Mechanism and virtuosity| The Corvino approach---virtual and actual---in the dancer's art

• Main Author: Bonati, Gina
• Language: EN
• Published: Mills College 2016
• Subjects: Dance
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10105411

<p>A key in dance training is found in Maestro Alfredo Corvino&rsquo;s pedagogy. This is what I intend to argue as imperative inclusion in the training of concert dancers interested in an achieved ease in technical prowess. The pedagogical tradition for producing classical ballet dancers is not limited to ballet dancers, it is valued and necessary toward the creation of the concert dance artist. The inclusion of ballet in the training of modern and contemporary dancers is within a tradition that is sensible; the dissolution of ballet&rsquo;s value in contemporary concert dance, problematic. The interest of sports and yoga and the invasion of those modalities into the ballet and modern dance classroom is problematic in the pursuit of dance training. Injuries prevail due to a preponderate influence of sports and yoga into a room that is trying to accomplish physical prowess in a distinct artistic direction. </p><p> In the 50 years of his pedagogical experience, Maestro Alfredo Corvino developed a way of teaching ballet through a specific method of delivering and explaining exercises that are then explored by students in in-between sequences. He established this interstitial structure enabling the dancer opportunity to comprehend both within the sequence and outside of it. Each sequence is taught with its own particular dynamic timing so that the truth of the intention of the exercise becomes physical reality. </p><p> My intention is to simply pursue a corner of the world where the purity of classical ballet, before it became infiltrated by modernity and individual style, is valued. There is a pure line that is reflected in forms of nature that ballet was once interested in and I am interested in exploring and establishing the proof of that original value.</p>