What is Adult Ballet?
My adult ballet students enjoy making art and camaraderie while staying fit.
“Adult ballet” is a fairly recent term that denotes a particular approach to the teaching and practice of ballet. As a teacher, I specialized in the adult ballet approach when I owned a local studio, and have carried that into my online classes. As a dancer, shifting from a professional focus to an adult ballet focus has enabled me to re-embrace dance as a lifelong pursuit.
So, what is and what isn’t adult ballet?
What IS Adult Ballet?
Adult ballet is adult-oriented instruction for non-traditional students dancing for wellness, fitness, and joy. These three facets guide me in both my teaching and my practice of adult ballet.
Adult-Oriented Instruction
Adult-oriented ballet instruction uses language and methods that aim to connect with students who have a wealth of life experience and know their bodies well.
As a former college instructor, I enjoy working with students who can understand the linguistic, cultural, and historical explanations I sometimes use to make sense of ballet. I find it fascinating to explore how ballet works as a system and to demystify a complex art that has developed over hundreds of years. When I take adult ballet classes as a student, I listen to my body and make responsible decisions about when to push myself further and when to pull back. I have the perspective to not take myself too seriously, to enjoy the time I’ve taken out of my busy adult life, and to appreciate the opportunity to just be present in my practice.
For Non-Traditional Students
Who constitutes a “traditional” ballet student varies depending on cultural context. In the contemporary United States, popular conceptions of ballet students often conjure images of young girls in pink tutus spinning and leaping to Disney songs. For those familiar with the professional ballet world, a traditional student is a child, or a young adult who has been training intensively since childhood. A traditional student has a “ballet body” with high foot arches and lean muscles. A traditional student comes to class each day in uniform ballet attire, hair in a slicked-back bun, shoe ribbons tucked in, and stands quietly at the barre awaiting instructions.
I think of teaching “non-traditional” ballet students in terms of accessibility. I offer explanations and adaptations that people with diverse experiences, body types, and gender identities can relate to. I draw from my own multifaceted identity as an anthropologist, a polyglot, a writer, and a parent; as well as my experience as a professionally trained dancer who knows how to listen to my own body and emotions, and make my dancing my own.
Dancing for Wellness, Fitness, and Joy
Adult ballet places wellness, fitness, and joy at the center of both teaching and practice. At Find Your Center, we approach ballet as a holistic centering practice:
To find balance and calm.
To find confidence and power.
To control your center of gravity.
To move with efficiency and strength.
To know and honor yourself.
To respect those around you.
My own journey of rediscovering ballet after having given it up as a professional career fuels my approach to teaching. When I take a ballet class, either at home or at a local studio, I find myself in an all-encompassing state of flow. I’ve embraced ballet as a lifelong pursuit that keeps me healthy and fit as I age. On days when I dance, I go to bed feeling sleepy, strong, and happy. This sense of well-being is what I seek to share with my adult ballet students.
What ISN’T Adult Ballet?
Now that we know what adult ballet is, let’s take a look at what it’s not. Reminding myself of what isn’t adult ballet helps me stay focused as both a teacher and a dancer.
Adult Ballet is Amateur, NOT Professional
Classes designated “Adult Ballet” are NOT intended for professional performers. Even when adult ballet students practice advanced steps and techniques, it is an amateur practice and not a professional one.
I have many colleagues from my pre-professional ballet training days who are now adults performing (or retired from performing) professionally. Professionals generally take company classes provided by their employers as part of their daily work. In rare cases when someone who learns ballet as an adult goes on to dance professionally, they transition from taking amateur adult ballet classes to taking professional company classes.
Adult Ballet is Recreational, NOT Competitive
The adult ballet approach lets go of competition. In the professional dance world, only the most highly skilled and determined artists arrive at a level where others will pay them for their art. Add to that the urgency of youth in dance, and you have an inherently competitive atmosphere, even without the competition events that are now ubiquitous at many schools. Adult ballet is NOT competitive. Instead, it starts with the premise that everyone can enjoy dancing ballet.
When I teach adult ballet, I focus on longevity, rather than competition. I want my students to be able to dance for the rest of their lives (which is also what I want for myself). I emphasize safe, healthy ballet technique with adaptations for changing bodies. There’s no urgency for adult ballet dancers to be able to perform the most physically challenging and jaw-dropping feats. With professionally guided holistic recreational training, my adult students have the rest of their lives to gradually work toward the most physically challenging steps if they so choose.
Adult Ballet is Dancer-Focused, NOT Audience-Focused
Adult ballet is focused on practice over performance, on dancers dancing for themselves rather than for an audience.
For me and other former (pre-)professional performers, the focus on dancer over audience is key. It’s okay to be past our prime performing years and still dance. It’s okay to have no interest in performing and still dance.
As a teacher, I consider performance at some level to be an integral part of the art of ballet. I teach my adult students to imagine a stage and an audience, to embody the confidence of stage presence and the spatial awareness of a theatre. When my adult students do perform in front of an audience, it’s primarily for their own learning, well-being, and joy.
Adult Ballet is Ballet, NOT Ballet-Inspired Exercise or Barre
Perhaps most importantly, adult ballet is ballet. It’s NOT a fitness class inspired by ballet (such as Barre). The adult ballet approach teaches the art of ballet in all its glorious complexity to recreational, amateur, adult students. It incorporates music, artistry, performance, choreography, expression, language, physical conditioning, quality of movement, and more.
Adult ballet instructors need to know the nuances and complexities of ballet just like any ballet instructor. It’s our job to make this complex and athletic art accessible to a diverse range of adult students.
Physical conditioning is an important component of adult ballet, enabling dancers to move with greater ease and dance without hurting ourselves. But when physical conditioning is isolated from the rest of the art, it is just that—conditioning, Barre, Pilates, or fitness.
In sum, adult ballet is adult-oriented instruction for non-traditional students dancing for wellness, fitness, and joy. Adult ballet isn’t professional, competitive, audience-focused, or ballet-inspired exercise. The challenge and joy of teaching adult ballet lies in taking a complex art that has traditionally been reserved for the elite few, and making it accessible as a lifelong practice for all kinds of people.