Expert: Dianne M. Buxton - 3/25/2009

Question
My names Amanda Remlein and i am doing an assingment on sub-goups and i have considered  ballet dancers as my sub-group. I had to determine an hypothesis to base my essay on; dancers are born not made, meaning they are born dancers and they can not be made. Within my report i will stating both sides of that hypothesis. Can you please give me you opinion ofn whether you support that hypothesis, and why or why not? Thanks for you help. Amanda

Answer
Hi Amanda. It certainly has seemed true to me that some are definitely not born to dance ballet, and some definitely are. And then there are the exceptions, brimming with talent, who out-work their physical limitations, and somehow make the right relationships with supportive teachers even though they may be ignored by most of their teachers.

So I could  say it's a combination of being physically close enough to the ideal for ballet, and also having the right kind of intelligence for the challenge. Since that is unique, there really is no category of person, but just the exceptional individual.

Currently, famous legends of dance like Margot Fonteyn, and Galina Ulanova, would probably not be accepted into a professional ballet school, for physical reasons.

Another point to make is, that even many of the most physically suited for ballet turn out to have little talent or after years of training, no interest left. They may dance for a few years in a corps du ballet than go to college and learn something else.

So each side of your hypothesis would have to have exceptions, as the brilliant among us are often just that, exceptions to every rule. Tricky, isn't it?

All the best, Dianne