Literature and the Ballet Classroom

Being a new ballet instructor at Ballet Petite, one unique aspect of my job training was incorporating “story dance” into my younger classes (5 and under.)  This part of the class would start with reading half a story (the second half being read the following week) and then dressing up the little dancers in the assigned costumes and props, acting out the story as our ballet.  I received my MFA in writing and BA in English Lit, so I obviously thought this was great for the development of our young dancers. 

I was also surprised how I had never seen this before in my many years of teaching ballet before coming to Ballet Petite.  I remember for a yearly recital in another school, I decided that my dancers were going to dance to Coraline (“the book, not the movie,” I told my students.)  All my students, I must add- completely unprovoked by me- had checked out Coraline from the library or made their mother purchase it for them from their local book store.  I remember thinking, “this is the best thing that’s ever happened in one of my ballet classes.”  

Teaching at Ballet Petite, story dance is a regular part of the young child’s dance education- reading everything from classics like Hansel and Gretel to new children’s books like Ella Bella Ballerina and Cinderella.  Occasionally, I'd find myself torn on reading the dark stories out loud, for example, the ending of Hansel and Gretel.  Although it's exactly how I remembered it from childhood, it suddenly felt very dark and borderline inappropriate to read to the wide-eyed three-year-olds who were hearing it for the first time.   I quickly changed the ending of Hansel and Gretel for one class, which left me feeling some literary guilt for altering a long standing part of history and keeping the true story from the children.  I'm sorry Brothers Grimm!  I mean, I don't remember feeling traumatized from hearing these dark tales when I was a child. I decided to tell it exactly as it was written for the next class, and although one child's jaw dropped (yes, literally dropped open) when I read that Gretel pushed the witch into the oven, they all seemed fine- ready to throw on their costumes and dance.  I eyed the one jaw dropper for a minute to see if she might need some immediate comfort, but she twirled and tip toed, unphased.  Perhaps I didn't give my first class enough credit?  This isn't an area I feel completely resolved about quite yet, but hopefully I'll find a good middle ground when reading these stories in future classes. 

I’ve seen how the story dance helps the dancer connect the ballet exercise used in the beginning of class to using them as “steps” while acting out the story; I've also noticed how the dancer's retention of each story is getting better and better each week. Most fascinatingly, I've found the students are able to ponder deeper cerebration of the story itself.  For example, reading Ella Bella Ballerina and Cinderella by James Mayhew to my three-year-olds today, one of them raised her hand after the story and said, “Ella wasn’t really dancing with Cinderella, she was just playing pretend.”  I asked her, “Why was she pretending?” The student replied simply, “Cause she wanted to dance with the real Cinderella and could only do that by pretending.”  All I can say is, that's awesome insight for a three year old.   It's hard to fathom why this aspect isn't in every ballet program.    

I look forward to writing more of my musings teaching here!

~ Miss Jenna

"In the olden days, when wishing still worked..." - Jacob Grimm