"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the best arabesque of all?" Just as with Snow White's wicked Queen, a ballet student's relationship with the mirror is not always a healthy or useful one. Yet the mirror is a ubiquitous feature of ballet studios.
Is there an argument against the presence of mirrors in studios? I asked Tanya Pearson (founding director and principal of Tanya Pearson Classical Coaching Academy in Sydney) and Kim McCarthy (lecturer in classical ballet at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) to discuss the mirror’s pros and cons.
Pearson is very clear about the purpose of a mirror in class. “I think for technical and placing corrections, the mirror is wonderful. But it should never be used for dancing in the centre. The use of port de bras, for example, is often retarded when dancing in front of a mirror.
“Some students ‘hog’ the mirror with their eyes. If they should be feeling a line, and they’re looking almost cross-eyed at themselves in the mirror, it spoils the line. In my experience, ‘mirror hoggers’ have good placement and technique, but not a good artistry.”
This is an extract from an article by Nina Levy. Read the entire article in the June/July issue of 'Dance Australia'. OUT NOW!