Conclusions of the year 2014/15

And another year has finished. It was a great year, full of adventures, ballet enchanted lands, and lots of fun. The ballet magic culminated in our Under The Sea end of the year sharing at Chisenhale Dance Space. Our sharing was a fantastic time that completed the 2014/15 journey. Here are the conclusions of the year.

Ballet Year 2014/15

This was a busy and intense year of growth in several aspects. This year we opened three new classes, including a Baby Class for 2 and 3 year-olds. We started in September with 17 children and ended with almost 50!

Baby class.

Reception class.

Year1-Year 2 class.

At the end of another year teaching ballet to young children, I conclude a few important things:

• Children's well being comes first than the ballet principles. It is crucial that children of any age (and I would say adults too) have valuable class experiences where they feel good and emotional attachment is generated. Emotional bonding is what matters specially in early years, as if a child doesn't enjoy what he/she is doing, he/she will never learn or engage. Children will have a lot of time to perfect their technique as they grown older if they want to. Robert Cohan says: “teach with love and love what you do”, the rest will come in time.

• Ballet and dance are there to make children better and happier, not the other way round. As Sir Ken Robinson very well used english words when we had a little chat last June when signing his book - I work through ballet, not for ballet. With me, ballet and art are here to enrich and brighten people's lives. If this will end up having an impact in ballet... Well, I think it definitely will.

• It is very important that parents and children dance together in class. It has a very positive impact on the children and parents and their relationship, and so on the overall ballet experience. Here children share and live their dancing with their most important ones, and they see their most important ones value what is important for them, ergo they and what they do are important. Besides, sometimes children get to teach parents or “see if they can do it as well as you do”, which empowers children giving them ownership of the dancing. This moment is an opportunity for family to bond, and then ballet exists as part integral of their lives. See examples of this in our Alice's Family Workshop and in our Under The Sea end of the year sharing.

• Performance is necessary to complete dance education and experience. At the end of our end of the year sharing I clearly saw how good performance experience was for all the children. It boosted their confidence and self-awareness, children were feeling good with themselves by having accomplished something important such as dancing to an audience. It is never easy to be exposed, but when they do, they grow and feel fulfilled. The dancing experience is completed with performance.

As for me, I have ended up enriched and fulfilled out of this year experience. I had lots of fun, constantly learned, and grew into a better person and teacher. I feel my classes are growing clearer into my mission, which makes me very happy. Thank you all for being part of this.

We'll see us in September!