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Josephine Jewkes,
Still Injured..... | |||||||
Josephine Jewkes, dancer with Rambert and formerly an ENB Principal, writes each month on the "dancing life". Here is a link to the previous column in the series.Tuesday December 2nd 1997 - The hip saga continues. I am now attempting a tentative recovery swapping the familiar close-up view of my living-room carpet for that of Maria Fay. She has offered to coach me back to health with her own unique system of floor exercises. To make ends meet and to pay the £1000+ that I owe Rambert, I am hoping to sell ice-creams at the Vaudeville Theatre, as the promised revision of payment during injury time has not been sanctioned. If I cannot dance any longer, do I want to teach? I had always envisaged that I would like to teach and felt a strong call to do that early on when only in my teens I 'coached' my schoolmates after hours and then later at ENB took a few talented souls under my wing. I also feel it is almost my duty to pass on some of what I have gleaned from a very varied career and from my work with some of the top teachers and dancers in the ballet and dance worlds. I also realise however that the more I know the more I realise how little I know. I would like to study in depth the science, art and psychology of teaching and this brings me to a thorny problem indeed: where in this country would one study? I am sorry to say that the thought of entering either of the 'obvious' choices (Royal Academy of Dancing and Royal Ballet Teachers Training Courses) fills me with deep dismay. It would be stating a fact universally acknowledged among professional dancers to say that the stranglehold of the RAD on the teaching of young dancers in this country is seen as unfortunate. (One tries not to admit to having had any RAD training at all, if possible). Fundamental mistakes in placement and co-ordination are widespread, style is stilted and the system seems to be geared (as Beryl Grey said recently on Radio 3's "Crisis in Dance" programme) towards the passing of exams rather than learning how to dance. Of course talented teachers do exist, but as I see it, the RAD caters for the (vast) amateur market, providing parents with certificates to hang on their walls. Attempts have been made to overhaul the system, but it now stretches far across the world and I do believe that the training is too perfunctory to educate a fully-rounded teacher. During my years at Bush Davies, the best teachers made it clear how uncomfortable they felt at teaching the RAD system but said that the school was compelled to do so in order to appease parents and satisfy official requirements for accreditation. When I joined London Festival Ballet straight from school, I found that I had to re-educate myself in fundamental areas such as placement and co-ordination. The resulting confusion and readjustment naturally impeded my progress, as ballet companies look first for technical competence before awarding a role. As a result, my first four years featured me regularly as a series of court ladies while I sought outside for private coaching from Svetlana Beriosova and Maria Fay. I am certainly not alone in my observations, as Chris Bruce and Derek Deane have commented publicly on the poor quality of British training. However, such is the widespread entrenchment of the RAD, it is unlikely that I would be accepted in one of the major ballet schools without a diploma from either the RAD or the RBS. Which brings me to the RBS; perhaps it is due to my unhappy year's experience as a twelve-year-old at White Lodge, but I view the prospect of re-entering the umbrella of that organisation as dangerous to my mental and emotional health. These are strong words I know, but I feel passionately about my art and know it cannot be otherwise. Dreams of studying on the rigorous four-year course at the Gites Institute in Moscow are likely to remain dreams for financial reasons, even were I accepted for the course. And if I did study on it and came back to England with my shining diploma? A golden opportunity to teach open classes at the Pineapple Dance Centre and not much else is the likely outcome, as presently in vogue in many dance companies worldwide is the American 'every movement is a tendu' school of dancing, which is like taking medicine every day and never feeling any better. It is possible to move onto the staff of a ballet company without any diplomas. So is THIS the answer? Yes and no (there just had to be a 'no'). I would perhaps be happiest coaching repertoire, but one cannot be free without a certain degree of technical expertise, and I can see a frustrating recurrence of fundamental problems in this area impeding the artistic growth of my proteges. Going back to basics is very often not possible to fit in to a busy company schedule and so I would perhaps find myself wishing to tackle the basics myself with a class of nine-year olds. Which observation does, I think, bring me back full circle............. The gift of a beautiful and secure technical base taught with infinite love and patience is a precious and rare thing indeed in these islands. I believe that awareness of style and artistry should be implicit from the very beginning, where every curve of the arm and co-ordination of a simple movement is seen as a thing of beauty in itself, capable of many dynamic and expressive interpretations. In my brief sojourn at White Lodge, technique was an uncomfortable strait jacket. I was told "Don't think, just do as I tell you" and artistic expression was left to be "painted on afterwards", as was explained to my astonished parents. Against such uninspiring attitudes, how can one hope to have any effect?
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