More on BIG discussion forums and Susie Crow's thought pieces for Ballet.co BIG index page A summary version of this article appeared in Dance UK News, Issue 46 DanceUK on web The BIG Forum events for 2002 are supported by London Arts. Ballet Independents' Group (BIG) activities are run by Susan Crow and Jennifer Jackson. BIG is grateful to the South Bank Centre for their on-going support and to Brendan McCarthy.

Debate about the merits of an education and/or training in ballet is not new. At the recent BIG forum three speakers with experience in both vocational and academic settings, brought their thoughts to the old but live issues in what remains fascinating, sometimes rough, territory for educators in dance. Each spoke to a distinct focus - philosophical theory of education, practical ballet and academic research - with depth and seriousness. Edges were far from blurred. The clarity of each speaker's presentation served initially to highlight the space between modes of learning and their distinctness of purpose in terms of professional outcomes. The notion that learning methods may be resolved in the person of the individual dancer him/herself emerged tentatively as the debate opened out to floor and on reflection on the discussion as a whole.

Chris Challis, now Head of Academic Studies at Bird College and formerly at Roehampton, began by defining the scope of any dance education as being concerned with "training students to dance choreography". She provided a useful model for examining exactly what is involved, identifying three levels of theory that relate to, the capabilities of the body and physical space, to choreographic ideas, and to cultural context. Describing the first two levels as essential and third as "desirable" threw open an interesting area for exploration, between the training of dancers and the educating of artists. Dancers are generally required to demonstrate their understanding of these complex theories by 'showing'; articulating them in words as well, engages a process whereby they become conscious. This, said Challis, is possible and, as Michael Irwin suggested later, academic in its nature. "We're trying to translate concepts, ideas and intuitions into words. The academic project is of this kind. Any developing art must have a dialectic between what is actually done and what people say is done".

Patrick Wood combined demonstration and analysis, doing and saying, to present his understanding of ballet as a dance form. Wood was a dancer in Festival, Scottish Ballet and the West End and teaches ballet at Lewisham College and Surrey University. He mused that the title of the debate prompted him to explore "how it is possible to feel comfortable teaching a straightforward ballet class in almost any circumstance". In this task he aimed for "flexibility and scope". Using a framework of 24 key points, he identified principles and characteristics of the form, its practice and methods of transmission - each simple idea an indicator of a variety of ways in to multiple layers of meaning. He values the interplay between academic class, rehearsal and performance as a "way of doing" and suggests, in his experience of dance instruction, the combination of the physical, rational and intuitive as a "way of knowing".

Irwin, whose background, as Professor of English at Kent University, and Academic Adviser to post-graduate students at London Contemporary Dance School is not in dance, was intrigued by the elusiveness of what 'Dancing' is and its methodologies. By comparison with related disciplines such as music and drama, he remarked on the paucity and inadequacies of dance 'texts' as unrepresentative of the "thing itself"; he talked of a "curious frontier" where the transmission of dance is "mystagogic or ossified". Alive to the realities of survival and the responsibilities that accompany HE money, he pointed to the interface between the difficulties of codifying dance and good teaching and necessity of identifying hard skills and the "bi-products" of learning dance. Ironically these very problems and paradoxes are productive - the shape of a PhD has loosened up; he observes in the fluency of dance students' writing, an apparent relationship between the disciplines of writing and dancing.

But what of the dance student whose skills are not in verbal or written work - is there not something 'academic' in the rigour of the ballet class? The floor acknowledged the notion of reflexive thinking as intrinsic to the dancer's development. Articulating methodologies for such practices would provide the kind of evidence base that gives them credence as 'academic'. Aligning 'academic' with 'linguistic' and 'vocational' with 'activity', said Nicola Gaines, breeds inappropriate distinctions between mind and body, not recognised by the Greeks whose definition of academia we have adopted. John Field also looked to history, bemoaning the legacy of Descartes' mind/body split but positively citing fencing, regarded as an academic study, and also a major source of publishing in 16th and 17th centuries.

What of the 'intention' behind ballet study in these contrasting environments? Challis suggested that different 'outcomes' were at play. Whilst intellectual rigour is pursued throughout training, in universities it is focussed on understanding the activity and in vocational training on requirements for students to meet prescribed standards (e.g. turning the double pirouette). But in vocational settings the emphasis is also on understanding. Heather Walker remarked on how the vocational dancer who brings her intellect to her demonstration of practical understanding, will score highly in assessment. At English National Ballet School academic and vocational staff co-ordinate their work to provide students with both choreographic content and context in repertoire studies.

Questions about the timing and time allowed for the education of the vocational ballet dancer as an artist arose. The predominant culture in ballet companies today determines that s/he must graduate young, fully-fledged and a potential soloist. Most university students begin their full time education when vocational students leave theirs. Schemes such as Birmingham Royal Ballet's pioneering degree course are recognition of a fundamental need: for the education and personal development of the dancer. Is it time for the ballet profession to seriously consider the benefits to the health of the art form, and the industry, of affording its practitioners the opportunity of entering the profession as 'educated artists'?

The discussion suggested that old tensions between the demands for hard evidence and celebrating the elusive "butterfly" of dancing itself are unresolved - but productive. Words are not the dance itself, but translating dance ideas and intuitions from the ephemeral into the verbal realm, is a necessary part of the endeavour by educators to develop ballet as an art form and academic discipline. Wood talked of the place of unknowing as an integral part of dancing - there, the curious frontier. Irwin was matter of fact, "I don't think that the academic approach should be seen in any sense as the enemy of the practical approach. Striking a balance is a different thing".