Lessons from the Ballet
Over the past 3 weeks I’ve been watching Agony and Ecstasy on BBC 4, a documentary showing English National Ballet’s fight for survival against the unjust budget cuts thanks to the so-called Coalition government, which will be well remembered for it’s brutal cuts to the things that makes Britain unique.
I’ve learned a lot from the show as a teacher, a director and someone that wants to inspire others to exceptional performance.
The four lessons I’ve learned are:
*The disorganised director is a blind tyrant.
The director of the Nutcracker was so poorly organised and didn’t plan out his time properly that he hadn’t finished choreographing until the very last moment. He blamed everyone else, but in the end, it was his fault that the dancers went into their dress rehearsal without confidence. For actors, we need the director to give us confidence that they have a clear plan. The actors that I train learn to work without a strong director, just in case their director is a talentless idiot. It’s always better to work with a great director, they will bring out the most in the play and its performers, but the disorganised director, blaming all for their problems, they are mean and cruel and in the end, they are a tyrant.
*Don’t treat your adult artists like children.
In ballet, or at least at ENB, the dancers are treated like naughty children, are scolded and chastised for ‘not getting it’ after showing them a couple of times, it’s as if they should be able to pick up and learn something instantly. Actors would never put up with this and yet quite often they are treated like children. Mutual respect is surely the starting place for all artistic collaboration. Yes, I understand, someone needs to be in charge, but the Captain still needs the respect of the crew, or a mutiny will be on their hands.
*The performers save the show every time in spite of odds against them.
How often do a bunch of talented actors get together, an inspite of a crappy script and the well-intentioned but unhelpful instruction of the director pull it out of the bag and save the show. Hats off to all those artists that save the show.
*The technical rehearsal is not for fixing artistic moments.
I couldn’t believe that the director of the ballet (I call him this because he’s the Artistic Director of the company) was making the school boy/neophyte error of directing during a tech run, that was kicked out of my long ago. This left his tech crew scrambling during a fully attended (with Press corp) dress rehearsal, mistakes were made and the techs had to fix them under a lot of pressure and WHY? Because the director had wasted their time during their only tech run.
*Dancers work harder than actors and their careers are over by 40.
The pain that dancers are willing to put themselves through is incredible, they work and work and work, they work out every day, they stretch, their life about dance, but their careers are almost all over by 40, particularly in ballet. Actors, we should feel lucky that this isn’t the case for us, we can act on until we’re 100+, but you have to admire the commitment and dedication that dancers have to what is a punishing career.