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On Teaching, Coaching and Trends in Ballet Today

Michael Bjerknes, Founder
American Dance Institute
Interviewed by Alexandra Tomalonis
published in Ballet Alert! (No. 31-32) 2003
copyright © 2003 Alexandra Tomalonis

Michael Bjerknes was a soloist with the Houston Ballet and a principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet as well as a guest artist with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Northern Ballet Theater of England. Gerald Arpino, Robert Joffrey, Agnes de Mille, Moses Pendleton, Ben Stevenson and Choo-San Goh choreographed original roles for him. In addition to the classics, he performed ballets by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Hans van Manen, and Jiri Kylian.

After he stopped dancing, Bjerknes became a teacher and ballet master, at the Washington Ballet and the Universal Ballet. He received a Master’s in International Management from the University of Maryland University College and worked for the General Electric Company (GE) as a Senior Consultant.

Bjerknes has founded a school, the American Dance Institute, whose slogan is: “The American Dance Institute builds artistic, athletic, confident individuals. Our faculty and staff strive to make everyone who enters our doors feel better on the way out than they felt on the way in.” An unusual attitude in these competition-driven, technique-oriented ballet days. I spoke with Bjerknes recently about the ballet scene today.

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One comment that’s often made about ballet performances today is that there is a concentration on technique at the expense of expression. Dancers can do every trick in the book —

And do second act Swan pas de deux absolutely flawlessly, perfect lines, perfect musicality, but there’s no story line. As we get more physical, the characterization side tends to get lost, and when everyone has the same level of physicality, then you have to rediscover the characterization to make a differentiation.

What are some of the reasons for this? Is it the coaching?

I think it comes down to time. It comes down to the age of the artist. It comes down to training. With students, you have to focus not just on what the step is. You have to focus on different ways to do the step. How to do the step to this movement, or that movement, or what ballets this step might be in. Or even, “Hey, did you go see a play? Or did you go see the art exhibition,” or that kind of thing. One must draw the artist out of the individual as well as the athlete.

I think it falls to us [teachers], because you have to have an artistic environment that will encourage the kids to ask questions. Not rote training, but training with a little variety — “Try it this way,” “Try it to that tempo,” or “Try it to that music and see how it changes the dynamic of the step,” and build that kind of curiosity from the beginning.

If you don’t grow up in a company, you don’t get to see that as a student.

I think even if you grow up in a company, if you don’t grow up where there are lots of companies, you don’t get to see the differences in emphasis and expression. Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor, has written several books on competition and in his “The Comparative Advantage of Nations,” he talks about industrial clustering, and why high tech succeeds in San Jose or in Austin or in Boston, and doesn’t succeed in Birmingham, Alabama. And it’s because people from different firms see what the other firms are doing, they have informal chances in the bars to talk about it, and there’s a whole culture around the industry.

And I think that’s what happens in New York or London, places where there’s lots of dance going on. Certainly my experience in New York was that way. You took class at Maggie [Black]’s with principals and kids from City Ballet and ABT; it was a real melting pot. And then you would go to see the different performances and talk about it, and you learned that there was more than one way to skin a cat, and I think that’s missing from places where they don’t have access to many companies, or the schools don’t encourage them to try other people’s classes, or look at other companies, etc. After sixteen or so, it is crucial to learn how to adapt one’s body to various demands.

Another change I’ve seen in the past few years is that it seems as though they rehearse the pas de deux in Swan Lake, say, separately — in a separate room from the rest of the dancers, the rest of the ballet. And in performance, it looks as if they lower a glass cage down in the ballroom scene, and out of the cage steps the leading couple, and they perform their pas de deux, and then the cage comes back and lifts them out of the ballet.

That’s where I’m really thankful to Ben Stevenson, and my time in Houston, because we did that. We would have rehearsed it separately, but we’d also have rehearsals where you’d start at the beginning of the second act, and go through that whole opening scene, and why you’re doing this, and how you walk out here, and we would have mime rehearsals — in the first act, the Queen Mum would be there. In the third act, the same. Mom, Rothbart, me. You would go through those scenes. And they are important, because that’s where the story’s told. And then it frees you up in the pas de deux. What I mean is that the character built up in these scenes drives the pas technique in a freer way than just worrying about the steps. If you do the beginning well, you can let go of that a little bit and really dance it.

Some of it’s because of time, some of it is because of what I call Opera Syndrome, where they do Monday nights in London with the Royal, Wednesday nights with ABT at the Met, Friday night — they don’t have time to get to know the productions, so either the productions have to be more generic, or you have a mime scene that’s completely out of context with the rest of the production.

Why do you think it is, when this is a general complaint, or observation, about the ballet scene today, that the problems aren’t being addressed?

I think it goes in cycles, like everything else, and it has to do with the taste. I think the popularity of skating has done a disservice to dance in a way, because we’ve become more competition and gymnastic oriented.

Right. In a way, the audience that once would have gone to ABT or the Ballet Russe, is getting the four-minute Romeo and Juliet at a skating exhibition where you just get the high points. And then if they ever do see the real thing, it’s not as exciting.

That’s a lot of the way our culture is going, too. Instant gratification and reward in the shortest time possible. Remember when a one-act a ballet used to be 45 minutes? And then it got down to about 25, and now it’s about 12? You used to do Ashton’s Dream with Giselle. And that was an evening. Or Theme and Variations with La Sylphide. And now we’re down to three twenty-minute ballets, or just La Sylphide.

This may be a part of the financial pressure, and the pressure to be popular and instantly successful. Does that affect dancers, too?

Absolutely. ABT and City Ballet in the ’40s and ’50s were more of a project-based companies, and they all got to know each other. So if you were involved, or got to know them and hung around awhile, people found out what you could do. And these days, at a company audition, you’ve got an hour and a half, and that’s it. If you’re shy, or you have the type of personality that needs to walk around the situation before you blossom, or you have an innocence about you that’s quiet, that tends not to get across.

The repertory today is another influence. Fifty years ago, you had repertories that could use dancers with less than perfect bodies, and less than perfect techniques. When a company decides to dance Swan Lake, the equation changes, and they start recruiting dancers who look good standing on a line, but who were not put on this earth to do Rodeo.

I would rather watch Gary Chryst do even Siegfried, with his bad feet — bless his heart — but he would be more interesting to me than to see someone who’s young, with beautiful lines, but can’t act. And part of my aesthetic comes from that company of Joffrey, with people like Gary and Becky Wright — real performers. I remember when we first did Cranko’s Shrew, we all got together, we rented the Zefferelli film with Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, we read the play, we did our homework. And I don’t think people do that any more.

What do you think about the current methods of staging ballets?

So many things are set from notation — or video. They’ll say, “But that’s not what’s on the tape,” and you say, “Yes, but I worked with the gentleman who choreographed this over periods of time, and the tape was a bad performance.” I’ve even done it with tapes of me — I was off the music on that. And they say, “No, no, no. I don’t believe you. It’s on the video. It has to be that way.”

Yes, and until very recently, you became a stager because you had a memory; that’s what gave you the right to set a work. A colleague pointed out to me once, to develop that memory, you had to be able to watch, to see detail, before you could remember it. And now, it’s, “Here, take the video home and learn it and dance it tomorrow.”

If I learn a ballet off a video and have to go in and set it, I do not put the video on in front of the people I’m working with. Number one, that ruins my credibility; two, I feel like I haven’t done my job. It’s easier to say, “Here’s a video, go learn it.” That’s one of the things that Joffrey was great with when he was alive. He had the respect for that tradition, and tried, as much as possible — to the point of bankrupting the company sometimes, I’m sure — to get original cast members, or people who had worked with the original choreographer into the studio, even for small sessions. Also with principals dancing in several companies and directors changing every few years, it is harder now to pass on a company tradition

So it’s also a management issue?

The focus has shifted more to hiring glamour names due to board and funding pressures from building on a company’s style. A ballet’s details are at risk in this environment. It boils down to the money versus art compromises that are fought on a regular basis.

I think that’s a very good point, too. We don’t have the Lincoln Kirsteins, the educated manager any more. You have a lot of well-meaning people who are not educated in it, and — this goes to what you said before — they want results NOW.

If you look in the business world, you’ve got to produce for the stockholders, no matter what. And it’s better to make a change drastically and fast than to nurture something along. And I think that’s leaked over into the arts world.

I’ve talked with several dancers who have the same frustrations. Is there a change in the wind, or is this the way it’s going to be for awhile?

That goes to a larger question: “Is ballet going to be here in 50 years?” And I don’t know the answer to that. I think people will always want to dance, but I think it will take different forms. And what’s weird to me is that opera seems to be taking off, at least in the Washington area, and ballet audiences are declining. Dance doesn’t seem to have the same vitality any more.

No, it doesn’t, and I think part of it is a confusion of identity. In trying to attract audiences, sometimes they’re trying to sell something that isn’t the product — which is ballet, supposedly.

I find what’s happening in the ballet world, is that choreographers are more interested in creating their own vocabulary and their own thing than they are about using a language to tell a story, or using a language to paint an abstract painting. Audiences want to participate in a performance, but they want to participate in a language they can settle into. You can go listen to someone speak Italian, and even if you don’t know Italian, you just like it. But if you go listen to someone speak a combination of Italian, and then in between, Russian, and then Japanese and then Chinese and then German and then back to Italian, just to be different, you’re too busy trying to figure out what’s going on. You’re almost overwhelmed.

But there’s so much pressure to do this. “No tutus and toe shoes for this troupe! They’re going beyond the rigid confines of ballet” — you read this over and over and over.

I think that’s a lot of crap. I know with a lot of people that do that, it’s because they can’t. Those that have succeeded (Mark Morris for example) let their work speak out.

I think so, too. I’ve asked choreographers why they don’t choreograph a classical ballet, and I’ve gotten, “But it’s so hard.”

Exactly. Any of the arts, or any communication that’s to be effective, has to have a plan, has to have a form. And it has to speak to a person. Even if it’s intense hatred, it has to involve some kind of emotion, and I think even in pop culture, if we’re getting to the point where it’s only one consistent formula, or you just throw stuff out there because you throw stuff out there — and I know that’s certainly a lot of dance these days.

Yes, and ballet seems to have inherited the aesthetic from the Judson era in modern dance where it was “everybody can do anything.” Which of course, technically, they can—

But I’m not going to pay to watch it. And I think that’s crept over into the ballet world, that sensibility. Everyone feels that they have to make a contribution. Not everyone should choreograph, not everyone should teach, not everyone should dance?. That’s O.K.

The choreographers that I’ve enjoyed working with are intellectuals, in that — this is a generalization, they think about things, and they have a curiosity about it, and they like to play. They look at life like a writer, or like a painter. They look for the in between parts, and that’s what helps make their work interesting.

And this gets back to the whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts — which is a very anti-American ideal, because we’re a very materialistic society. I think the thing that makes Americans so wonderful is that when we do ballet, we have such an energy and an abandon to it. And I think that that’s getting lost these days, in American companies, that sense of an American dancer.

When I go to auditions, and I see these people who can do eight pirouettes, but they can’t do glissade jeté tombé pas de bourrée, or something. And I think that we’ve become so focused on the technique that young men, especially, they’re just into how many double tours can I do, and how many pirouettes can I do, and they don’t join the steps. I think this is a Tudor line. He would look dancers who could do all these tricks, and say, “But can they waltz.”

And now you have a school. Tell me about American Dance Institute.

The original vision, is that the years from eight to twelve would be strictly ballet: you start out at eight, twice a week, and then build up to age twelve, where you’re going four or five times a week and you’re just starting the harder pointe techniques. Now, at that age, or a little bit older, thirteen, there’s a natural selection process there, either by body type or by interest, or by family situation, external and genetic factors, and at that point, I thought we would have — it would be like a tree, with a strong root, which would be the formal ballet training, and then we would break off into three different branches.

The main branch would be to continue on in pre-professional ballet. Then the second branch would be a pre-professional contemporary program. I think the best technique that I’ve seen for that age group on the modern dance side is Horton, and some jazz, and you would still have ballet, but not go on pointe. But it would be five days a week and repertory and the similar rigor as a pre-professional ballet program.We tried that for two years, and there really wasn’t any interest in it, mainly because of marketing, and we haven’t found the right person to do it. And that would be a branch.

And then the third branch is what we call our Dance for All, for people who want to continue dancing, but they don’t want to do it five days a week, four hours a day. But they still want that kind of excellent training, be it in jazz, be it in modern, be it in ballet. So we have kids that come one, two, three times a week for ballet and then they take jazz as well, and the training is the same, but it’s more about attitude: “I’m here because I’m enjoying it.” We don’t put them down because they don’t have a great body, or they don’t want to make the commitment. There’s no prejudice or bias, and we try and keep the whole school that way, even in the pre-professional program, when it tends to get a little cutthroat and competitive, we try and maintain a teamwork type atmosphere.

Does your school have a performance workshop?

The kids do a showing four times a year for their parents, and once it becomes more performance-based we’ll open up. We’re so young that I wouldn’t inflict this type of class concert on other people.

If you look at the big companies, the kids do things with the company and it’s very age appropriate. It’s not on pointe, it’s generally corps group dances. No one’s a big star. And what happens in America is that we all do these big recitals and everybody’s a star, and it’s not a process of their training to become a dancer. It becomes an end in itself. Another thing that happens is that kids want to work only on steps that will be in the dance. And I’m very much against that.

My philosophy is — and maybe it’s naïve in this world today — but I think that if you create somebody who is happy with themselves, and confident, and you provide them good training, if they’re meant to be a dancer, you’re going to produce a professional dancer, who’s also a great person, and interested artist and active individual.

Photo:  Michael Bjerknes, front, as a student, working with Robert Joffrey.