Paris Opera Ballet school workshop at New York University

Dance Magazine, March, 1998 by Marian Horosko

By center work, at the intermediate level, Golovine's meticulous attention to detail at the barre was expected to result in a light, easy, and elegant carriage with abdominals held in and up. The work was slow enough to be clean, and all combinations were reversed. He used French terminology for such frequent and simple movements as stepping to Second Position and passing through First to Fourth by calling it pas de chaconne. His correct terminology showed precision and reverence for his art.

BESSY'S CLASSES

Bessy taught at a considerably faster pace, expecting her young adults to know correct use of head, arms, and shoulders, and to be able to execute a full vocabulary. She made corrections with a quick eye and almost in passing.

Bessy is a charming disciplinarian, who has raised the POB school from a faltering administration to world leadership in all aspects of her program while maintaining her dancer's aura of glamour. She makes her presence felt with cheerful authority.

While appreciating the questions and the interest from the attending students and teachers, Bessy acknowledged that little in the way of detail can be learned in the short time available, but that an overall view and a piqued interest can be a strong incentive to learn more. She and Golovine, like many pedagogues and academicians, feel that students and parents should place their faith in a recognized method and its teachers and let them apply their patience, application, and perseverance within that system. From that secure basis, any direction may be taken.

Scott felt that the beginning of an understanding of POBS's theory was instilled in those attending. "They came from different backgrounds," says Scott, "and didn't understand the value of daily repetition of the same class and its extreme slowness to insure correctness. They also observed that executing sixty-four jumps, instead of eight or twelve, or even thirty-two, built strength as well as flexibility.

A characteristic of American training, in most schools, is to advance a student too quickly to perform difficult steps without mastery of all the many components of that step.

"Perhaps it is because of the need to pay tuition for a long time that encourages speed. But that difficult step will never look right or be correct unless it comes from a progressive and organic base instead of from a desire to accomplish what is too difficult, too soon.

"I hope that was made clear enough to be remembered."