The Dance Method

The Dance Method
Psychology of a Dancer
An Analytic Approach to Dance Techniques
By Nicolas Petrov ©
INTRODUCTION When I founded the Dance Department at Point Park College in 1969, I
proposed a course for students which would help them achieve their goals
rapidly. It would also teach them not to set unreachable goals. Students
would gain knowledge from experiences of those who lived their lives in the
dance field, both artistically and scientifically.
I had studied Konstantin Stanislavsky's method, or system, as it is
called in the Soviet Union. Stanislavsky gave a guideline to an organic
approach in studying theatre arts. It was followed by a psycho-technique
which would help actors cope with difficulties in the arts. It would help
them make a distinction between their private lives and their artistic,
scenic lives. In the scenic life, actors must perform with great realism,
truth and conviction. So that there was not a mix-up between reality and
make-believe, the psycho-technique became necessary in the artistic
development of an actor.
I graduated from the dance division of the Yugoslav Theatrical Academy
where the Stanislavsky system-was part or the curriculum. During that
time, I thought the system was not useful for dance.
Later in my professional career, I often used the principles,
approaches and theories taught by Stanislavsky and became aware of their
great value. My opinions were sometimes influenced by his method. I
understood that the system was not meant to be the ultimate perfection in
acting - it was developed to teach the systematic approach in dealing with
problems in the trade.
We must take what we've learned and develop it, update it and improve
on it without limitations. Stanislavsky understood that what was
appropriate in his time, the last half of the 1800s, had limited appeal,
but he laid the foundation for us.
When I decided to stop performing and began to choreograph V and teach, I started to adapt the Stanislavsky system to the needs of a
dancer. I assisted my teacher, Leonide Massine, when he was writing his
book, "Massine on Choreography." Learning from his experiences and
discussing them helped my adaptation. Influenced by Stanislavsky and using
the resources of Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat and Valentina Litvinoff in addition
to my own experiences, I came up with the following adaptation of the
method for dance. I was very happy when I found out that Valentina
Litvinoff used Stanislavsky's method and his later works as a base for her
choreographic works in modern dance.
In dance there are only different techniques and either good or bad
dancing. Dance is impossible to teach. We teach only technique, routines
and terminology. 'Danciness1 is something that cannot be transmitted. It
is an inborn quality and we can only acknowledge its existence and nurture
it.
The system helps to nurture and support the technique and helps in the
creation of choreography. The public's taste and love of the choreographic
works has made it quite intricate. To become a professional dancer, one
must not only take classes and train his body or instrument but must also
train and develop his mind. One must understand how to prepare
psychologically for tremendous competition and how to gain time by
discovering the right method. Our knowledge is based on that of previous
generations, and we also learn from their mistakes.
Because the dancer's career is so short, he must spend 50% to 60% of
his energy on physical training to maintain his muscles in the proper
condition. Training the body is not enough. The remaining energy must be
used to train and develop the mind. Experiences have proven that dance
happens in the mind and the body visually presents the idea. Training the
mind is more important than training the body, but without the strength of
the body, the mind cannot express the vibrations, energy and thrill of the
dance.
This course will introduce the system to students at any VI
level of technical knowledge they possess. It will.answer many questions
as to how their lives should be adapted to their trade. To study the
Stanislavsky system and absorb all of his principles and be comfortable
using them for our purposes would take approximately five to six hours
daily for four years. Because society and our comprehension has developed
since Stanislavsky's system was written, I will use conclusions from his
classes and also from previously mentioned chore-ologists. I hope to
develop student interest and suggest the use of the system as a guideline
for further improvement in dance.
I attribute the successful points of my career to help from the method
which made a great difference in my life. I became first dancer of
Balletto Europeo di Nervi, performed with Carla Fracci, Paolo Bortoluzzi,
Janine Charrat, Leon Woizikowski, Milorad Miskovitch and many others. I
founded Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in a city where dance was not known. The
Dance Department at Point Park College is one of the strongest and most
popular in the country. I've choreographed more than 120 ballets. I
attribute these successes to my knowledge of the Stanislavsky method.
Pythagoras is to geometry what Stanislavsky is to the arts.
via. Supplement to Introduction
After using this method for thirty eight years and probably
taught the contain of this book to thousand of students, I am coming
to he conclusion that I need to update the book, respecting the ideas
of Stanislavski's method, I will repeat his words "the system is
created for the progressive development, so what was good yesterday is
no good today; and what is good today will not be good tomorrow" which
means that everything is progressing and new ideas and new waves, new
habits and new behaviors are created every day. So in order to keep up
with the progress, or, to respect the natural growth of nature we have
to, time to time, look back to what we accomplished and where can we
go from there to meet the future.
In the arts, we have to acknowledge the noticeable progresses on
medicine, chemistry, physics and science as they keep getting richer
everyday. This changes and influences the outlook of the arts by
society.
If we just look on the travel we can see that in the time of
Stanislavski steam anginas where the novelty of that period. Today we
are talking about intergalactic flights and plus the minds are
saturated with science fiction fantasies, where the face of the
acting, dancing, painting and music took a different look in life.
Even if we are in the reproduction of life, creating an illusion of
the real life, a fantasy world is today so complex and so intricate
that if we don't want to look naïve or out of date, we need to march
parallel with that present trend of thoughts.
Now when I look on the adapted book of the original method, I
see the need of supplying and analyzing the actual happenings,
painting the present life or even relying on a commonly accepted
fantasy of the future world.
The problem comes here evident when the arts are presenting the
real life that we already lived through, so, we are creating a lie of
the so called future as we don't know if the future would happen, how
we conceived it in our fantasy world.
In Stanislavski's time was spent on pen and paper and often
would be said that a pen can be more powerful than a sward, well can
we say today that computer and brain are more powerful than... what?
Money? Strength? Power?
I also came to a better understanding of changes that come with
time. I know now that dieting techniques became more complex and more
dependable on metabolism. I also understand that our muscular powers
have weakened by the means of transportation, and our minds are more
saturated by the information we can receive with the help of
technology. There are also new techniques for physical maintenance
like Pilates, Shiatsu, blood type diets and many more.
Because of the multi-facets of information throne on us, our
concentration is rather split and we have to work seriously to not
dissipate and lose focus on the needed subjects we study or work with.
Education tends to be more visual than oral; the power of
advertisement makes our senses numbed and we have to work harder to
achieve retention of knowledge for more permanent purposes and we also
have to be very cautious to program our mind in an effective way.
The political and social contradictions can weakened our
subjective decisions to achieve an objective outlook on surrounding
happenings and especially artistic criticism. We need new ways to
train our minds as the mind is the source of all our activities as we
mentioned through out the book. The mind uses the body as an
instrument of expression for dance.
LITVINOFF ON STANISLAVSKY The Stanislavsky Method for Theatre is a way of making
everything which takes place on the stage believable. To accomplish
this end, the system invokes basic human, natural faculties. These
faculties and this way of mobilizing them are, first of all, physical.
It seems to me, therefore, that the system is charged with profound
implications for that basically physical art, the dance.
Also, since Stanislavsky's techniques are based on organic laws
of human nature,