Was I born to dance or taught to dance?

Reflecting on body image issues and questions it raises in relation to my line of inquiry I touched on genetics in my last blog after a comment from Hayley- Jane about inherited curvy hips but I wanted to pursue this line a bit further.

As a child I had a very normal up bringing in a small mining community. Dance was just one of my hobbies. I loved to dance but I also had swimming lessons, and was a competition swimmer. Always sporty and competitive I was an excellent runner and I also joined gymnastics, did horse riding and was a Brownie and I learned to play piano and flute. At such an early age I was just having fun, enjoying all my pursuits and had no idea what I would choose as a career path. My early indications were to be a writer as I loved books and stories. The passion to perform and for dance as a career choice came a little later.

 However thinking about my genes – my Dad was very sporty, a championship runner and rugby player and got a degree in engineering, my Mum trained as a concert pianist and then after a  career performing  became a musical director for local amateur dramatic companies and turned her hand to teaching and coaching singing and musical theatre in theatre schools. My great grandparents ran a ballroom dancing school and my grandad was a singer in the working men’s clubs in their ‘hey day’. So is it all in my genes or is it nurture rather than nature?!

People often say to me, “you take after your dad, he was very athletic”, or similarly relations on my mum’s side will say “you take after your mum with the performing it’s in your genes!” But is there any truth in it?

Some philosophers of genetics tells us we are born a blank slate and that through conditioning alone a child can be raised to be anything (B.F.Skinner) – the belief that children can be taught to attain  anything and it is how they are influenced in life as to whether they can reach their full potential. Others believe that 50% is genetics and whatever you are born with sets the potential and limit on what you can become.

So the question is ‘nature or nurture’ and which is the most influential?

Most researchers have concluded that both are interactive and both affect the other and influence who we become and how we behave. When you watch people do you wonder if they were ‘born to do that’ or if someone ‘taught them to do that’.


The common conclusion is that some are born with the potential to become a pianist others are not. Some of those will reach that potential if they are born into a family that can provide them with the support to learn the piano.


I think I can relate to this as  not everyone who has dance lessons has the potential to become a dancer some just do not develop the relevant skills no matter how much their parents pay for expensive training. Had they been a blank slate it should have been happening but genetically it just wasn’t happening. Therefore the reality is it is impossible to be a blank slate without any genetic traits and it is impossible to develop completely as a result of your genetic traits without any influence from your environment – we are both, our genetic coding and the experiences we have in life. We develop through information, experience and relationship.


How many times do we see children follow their parents down the same career path? This happens particularly in our performing industry, the arts and sports and even careers such as lawyers, doctors etc often follow suit.

I suppose my childhood was immersed in music and sports due to my parents’ influences but how would they know which to nurture as a potential career? They always said to me it had to be my choice of what I wanted to do, what made me happy and not what they wanted for me but they would be there to support me in whatever my choices may be.

How does this link in to my lines of inquiry and body image? Should my parents have encouraged me to follow my personal dream to dance when although having potential and all the facility for dance my own body shape could in the end stop me from realising the dream?
Should they have had me 'genetically' tested first to see what my inherited genes implied I should be suitable for ?

Apparently ballet schools can tell with children from about the age of 7 or 8 if they will have the required body shape! Perhaps if I’d been told at that age I wasn’t suitable for ballet I would have been saved years of frustration by recognising and accepting the advantages of my body type. I am learning to come to terms with it now in my professional life but I wasn’t prepared for that horror when I first left home at 16 to go to vocational college. At 11 when I suddenly became more into my dance than my other pursuits I was the right body shape it wasn’t until I was 14 that the curves started to appear and if you look at my family they’re all small, I certainly was never going to be tall, both sides of my gene pool are petite and slim, no one can work out where the boobs have come from on either side – a throwback somewhere in the gene pool? There must be some curvy ancestor somewhere in my family tree?!
Perhaps my parents should have checked back a couple of generations for any flaws before encouraging me to pursue dance?

Mina added a comment to my last blog that said ; "I've heard that the Vaganova Academy and the Paris Opera School check the applicants' grandmother's figure at entrance examination".
I certainly had to insert my parents height, weight etc on an application form for Royal Ballet associates.
How do others react to this? Do you think this is ethical? A sort of genetic selection of dancers?

I found an article where it discussed the selection of children in China and communist Russia for ballet and gymnastics from as young as 3 years old based on their genetics. In China they are taken and sent to special state-sponsored "boot-camp-style" training centers, where they endure rigorous training programs and are prepared for international competition. Some schools stress only sports and can be viewed as little more than athlete-producing assembly lines. They often require six hours of training or more a day.
Quote; “Many Chinese athletes have devoted so much of their time to training they can’t read beyond the fifth grade level”.  


This may well link into Melissa’s line of inquiry where she is discussing different forms of training in different countries and if other countries methods of training produce better dancers? Do we in this country find the ethical issues of applying genetic testing of young kids to choose our future dance and athletic stars morally wrong or to find that future Olympic champion would we embrace it?

Should parents only encourage their children to pursue activities that they are genetically suited for?

Does this take away our freedom to be who we want to be and freedom of choice?


I think this is a fascinating subject.

Mina also commented on my last blog; "I do agree that the genetic inheritage has great influence on one's physique, but it would be such a loss if that system excludes young talents from training, because physical perfection alone does not make a great dancer". I couldn't agree more and that is my reason for my research in this line of inquiry.

Just one more thought on how we are governed by our genetics reflecting on my own experiences.
We can also be a certain shape due to the activities we pursue as children and this may not be compatible with dance. For example; a dancer can have too much muscle. Some people can be genetically predisposed to a very muscular body type (mesomorphic genes). They can have a very low percent body fat yet still be considered ‘too heavy’ for their college specifications. I also come into this category. I have very defined muscles in my legs, I think inherited from my dad. There is little research been done on this subject but there are ‘body therapies’ one can try to elongate and change body shape such as pilates and yoga. It is trial and error and other than giving up dancing for a while to concentrate in these techniques I have to accept my mesomorphic genes may win out.

Some exercise outside of dance also interferes with the muscle groups and shapes the body in a way that doesn’t fit the mould for a dancer.
For example; I was a competition swimmer up to the age of 13 and particularly good at breast stroke and butterfly technique. When I arrived at Bird I was told the muscle bulk developed in my shoulders through swimming were wrong for a dancer and I had to lose that muscle. Of course as a young swimmer this had never entered my head that the muscles and body shape developed through swimming were wrong for dance. After 3 years at college, doing no competition swimming, I have finally lost the bulk on my shoulders and they’ve slimmed down.  

Our body shape then is governed by our genetics, how much we eat and how much we exercise and the kind of food we eat and the kind of exercise we do. This is dance science.

A dancer needs to be constantly aware of the body and focused on the process to achieve their goals by getting there in a healthy way through diet, exercise, well-being and a  knowledge in the prevention of injury. This is the bare bones of dance science. This is where my inquiry blog began in Module 1 and where my line of inquiry is developing. I want to pursue why young dancers should obsess about their body image when with the support of dance science and the right education in colleges about the body many could be saved the pain they go through obsessing about their image and could learn how best to improve their performance applying dance science.

As an academic discipline this is a relatively new phenomenon.
Dance science is the scientific study of dance and dancers as well as the practical application of scientific principles to dance. Its aims are the enhancement of performance, the reduction of injury and the improvement of well-being and health. Its specific concerns include the biomechanical, physiological, nutritional and paediatric and psychological aspects of dance.

If we could get more colleges on board to include dance science in the timetable  from an early age  then such horrors as being put on a fat list or told to do a class in cling film should be history and we should be able to save girls from thinking they should be ‘Portmanesque’ as portrayed in the 'Black Swan'.


I want to question whether the impact of such methods used in our colleges, ie: 'teaching by terror', is properly considered by dance professionals ( teachers, coaches, dancers, students choreographers and directors) and raise awareness to encourage debate about such ethical issues. The profession needs to be able to justify such as bullying or humiliating of students and persistent negative feedback as being desirable methods of teaching dance. I think there is a definite lack of understanding in the profession about the negative effects. This will be the subject of my next blog as I develop my line of inquiry with these ethical questions.






   

Reference:

Diet for Dancers -  Robin D Chmelar & Sally S Fitt