Why Ballerinas Like Roundabouts: My A-Level English Coursework

So my English Language coursework has just been moderated and as it's written in a similar style to these blog posts, I thought I'd like to share it with you. Enjoy!

Dancing is a distraction that thousands of children, predominantly girls, embark upon at an early age but gradually abstain from as they begin to grow older. Why are these older dancers vanishing? And why is it supposedly just girls who take up dance?

The results of a survey given to a select group of AS level students of the subject show that many non-dancers have little or no understanding of what’s involved at GCSE or A-level. In fact, 100% of students asked agreed that most people don’t realise just how much theory is involved in a Dance qualification. Is it because they’re blissfully ignorant? Or is it because they just can’t be bothered to find out? I reckon it’s the latter.

When I started my Dance GCSE, there were seventeen of us. By the time we took our final (written!) exam nearly two years later, we’d lost three. Perhaps they underestimated the workload. Even my AS class diminished from nine to seven within the space of a month. I suppose it just proves a lot of people don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for. It seems the amount of actual work scares people off – during the aforementioned month, my class learned not only more anatomy than I ever did in Biology, but also how the body is affected by dancing. For example, a dancer in full-time professional training has to eat between 5000 and 6000 calories per day.  In addition, this year, we’ll also be studying five professionally choreographed works in the same way GCSE English Literature students comb through novels, plays and poetry.

On top of that, choreography is probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done – except maybe for learning the Spanish subjunctive, which was so bewildering that it had me dancing to a whole different tune. When was the last time you had to make up a three-and-a-half minute long dance, from scratch, and then have it scrutinised by two teachers and a moderator? Once the exam (or performance) starts, you have no connection with the piece or what your dancers do. It’s all up to fate, and there’s nothing you can do to alter that.

I spent a long time with my dancers before our summer performance, going over and repeating and rehearsing the choreography; during the rehearsal I had to dance in the corner just offstage to help them remember the choreography. All I could do in the end was simply to hope it would be okay. Watching the final performance was the most terrifying experience of my life, and I have no wish to repeat such an unnerving ordeal; things seemed to be going so smoothly, until one of my dancers forgot a move. That got me. It was incredibly hard to watch the rest – almost too hard – but I watched it back and found that for three months after the exam, it wasn’t bad at all, which was so relieving that I was close to tears.

People often say that dance has no transferable values outside the studio, and in some cases I suppose they’re right: when else in my life am I likely to have to perform a grand plié or a grand battement en cloche if not while performing? When I’m clearing a table at work? Nevertheless, in other ways dance is truly a cross-curricular subject. Particularly at A-level, the written exam questions both your anatomical knowledge and your essay writing capabilities. And there are everyday uses of the skills I’ve gained. I’ve found being in front of large audiences a lot less daunting – although speaking in front of them is still not my forté. I’ve also managed to embrace my creative side, and am now better at considering things in different ways – I’ve got a lot better at looking closely at things and drawing profound metaphorical meaning out of them, for instance.

Dance stretches all the muscles in your body, both those you know about, and some you didn’t know existed. It increases your flexibility and strength in addition to encouraging you to develop your teamwork and coordination. Dancing puts a huge physical strain on the body, and even alters the brain: studies have shown that the part of the brain that senses dizziness is, in ballet dancers, smaller than in most other people as a result of all the spinning they do, which is why professional ballerinas can, for example, perform Odile’s “32 fouettés” – 34 nonstop pirouettes – in Swan Lake. (It also explains why my friend Maddie can stay on a roundabout for so much longer than anybody else.)

Both my Dance teachers say that one of the reasons why the A-level isn’t appreciated is because the government “only values what it knows” and has a “lack of knowledge of the subject” and, I have to say, I’m inclined to agree. The public school education that the majority of politicians have had, as one would expect, has taught them about Philosophy and Politics and Deportment, but not so much in the Arts – and that’s the problem here.

Politicians also make stuff up when it comes to dance. Why did politicians in 2008 say that students should see “at least one dance performance each year of their schooling” if it wasn’t going to be implemented? It seems incredibly inconsiderate to those who make their living from dance: they’re saying that their profession isn’t valued.  I think that people should start to take Dance a bit more seriously: we rhapsodise our artists and musicians and actors – why not our dancers? Dance is a real thing, and no, it’s not academic, but those with talent should be celebrated and encouraged just as much as anyone else. 

~ Tess