Tak 4d: Literature Review (Part 3)

The Heart of Expression, Teaching Mime and Acting for Ballet

(By Pilar Garcia)

http://gelseykirklandacademyofclassicalballet.org/the-heart-of-expression-teaching-mime-and-acting-for-ballet/

(Accessed 3/4/15)

The author of this article is a mime and acting teacher who works extensively with dancers aiming to 'chase the gold in a performance'. Having trained in Ballet from a young age up to advanced level, it became apparent throughout her training that the acting element eclipsed her dance ability. This passion for acting lead her to coaching younger students to act within their Ballet roles, working alongside the Ballet teacher to achieve characterisation and animation bringing the vision to life.

Her professional role entails nurturing student's expression in performance through the means of acting and mime. The author credits the use of mime particularly in early training to encourage artistic growth, to add the expression a movement requires, giving purpose to Ballet in terms of communication and story telling. The author's personal explanation of performance I consider to be the most fathomable I have so far come across; one's ability to dramatise movement, giving it meaning and enable the power of communication.

She encourages students to seek counselling for self esteem and confidence issues, a concept addressed by my previous literature review. She feels low confidence will inhibit not only the dancer's ability to fully express themselves but also impair the learning process, affecting student's potential.

Garcia believes technique provides the foundation, a canvas on which to create the visage allowing a means to express oneself through, therefore technique and performance cannot exist without each other. 'The purpose of technique is to ultimately serve the artistic endeavour which relies on the heart of the expression, otherwise you will not have a whole dancer.' The concentration solely on technique can bury the joy of what one is doing, this now leaves me to ponder, to what extent is technique overlooked in favour of performance? Reading this article has lead me to ask, what is more important technique or artistry? A question I intend to include within my inquiry research.

I now consider it necessary to gain the view point of other arts professionals not just dance teachers.

The collaboration of dance, acting and music all contribute to the overall performance, I therefore now need to look at interpretation and influence of music on performance.