Ballet Class Teacher Evaluation

Today's class was interesting; three students taught in replacement of our teacher in order to fulfill an assignment required for another class. Each student took turns teaching a different combinations. 

It was...different. I have taught classes before: pre-ballet, jazz, open ballet, advanced ballet and pre-pointe. I don't want to say that I am an "expert" teacher but I do have some experience. 

They used classical renditions of well-known pop songs but I thought that took away from the class. Yes, the music was enjoyable to listen to, but actually dancing and figuring out the timing of the songs were a bit challenging to both dancer and guest teachers.  One of the student teachers, Laura, explained that she chose this type of music to make it easier for the dancers to "dance" to the music (put more energy or feeling to our movements.) At the same time, it's difficult to dance with ballet counts to non-ballet music. 

The combinations at the beginning of barre were way too fast. Plié combination is one of the most important combinations; pliés are the basic building block of ballet. Because the combination was so fast, I don't think any of the dancers had a chance to do pliés correctly. 

Tendus, dégagés, and a couple of the following combinations were the same. TOO FAST. Yes, sometimes dancers should be challenged with speed but speeding up the combination detracts from proper technique. The class was a work out, yet I had a feeling most of what I was doing wasn't entirely correct, which set me off a bit.

The partner corrections was nice. I believe that does help all the students out in a lot of different ways. The corrections were a bit time consuming, though, and some students (like me) would much rather go on with the class. The teacher's corrections were helpful, some were repetitive, but overall the corrections were nice. 

Overall, the students successfully did what they were supposed to, which was to teach the class. If there were three things that I could advise for the next class they teach, they would be:

1. Keep it professional: The teacher is a teacher, not a best friend. 
2. Slow it down: Barre can be "boring" when slow but it's for the best. There's a smaller chance for injury later on in the class.
3. Make sure the combinations go well with the picked music: Awkward timing of music can get confusing, even for the teacher. 

Thank you guys for the class, at least it was enjoyable!