It Felt Electric: Professional Ballet Dancers’ Experiences of Creative Confidence in the Creation of New Ballets

Abstract

Research suggests that a ballet dancer’s creative voice may be marginalised within some professional choreographic environments (Claid, 2006; Kim et al., 2022; Nordin-Bates, 2020). Such marginalisation may mean that choreographic hierarchies which position dancers as subordinate to a choreographer’s creative needs (Foster-Sproull, 2017) limit dancers’ creative autonomy. However, the dynamic interactions occurring between dancers and choreographers are complex, with diverse factors impacting a dancer’s creative confidence during a choreographic process. This research suggests there are opportunities to facilitate creative processes that recognise ballet dancers as equally important to the choreographic process alongside choreographers. A key aim of this research is to disentangle power within balletic dancer-choreographer relationships by understanding how mutual trust and respect can be present within the choreographic process in developing a new ballet. Additionally, this research investigates how a mutually respectful working relationship may provide an optimal choreographic experience (Foster-Sproull, 2017) for all participants. Building on person-centred (Rogers, 1961) and dancer-centred (Knox, 2013) theories, this research proposes the notion of Ballet-Dancer-Centred Creative Confidence (BDCCC). BDCCC looks at how a ballet dancer’s sense of creative confidence may generate artistic dexterity in their contributions to movement, conceptual ideas, or artistic interpretation in a choreographic process. This study was conducted through qualitative, postpositivist, ethnographic, and grounded theory research involving two semi-structured interviews with five professional ballet dancers who have worked in Aotearoa New Zealand. Themes of dancer-centredness (Knox, 2013), creative confidence (Kelley & Kelley, 2012), relationships of power (Foucault & Gordon, 1980), and optimal experience (Csíkszentmihályi, 2014) are unpacked and located within a ballet context (Nordin-Bates, 2020). The participant experiences discussed correspond with my experiences as an ex-professional ballet dancer and I have negotiated those experiences of choreographic practice as both an intimate insider (Taylor, 2011) and insider-outsider (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009) in relation to how I have interpreted participant experiences. This research has revealed that each ballet dancer holds unique and different perspectives, which may impact their understandings of what is possible in a choreographic process. Significantly, this study seeks to contribute to growing scholarly research placing ballet dancers’ experiences at the forefront of the choreographic process as key to the artistic development of new balletic choreography.