This page is a public draft of my research intentions and is subject to change. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
ABBREVIATED RESEARCH QUESTION (modified November 10, 2012):
“How do professional ballet dancers accommodate shifts in motivation through a lifetime of change, success and disappointment”
No one theory can explain every dancer’s motivation, or an individual dancer’s motivation through different stages in a career. Identifying what motivates dancers and discovering how they deal with progress, and development changes that they experience, as they proceed with their career is central to this project. I also seek to discover how dancers deal with changes associated with emerging technologies and economic expectations in the “industry”.
FIELDWORK:
When I commenced my research I had intentions of enrolling in a research degree in the discipline of anthropology, This would have required that I undertake a fieldwork component of appropriate duration that would consist of full-time participant observation within a professional ballet company. I have decided that since my company of choice has declined my request for fieldwork, I will continue my research as an independent researcher utilising predominantly social media and the literature (see below). I was inviting any ballet company that would welcome a researcher such as myself into their organisation to contact me. This in now unlikely to result in a formal academic associated undertaking, but I would welcome short term opportunities to spend time with companies.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
I am conducting a loosely defined ethnography online using social media, blogs (including my own “Anthropology En Pointe”) and other subject relevant web sites. I welcome dancers and choreographers who are interested to help with my research to do so online. I invite them to say anything they like! Comparisons between ballet and other interests would be valuable. Observations, criticism, disagreement, agreement, comparisons and contrasts are all welcome.
GUEST CONTRIBUTORS:
If any professional dancer, artistic staff, ex-dancer, student, or academic would be willing to write a guest post and talk about what they think motivates a professional dancer during their career, please contact me. If you wish to find all guest posts to see as examples, click on “Contributions by guest posters” in the side bar
APPROACH:
I am using what I would loosely define as a hands on approach. I want to converse with dancers and others and observe their own feelings about motivation. This is not a study to determine how they may be better motivated. It is a study of what does motivate them.
At the time of writing this, I am considering using phenomenology as a theoretical framework. If you are not interested in an academic description, you may not want to read this page further.
An anthropologist I have worked with, Greg Downey, asked a question on academia.com “How are people using phenomenology in their anthropological work?”. Greg received a number of detailed responses. For my purposes, I will work with what Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson responded in part:
mainly I find that empirical researchers are using ‘phenomenological’ to refer to some particular stance they have in observing some phenomena. Mostly it has to do with trying to not jump to hasty conclusions about what is really happening, but try to consider every possible interpretation of the experience.
I am interested in Marcel Mauss’ “Techniques of the Body” ([1934] Reprinted 1992 in Crary, J. and S. Kwinter Incorporations. Zone 6. NY:Urzone). This is a particularly anthropological approach that seeks to derive theory from participant observation. The theory that he argues is that of habitus from a classification of observable body techniques. An important aspect of his work for my research is that “[the] teaching of techniques being essential, we can classify them according to the nature of this education and training.” (p 464). However, I feel there may be a contradiction between a young dancers’ need to dance whilst in their formative years and how, other dancers transmit these “techniques” to their young students. This contradiction would probably inform dancers’ expectations and consequently motivations.
Other writers have worked with the notion of habitus:
Bourdieu’s concept of habitus was inspired by Marcel Mauss’ notion of body technique and hexis. The word itself can be found in the works of Norbert Elias, Max Weber, Edmund Husserl and Erwin Panofsky as re-workings of the concept as it emerged in Aristotle’s notion of Hexis… Habitus can be defined as a system of dispositions (lasting, acquired schemes of perception, thought and action). (Wikipedia)
Whilst these other writers approaches may at first glance embrace the scope of my interest, many have a sociological emphasis and tend to lack empirical support for their premises.
I will have to do this in a few stages… for me motivation becomes a “cliche” – I was on-tour one year dancing in a small company that was trying to use touring as a way of build a base audience regionally… we got to one place where there had been some snafu’s regrading our performance times and to make up for it the local news station came and did interviews with a few of us at the theater, in an attempt to get ticket info out to the public. The question i was asked was “Do you make adjustments if there are smaller audiences? and I said, ‘I don’t, this is what I do, I’m a dancer, I would do this whether the audience shows up or not.”
I pursued the “to be a dancer” idea after I got some positive feedback from girls in high school, yet then after about four months and going to a real summer intensive program, a real ballerina and a principal male dancer looked at me and said: “do you want this as your career?” I didn’t think about it, I just said “how?” – That was the moment I “made the decision” to become a professional dancer. I think I was still trying to ‘become a professional dancer’ when I retired twenty years later as a principal dancer (and Guest Artist) from what was considered one of the top 15 or 20 companies in the USA.
For me motivation was never the idea, or should I say the idea of motivating myself was never an issue… I made the decision and I just never stopped confronting myself with the fact that I made the decision, there was nothing else – I didn’t have a supportive family, I didn’t have any “safety-net” – in a very real way it was all I had so I just figured I had to do it… so i did.
I Will try to write more later… I’m now a ballet master, and I have found a lot of compassion for those who feel driven…
Hi Jonathon,
I will copy your reply as a new guest blog post so others will see it. It will be a little hidden on this page. You mention that you will try to write more later. Your contributions are very welcome, so if you do write more, would you email them to me at mikebarnes50@gmail.com rather than as a web page reply and I will make them a guest blog post.
cheers… Mike
Hello,
i am a former principal dancer in the USA, and Ballet master both overseas and here in USA. I have owned my own studio, and work in the field training young aspirant dancers. I’d be happy to offer my input into your research, when i owned my school, my company was the subject for a thesis on Business management (BS in BusAdmin/NfP), following the Schein organizational ideology for corporate development and internal-culture.
Hi Jonathon, Thank you for your offer of input to my research. The most valuable form of input at the moment is the sharing by dancers and former dancers of their personal experiences of motivation through their career. Would you be interested in writing a guest contribution for publication on my blog?
If you were to help me with a guest post, the logistics would be quite simple. I would ask that you write a piece of a length that you would determine. If it is reasonably small (about 100 – 1000 words) I would make it a blog post. If you felt like making a larger contribution, I would probably make it a separate article on my site connected through a short blog post. Either way you could decide if you want to use your words to introduce yourself or I could do it. I would take care of the logistics of getting the material onto the web site unless you have a WordPress account in which case I would be happy to give you direct contributor access to post. If you agree, you should feel free to approach the subject any way you think would spark an interest from the dancer community so the following comments are only a suggestion. Clearly your broad experience with most facets of dance, will have encountered motivational issues that you and other dancers have had. I am mostly interested in performance dance, but contrast to other forms if useful would be welcome.
cheers… Mike Barnes
Anthropology En Pointe
Mike
After posting my last comment I did a bit of a survey for myself.
A quick Google Search for Ballet Classes for a random 10 suburbs and the city gave the following results
Bankstown 7
Blacktown 7
Campbelltown 3
Chatswood 3
City 6
Hornsby 3
Kogarah 4
North Sydney 2
Parramatta 3
Penrith 7
Ryde 3
I was surprised that the highest value was for Penrith perhaps there is more culture out west than I had expected, however the results do validate in a small way your statement that the dancers come from a diverse backgrounds.
Mike I was wondering what you thoughts might be on impact of ballet in breaking down the Socio economic barriers in a modern Australian context.
I have always considered that Ballet was an imposed cultural upper class activity. Imported from the old world for the enjoyment of a that section of society with wealth, privilege and time to spare on refined entertainment, however a quick glance in the local paper will find several advertisements for ballet classes.
So my first question to you is from what are the backgrounds of elite dancers in the Australian ballet?
Second Question, What benefit does this type of dance have on the average uncultured suburbanite who will never watch it on TV or go to a performance?
Hi Geoff, Interesting questions.
Socio-economic and class issues are not where I will be taking my research. However, I do have some thoughts on the matter having read a bit.
Helena Wullf (1998: 46 see mikebarnesanth.wordpress.com/bibliography/) wrote about this in her study of a number of major ballet companies across Europe, England and the United States. Regarding cultural capital, she commented that many ballet dancers did not possess the same “cultural capital” (high culture) as the audiences – “they [the dancers] just provide it”. She was talking about this after pointing out that most dancers came from upper-working class/middle class backgrounds, whereas the audiences came historically from upper class. I am not sure I would call it an imposed activity on the upper classes these day though. That implies that they all attend performances and that some don’t enjoy it.
Personally, I think some of Wullf’s observations may be historical stereotypes that are definitely breaking down, at least in Australia. It is my belief that dancers come from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and this is driven by the dreams of young children being catered for more widely by affordable ballet classes. However, becoming an elite performer requires a lot of dedication and support and that would also be true of elite sports people. My feeling is that class backgrounds are no longer a good indicator of ultimate success in either ballet or sports.
To answer your second question, I also believe audiences are now coming from a broad background demographically. Although, some performances, and seats are still relatively expensive, there are affordable seats available as well as concessions for different groups. What benefit does ballet have to the average uncultured suburbanite? Well I will ask you, what is being uncultured? Many people like ballet for its entertainment or athletic value. I suspect. most ballet audiences these days would not even think in terms of being “cultured”. This is a historical typecast that really has little value in today’s society. After experiencing ballet, you either like it, dislike it, are ambivalent or grow to like it; just like any other form of performance. So the benefit anyone derives from ballet today is that of enjoyment. However, it is not common to see it on TV – well not as common as football… yet!
I guess in summary, I would say beware of historically based stereotypes that still persist in peoples minds but not necessarily in practice.
Have you seen this: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gIOZsgr5zpAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Thersa+Buckland+Dance+in+The+Field&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Thersa%20Buckland%20Dance%20in%20The%20Field&f=false
or without access to this link try this:
Theresa Buckland Dance in the field: Theory, Methods and issues in Dance Ethnography
Thank you Lotti. This book looks like a really good resource. I have taken a note of it.
ps: Thank you Lotti for taking the time to respond to many of my posts. It is really great to have an academic engagement with someone on the topic.
Well, I’m happy to be the first to reply. I am interested in this because 1) I am interested in socio-biology, cultural anthropology, applied aesthetics and how these various studies are applicable in the fields of classical ballet and other theatrical dance forms. 2) I am casually researching an article called, “Towards Sane Artistic Directorship”, and 3) I am, upon occasion, a contract consultant in artistic management…(not to be confused with Arts Management). I consult ADs on vision and objectives for projects, old companies in which they have been hired and how much artistic change they wish to or not to make, (or are able to make with old infrastructures and stakeholders in place), or the vision and missions of new ballet companies. (This is distinctly different that more brass-tacks arts management.
Anyway, its good to have a researcher from outside our ranks to bring a more objective view. I would be glad to help, if I can. Not quite sure what I could do, but I’d be happy to oblige from across the Pacific pond in the states.
Thank you Philip for introducing yourself here. I welcome any future contributions you may make. Apart from responding to any posts you feel you could contribute to, I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on ideas for future posts to engage dancers in conversation since you appear to have knowledge and experience spanning many aspects of ballet and dancers. In particular, you may have some ideas about the nature of the embodiment of ballet technique in today’s professional ballet dancers – especially with regard to their daily routine moving from classes to rehearsal to performances. Also the influence of institutional context on this routine.
Hello Philip,
You mentioned in your comment on my blog that you may be able to help me with my research. In a week or so, I will have the opportunity to have a one-on-one informal discussion with senior artistic staff at a national ballet company. My aim will be to ask them about the possibility of fieldwork but before that I would like to ask them open ended questions about the company’s dancers as a cultural group. I will probably ask them amongst other things “what are some of the challenges for an artistic director in today’s society with regard to dancer’s changing expectations. I am thinking about the influences on all young people regarding rapidly changing technology and communication”. Would you have any specific thoughts on this subject. Also, how do you view changes broadly regarding the artistic direction of national ballet companies. Do you have any “pet” questions of your own you like to ask? If you wish, email your responses if you want to preserve anonymity.
regards… Mike Barnes