Competition who wins? What's lost? - USA International Ballet Competition

Dance Magazine, Oct, 2002 by Merrill Leigh

There's nothing inherently positive or negative about competition, but people's mind-sets can make it a good or bad experience--and that, too, can't be taken away. Parents and dancers sometimes display bad attitudes or actions. If their dancer doesn't win, they may grumble about the unfairness of judges or accuse them of bias or ineptitude. Dancers can make excuses, not owning their behavior or performance on that day. It becomes "someone else's fault," a mean-spirited and unrealistic attitude. Habitual competitors, those who dance only to compete, learn works to perform, but don't take class to learn technical skills for incremental, age-appropriate growth. This leaves them largely without a dance education and lacking in the ability to continue their success beyond their own limited repertoire. Similarly, students may not develop musicality, since their dancing does not grow with an ordered technical development to a wide range of music.

A greater and perhaps more permanent handicap relates to what psychologists call locus of control. If someone else is always judging whether the work/performance/time is good or poor, dancers can fail to develop their own values. Without developing the discipline and self-awareness to judge themselves, dancers can remain permanently disempowered and under the control of others.

Audiences can perceive the loss of the joy of movement when dancers perform two-plus minutes of only tricks with preparation. It is especially apparent when the performer does not begin or finish with the musical phrasing and, at the end, never looks at the audience or takes a bow. These performers are simply not dancing and seem to have forgotten what brought them to study in the first place.

There is a progressive loss of artistry in the dance field when those performers continue to professional careers. The pattern of winning--and aiming to repeat that win rather than originating new work or defining character--can be destructive not only to the dancer, but to those who watch. What becomes of the art, the nuance of character gained from experience when there is only competition? Where is there room for delicacy and development if the goal is only to astonish with tricks? If dance is just about jumping highest or spinning fastest and longest--and getting cheers from the stands--we should close the theaters and acknowledge that it's an arena sport and no longer a theatrical art form.

Merrill Leigh is a writer for Dance Magazine.