The last edition of the series of Teacher Training Seminars organised by the National Ballet Academy this season took place on Sunday 24 April. The initiative by artistic director Jean-Yves Esquerre and outreach coordinator Jane Lord has turned out to be a great success. There is already demand for a follow-up.

In this newsletter, artistic director Jean-Yves Esquerre looks back briefly on the last but one seminar, on the theme of ‘allegro and jumps’. ‘We talked at length about the two ways (roughly speaking) of jumping. There’s the Russian method, which is all about power and height, and then there are the French, Italian and Danish schools, which place more emphasis on teaching lightness in the jumping technique and on the body’s capacity for ‘re-entry’. You could also say that the Russians were making a political statement with their enormous jumps developed in the Soviet era – ‘Look how powerful and grand we are’ – while the West-European techniques are more about conveying a sense of pleasure’.
‘Besides Laurence Korsenti and myself, we were joined in this seminar by teacher Grigori (Grisha) Tchitcherine, an expert in Russian ballet technique. Together, we explained both methods and showed that they are not necessarily opposed, but can actually reinforce one another. For some of the participants, this was a real eye-opener’.

‘What we wanted to show in the whole series of seminars was that there is not just one approach, and that all methods are good, as long as teachers choose consciously for one or another. We had some great reactions to this from the participants. Teachers have really embraced this approach, although there might be one or two who will find this emphasis on personal responsibility difficult’.
‘Whatever the case, I’m very pleased with all the feedback and the huge enthusiasm of the participating teachers. In the Netherlands, this was a pilot for me, although I’ve had plenty of experience with this type of seminar in the United States. And actually, it’s one of my favourite occupations: getting together and learning from people who do the same as you – namely teaching ballet’.