I kneel and pray for the death of my recent inspirations. The ideas I see so plainly with lack of sleep and late nights sometimes leave me by the time I have a chance to write. I am not able to stare at my handwriting for a long time while sleepy – I fall asleep – so all of these updates have to be in an online journal or in a document locked up on one of the hard drives.
There are so many things I see wrong with the situations I continually end up in, but I can’t write about them at the time I am immersed in them because I fear judgment about either my words or of the simple fact that I am writing my opinions about a situation rather than sharing them in speech. I would be paranoid about people involved in the event looking over my shoulder and being offended by my words which may be uninformed or just plain and frank about the situation. Simplicity, bluntness and ignorance are an offense to many types of people.
I am also becoming infatuated with letters, words, and type in general. Even posting this little entry, which is something that wouldn’t have had as much importance to me before, seems like I am writing the great American novel, to be set on a letterpress and published with dignity, artistry and respect in a location where people would read, understand and identify with my words if only in the capacity of recognizing the type as words and ideas. The act of putting ideas into type, letters onto paper, lends a certain credibility that I haven’t recognized in a long time. I am just beginning to remember how it feels to know that one’s words have importance and influence (at least, so we think).
This recent revival of my faith in letters and type has caused me to re-make an old project which I feel should be treated with a little more dignity than it was originally awarded. The document I am revising with love is a level guideline for the dance studio I work at. It describes the different steps that should be taught at each level and at times provides teaching suggestions appropriate to the age group. I have been revising this document also. I emphasize ballet as a discipline rather than just a class, thereby the language throughout the document should be eloquent and more authoritative than personal. I didn’t follow that guideline when creating it.
The document was originally created as one, very large, bulleted list in MS Word. I cannot express the disgust that fills me when I look at this document now. It is set in an attractive typeface, but the style of the bullets is annoyingly large, drawing attention to the silly round points rather than the text itself. Some of the descriptions are lacking in voice and tone while this assignment was done so quickly that the proofing stage is left out entirely. That means there are some bullets that are duplicated, some steps that are left out and others for which there was no good source for spelling checking. I am updating those as the internet resources on the subject have blossomed. I think I am the only ballet teacher who attempts to teach students the proper spellings of ballet terms.
I am setting the new document in book form (with facing pages) in InDesign. I am using different styles of text to show the headings, descriptions and points without deviating from the font family. I am fixing the indentations to become more attractive and less default. I am checking the spelling of all my terms while suggesting terms to be added to the Wiki glossary. Also, the language is undergoing modifications throughout to sound more professional and true. I included a statement about my training at the beginning of the document, because a lot of the things I teach are from the American style viewpoint rather than any previously published curriculum (such as Vagonova, French or Cecchetti). Teachers not knowing this may not understand the exclusion of some terms and the inclusion of other terms.
Interestingly, even though I am giving more respect to this document than I ever have before, the teachers who are supposed to be using it are if not resistant to it, indifferent about it. I don’t think anyone actually teaches to these standards currently, and if they do, they don’t follow the same step vocabulary. This is no issue, it just makes me aware of an importance issue (I have to find a better word for that – perception?) where to me, the art and discipline are very important and to others it is non-important.
Again, this comes back to a debate I happened to write in my LiveJournal late one night about being a school of fine art versus a school of pop culture. To succeed in pop culture, a student only needs to know enough steps and names to make them competent, competitive and translate their technique into other styles. Students wishing to succeed in the fine arts need to develop a respect for the discipline and subtlety in the art of ballet, not the grotesque large “trick” movements pop culture dancers need. I still have not decided which side of the fence I am on.
This conflict brings to light every single debate I have had with my supervisors at the dance school. Even though they conceive of themselves as a school of fine art, they are really a school of pop culture. I have been trying to teach fine art, while others teach pop culture. This has made me unpopular and subject to criticism for being “strict.” I am unsure of which to serve: my inherent respect for the fine art form of ballet technique or the interests of my employer (which though they may be fun, they are against what I believe personally.)
