Reworking the Swan through Possible Ballet

Abstract:

This study presents the development of Possible Ballet, a proposal for applying ballet’s movement principles to ballet teaching. The proposal emerges from over a decade of teaching ballet in higher education and from an inquiry into disability studies following the author’s stroke, undertaken to critically address ballet’s ableist aesthetics. Possible Ballet was also employed as a creative process tool, resulting in the 45-minute solo performance, Pitiful Feathers, in which the author stages her own trajectory—from traditional ballet training and professional performance in major companies worldwide to engaging somatic approaches to ballet teaching and confronting post-stroke disability. The original Portuguese title, Pena, means both “pity” and “feather,” evoking the swan role the author performed many times, and a post-stroke incident when a colleague remarked, “What a pity! You used to be so beautiful!” The study adopts a practice-based research methodology, intertwining lived experience, theoretical reflection, ballet teaching and artistic creation. Its theoretical framework draws on disability studies scholars such as Albright and Kuppers, and contemporary ballet authors including Midgelow and Brown. Additionally, it brings literature addressing ballet pedagogy in contemporary contexts, including Johnson (2011), Morris (2003), Sööt & Viskus (2014), Ritenburg (2010), Salosaari (2001), and others.

 

Bibliography:

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  • KUPPERS, P. Accessible Education: Aesthetics, bodies and disability, Research in Dance Education, 1:2, 119-131, 2000.
  • MIDGELOW, Vida L. (2007) Reworking the ballet: counter-narratives and alternative bodies.
  • JACKSON, J. My dance and the ideal body: looking at ballet practice from the inside out, Research in Dance Education, 6(1-2), 2005, p. 25-40. Nova Iorque: Routledge.
  • MORRIS, G. (2003) Problems with Ballet: Steps, style and training, Research in Dance Education. Taylor & Francis 4:1, p. 17-30.
  • WHATLEY, S. Dance and disability: The dancer, the viewer and the presumption of difference. Research in Dance Education, 8(1), 5-25, 2007.

 

Presented by Silvia Susana Wolff, Professor; Federal University of Santa Maria

 

Biography:

Silvia Susana Wolff holds an Arts PhD from State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Dance MFA from New York University (2005) and Communications Bachelor’s degree from Pontific University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). Wolff studied at the School of American Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet School, both in New York, then danced professionally in major companies such as Berlin Opera Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Rothlisberger Tanz Co., in Germany, the U.S. and Switzerland, respectively. Wolff has been an assistant professor at Federal University of Santa Maria since 2013, teaching ballet at the University’s Dance BFA course as well as in the Post Graduate Performing Arts Program. Since having a stroke, the author has been researching the relations among dance and neurologic rehabilitation as well as disability studies. This has led to the development of a methodological proposal entitled Possible ballet, further developed in a Post doctorate project at the Human kinetics School of the University of Lisbon. A full-length solo performance entitled Pitiful Feathers has derived from this research.