PhilosophyEllen Davis offers professional classical ballet training to all students regardless of their ability or their intentions in studying. She feels that careful training given with individual attention on technique, expression, musicality, and approach gives each student the greatest opportunity to fulfill his or her potential. This approach recognizes the human being as well as the artist and translates from the art form to life, lifting the student to greater levels of self-awareness, creativity and joy in all of their endeavors. She nurtures creativity, imagination, vision and a love of the performing arts. She encourages self-awareness, self-motivation and self-discipline so that each student can actualize their greatest potential through their heart and soul’s aspiration and fulfillment.She uses the teaching of dance as a way of evoking students’ self-acceptance, balance and sense of unity and connection with all. She reflects back to students their unconditioned self and the beauty, grace and “dancer within”, regardless of their body-type, self-belief or level of training. She finds that with the extreme rigor and perfectionism involved in the art form, when there is awareness of what is prior to our conditioning, ballet can be a wonderful vehicle to learn the distinctions between the negative aspects of self-judgment in contrast to the positive and creative aspects of self-observation. Ellen believes that along with proper placement and technique, the awakening of expressive truth, musicality and one’s innate creative intelligence are equally important in empowering dancers to use the body as a means of creative self-expression and to extend the grace of dance to all of life. Ellen invites students to join her in embracing each moment as an opportunity to grow as artists and as human beings, and that we not only look towards the results we might achieve as dancers but realize that our true fulfillment lies in our love affair with the process of learning. Students have the opportunity to refine their ideas of “fun” through the experience of the utter joy of being completely focused and immersed in their process. The benefits of good ballet training are seen not only in the students' physical development, but in their mental as well, making itself visible in the respect that one learns for oneself, one's art and the discipline. Emphasis is placed upon nurturing well-rounded dancers and giving them a large vocabulary with which to express themselves as well as providing them with an experience of their innate abilities as creative human beings. It is important to Ellen to awaken the teacher within them and inspire students to consciously collaborate in their learning process. She feels that when they learn through self-motivation and discovery they learn in a deeper and more integrated way. Curriculum for the SchoolThe school is graded; advancement from one level to the next is usual but not automatic. Each student is expected to maintain the standard of his or her level that includes, in addition to physical proficiency, good attendance and a positive attitude in class.Beginning students over 12 years of age and intermediate students over 18 will not be accepted into the children's classes, but are welcome to study in the teen and adult divisions. Advanced students who are over 18 will be considered for acceptance into the children's division by audition. Creative movement and pre-ballet are offered for children 4-6 years old. The curriculum for children over 7 years old includes basic ballet technique for three years, pointe work is added the following year for students who are ready and at least 10 years old, and in the following years and advanced levels beyond that, in addition to daily technique and pointe classes, Variations, Modern, Flamenco and Character classes are added. Special workshops are offered in Music Theory for dancers, Dance History, Movement Dynamics, Mime, Mask, Musical Theater, Pilates, Yoga, Feldenkrais, Improvisational Dance and Choreography. The ballet syllabus is a synthesis of the best of our Russian, French, English, Italian and American school backgrounds and provides a clean and unmannered technique that enable students to get into the finest ballet companies with the least amount of stylistic adjustments. The faculty is in close communication and coordinates so that their information to students is either consistent or complimentary. What is Dance?Dance is spirit tasting itself in form, from stillness to movement, chaos to harmony, cacophony to symphony, in all of its infinite diversity. Dance is what we call it when we see the movement and rhythm that is always already there. Dance is what we do when we let our bodies breathe our being into becoming and our becoming into being. Dance is the soul's love and laughter as it breathes into time. Dance is a heart explosion making love to the air. Dance is form and formlessness endlessly getting it on. Dance is the merging of sound and movement, where each feel like they are causing each other. Dance is God's living in time, as us, through us. Dance is a celebration of and total immersion into process. Dance is the manifestation of the fluidity of spirit in form. In that sense, dance is the resolution of paradox in form. Dance is a noun that is a verb that is life. Dance is our heart fire as it expresses itself through the body. Dance is a celebration in form of Now.Ellen Davis 2001 All writing by Ellen Davis ©1976 - 2007 |