Haptic and deep sensing in ballet class

ABSTRACT

Different cultural traditions about the sensory domain of tactility can lead groups of people to categorize the senses differently. This research explores how professional dancers in their social relations learn sensorially through touch at three London institutions and offers new perspectives on how touch compose part of the dancers’ shifting sensoria and the epistemology of the culture of their ballet class. Drawing on de Sousa Santos (2018) development of the concept of corazonar and Borda’s (2015, 10) notion of “sentipensar” (feeling-thinking) I discuss how dancers feel touch, how other sensorial modalities intersect with touch and how the variants of touch/being touched influence learning. In my study the dancer’s ways of knowing are inscribed in social relations by combining the feeling/thinking, reason, and love in emotions/affects indicating a deeper understanding of the confluence of various senses. The methodology involved four years of ethnographic observations, my active participation in professional ballet classes and interviews with dancers.

KEYWORDS:

• Ballet dancers
• corazonar/sentipensar
• learning
• senses
• emotions
• touch

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful for the ballet dancers and the London institutions which allowed me to research their experiences, for the reviewers’ suggestions and Dr. Stacey Prickett for her valuable contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Warm up refers to a body routine created individually or by the teacher to be executed collectively. Often the warm up combination gradually increases the dancers’ temperature and flexibility preparing them for complex movements.

2. From my observations of the classes at the three venues, the dancer’s hip was the most common area touched, followed by dancers touching their abductors, and the abdominal region at ENB. BB dancers touched their abdominal region and femur muscles. DW dancers touched most their back, shoulder blade, and lumbar region (Field notes, 09.06.2016; 02.04.2018).

3. Dancers prepared their pointe shoes, by rubbing them in rosin, sewing elastics and ribbons, and sometimes molding them by shaving the block/hitting the floor to loosen their firmness.

4. Traditionally pointe work was taught only to female dancers. It was not common for male dancers to do pointe work in ballet class. In my investigation, one BB male dancer was preparing for a role in the Red Riding Hood, which required pointe work. The other male dancer did pointe work at DW with the purpose of enhancing the articulation of his feet (Field notes, 06.04.2017; 08.03.2017; 02.04.2018).

5. Some dancers had contact with objects before or during class, for instance, elastics for the feet, cylinder foam for muscular distress, or elastics between their tights enhancing their abductors’ proprioception.

6. Some ENB and BB dancers keep up with their training by occasionally doing ballet classes at other independent studios such as DW (Field notes, 02.04.2018; 24.03.2018).

7. These allegations by dancers went viral in social media and a website platform was launched by Chiaverini (2018) for dancers to communicate anonymously their experiences in ballet class and to dismantle oppression in ballet institutions.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by CAPES- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Grant Number [88881.127951/2016-01] and Santander and Ede & Ravenscroft research funding 2016.

Notes on contributors

Doris Dornelles de Almeida

Doris Dornelles de Almeida in Dance at University of Roehampton, London, U.K. Lecturer of Classical Ballet and Music and Movement at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul-UFRGS and Federal University of Vicosa-UFV. Dancer with international professional experience in dance companies since 1994. Researcher in dance anthropology, organisational culture and cultural industry. Masters with Honours (2012) and Bachelor (2006) in Business Administration at PUCRS. Specialisation in Contemporary Theater Theory at UFRGS (2005), and Bachelor in Arts-Dance at Folkwang Hochschule Pina Bausch, Essen- Germany (2002).