Ballet is a Battlefield, Mastery is a Mirror.

A child becomes interested in ballet after seeing the Nutcracker. Her mommy takes her to the local Ms. Ballet Teacher and begins studying this craft by walking into a room of mirrors. The child learns to evaluate herself, staring for the corners of her eyes and she grows up. She seems to have some talent. So, she starts going to more and more elite schools and teachers. But, she grows up with the usual high school snots commenting about her, competing for being the best as she does to them. Worst case scenarios: injuries, some little tyrant puts glass in her pointe shoes and ends it all, or worse: her parents want her to go to college and get out of it entirely and she winds up a frustrated dancer.

But the best scenario is that she gets into a company. She gets a real job dancing. Earns a whole $500 per week and lives in an apartment college students would reject with 3 other bitchy girls who steal her prescription ups for the morning and downs for the evening. But every day she goes in, checks for glass, stuffs her feet into the shoes that would make every female sole in china ache, and becomes the ethereal athlete. But, no, she gets bumped from the one soloist role she's been offered all year.

So, she fights back. She does anything to make the others look bad and her good. She thinks she knows how the director's mind works. So she undermines. Of course, retaliation is inevitable. In the end, which is usually May, she's either fired or rehired, Or, conversely, if she won many battles, she’s promoted. And, sometimes, it’s actually because she earned it: she has come of age. Thus awakens an artist.If she is lucky enough to have attained this level of mastery with or without help of a mentor, the battles she went through before, continue in the valley below, but they can saddle up their contacts and ride into the sunset of the stage door, never to return. Are these lucky dancers? Well, no, but maybe with a little intelligence, they could circumvent that aforementioned battle field with hard work and training, if they keep their mouths shut.

Later, they retire and maybe teach a few youngsters to do the same as they did. But, in the end, May comes around and separates the dancers from the dabblers, the workers from the few, and those who have careers from those who quit early. It does not matter if they are only corps de ballet; these corps dancers persevere and are valued, even by the biggest tyrant directors and choreographers. In fact regardless of their level, they are invaluable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mastery is rising above the battlefield, by not fighting, and becoming an artist. It is not about rank. It is not about talent. It is not about being better than someone else. It is an attitude of mastery through training, guided by a mentor. There is only one way one can learn to work with such mastery from a young age. Have and accept mentors. We start with our parents and move to our teachers. If the parent or teacher has not been mentored at some point in their life, it is doubtful they will be suitable mentors for you. The level of “master” is attained at usually an old age when one’s career is closing. As a dancer, it is rarely if ever attained. However, this is not the point of mastery. Mastery is the posture of being present and confident in what one is doing. Mastery is working with vision and it is working with a plan that is guided by a simple truism.

The main difference between a dabbler and a true craftsman whether they be serious in ballet or any study, whether they be the youngest student to the most seasoned master, is that the serious craftsman works on their own to develop their craft. The craft is more of a practice than it is a level of study. The consummate craftsperson no longer sees it as a study, but as a practice that fulfills them - even though s/he may still be a student themselves. In this, they have become masters over the study, and the study aspect of it dissolves. The idea of study is replaced as a habit of practice and gaining mastery. Then, the development of mastery is natural, because it is no longer the goal. The purpose of the craft itself is no longer to be the best, because that need was overcome long ago. This happened simply because there was a shift in attitude towards the view of it as "craft as study", to that of craft-as-practice. It is at this point, that the craft takes less and less effort to do - it becomes more of a lifestyle, and actually is relaxing to perform. Because of this, exponentially more people will benefit from the professional-cum-master and her/his craft, because s/he will be equally as sought out as the level of their mastery will allow.

Without such mastery, ballet is doomed to the competitive hierarchical battlefield dynamic plagues most modern group activities, professions, practices and studies. If the battlefield is not transformed and thus pacified by transcending it with the dynamic of mastery, then dance and the arts in general will never achieve its place as an intrinsic and needed function of society and culture. It will wallow in the muck of being considered “a luxury.”

The little girl who steps into that room of mirrors must learn to become a profound and important mirror for society. She must be taught that she is in service to her art form, not the other way around. If we teach her to learn and train with mastery, she in turn will become a mirror for society and teach it to groom and know itself, and the arts will have finally achieved its purpose.

© 2004 Philip S. Rosemond.