a community which can participate in significant dialogue with all dance artists and artists in general.
• increase the stature of the teachers’ contribution to the professional dance community
• raise awareness of the teachers’ role in the unceasing development of dance practice.


My concern and my hope is to provoke the development of a vibrant, articulate teaching community; a community of individuals who practise as artists, but who also work as teachers in their studios, and a community which can participate in significant dialogue with all dance artists and with artists in general.