Director's Notes
Valuable insight for students, teachers, and parents from Matthew Donnell, director of the Preparatory Dance Program of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Matthew Donnell
Ballet is hard, and seeing students discover this fact is both exciting and painful at the same time. Once serious ballet training begins, a student will spend a lot of time facing the barre, and in most studio settings, this means they’ll be staring at a blank wall for months. So how does one instill…
Syllabus. Curriculum. Dance Teacher Training. These are terms, which have garnered some negative attention in the ballet world as of late. I have witnessed school directors and teachers back away from them as if they were dirty “four letter words.” I believe this is simply because ballet teacher training has rarely been required in our…
