In Their Own Words: Lisa Macuja-Elizalde on teaching ballet
In their own words, the artists of Ballet Manila share their thoughts and experiences on not merely surviving but flourishing in the very challenging world of dance. This series is a collection of personal anecdotes, as well as words of wisdom that can be heartwarming, funny or dramatic, but always inspiring regardless of what field one is pursuing.
I consider myself lucky to have a natural inclination for teaching; some very good dancers actually abhor it because it takes time away from their own performances. There are also excellent dancers who, for some reason, find it hard to impart what they know in practice. Unfortunately, in our country, there are also dance teachers who were never really professional dancers. Because ballet is basically an art handed down from teacher to student, the proof of a teacher’s qualifications is always revealed in the quality of dancing that the students display.
This doesn't mean, however, that your students become your clones. Even if I wanted that next generation to dance exactly like me, and taught them night and day exactly how to move and when, it can never be done. Just take a look at the waves as they hit the shore. There are never two that move exactly alike. The artist that your student will become is the stuff that is his or her very own, refined by the tradition in which they are taught.
Although I am not a child psychologist, I do know from my own experience that children learn a lot by copying. In a ballet class, demonstration is a key tool that can often give the child wrong information when a movement is improperly executed, or half-heartedly done by a grown-up. When demonstration fails, I get down on my hand and knees, grab the limb in question, and like a sculptor working with a living body, mold the leg to execute the proper movement.
Ballet is such a physical and visual art form. Working with observant and absorbing students, there will always be the eventual blending of teacher and student. As an artist grows, the copying child in a person will soon be taken over by the rebellious, know-it-all, non-conformist teenager, and from there, the thinking, mature individual will emerge. I would know. I went through all those stages myself.
Excerpted from the book, Ballerina of the People.
Top photo: Lisa, seen here during a lecture-demo, likens a ballet teacher to a sculptor working with a living body. At her own Lisa Macuja School of Ballet, students are trained in the same Vaganova tradition she learned in Russia. Photo by Jimmy Villanueva
With the prevailing pandemic restrictions, ballet classes and recitals have gone virtual. Lisa has had to adjust to teaching ballet online and cope with attendant challenges.
