To make my daughter do ballet

Dd didn’t want to do dance. It was a battle getting her to go so I stopped it. She then started football and she gets a strop on if she has to miss it. I think you do have to let them try different things and find what they enjoy. If they don’t enjoy it it’s pointless.

She might like contemporary dance more then.

I think there is so much pressure on kids now.saying that my own son had lots of hobbies. But if they don't want to do it you shouldn't push.DS decided to give up football at about 9.loves playing now with his work team.i think your mum was right to not push you.see if she would like to do something else, she's very small still.possibly wants home time with teddies for a little while

Thank you for the discussion about line and style. I hadn't realised it was so prescriptive. I can see now why my dd really didn't like it, she is very creative and hates following too much structure. We took her to a painting class where they made them recreate famous paintings and she hated the fact she couldn't put her own spin on them. I think when it comes to dance she wants to really express herself.

This wee girl does tap, modern, gymnastics, swimming and drama. She’s only asking to quit ballet.

Don't force her - waste of your money. Instead ask her what she would like to do instead: hobbies and exercise are super important - and are so much easier to get into when one is her age. If not ballet then what else? Football? Gymnastics? Karate? Most places will allow children to do a free taster session to see if they enjoy it - take her along to a few different things and see what clicks. Some kind of sport is so important - children don't get to move around nearly enough in school these days. As for other hobbies: there are so many! Something artistic is usually very helpful for good mental health - be it a drawing or pottery or woodwork class - anything that gets that part of her brain working will be helpful and tend to improve happiness levels.

Poor child. Stop trying to live vicariously through her. She's FIVE. Let her play after school.

My parents made me take piano lessons for twelve years. “l’ve met so many adults who’ve said they wish their parents had never let them quit.” Well, I’m the adult who wishes her parents had let her quit. I didn’t have any natural aptitude for it and I never expressed an interest in the piano in the first place.

😂I do a class for people of - er - mature years. We spend more time talking about our relative ailments than actually dancing!

Goodness do you? I reckon I’d rupture something if I tried to dance now. Anything that involved lifting my legs up around waist height and I’d be done for.

Yes, I agree. Suffice to say that my dd's friend is a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, and dd herself has been coached in solo variations by Darcey Bussell, Marianela Nunez and a number of other Principals. So I do know a little bit about it. I still dance myself now and then.

Any road up, we have digressed too far from the original OP, haven't we?

Even as a soloist the exact movement is choreographed not just the step but the eye movements, the breath, the eye brow raise, the slight pause before the movement, it is all choreographed, not much room at all for artistic expression IMO.

Virtuosity does come into play once dancers reach soloist level, in much the same way that a director would give a starring actor free rein. Not so much if you are one of a hundred film extras.

Of course dancers get told what to wear, and of course they have to follow the choreography. That is literally their job.There is a stock of costumes for the production, exactly as there would be for a film, a play or a musical, and the choreographer knows what they want the dancers to do. Members of an orchestra don't get to choose how to play a piece, the conductor tells them what they want. It is only when you get to soloist level that you can put your own interpretation on the performance. You can't break out on your own if you are one of a group all doing the same thing, can you? Or Montagus and Capulets in a swordfight, if you want a male example - doing your own thing would be downright dangerous. It is all choreographed to the nth degree.

At international principal / soloist level, yes. But you will find that the great companies have their own accepted 'house' style - Bournonville, Ashton, Vaganova, Balanchine etc for the corps.

It is subjective at professional level, but unless someone is taught correct technique from the outset, they won't get anywhere.

Absolutely - that's exactly what my daughter loves about it. There's a very specific goal.

I would ask her if she enjoys ballet immediately after her class. Sometimes she might not want to go to ballet but might enjoy it when she gets there.

Yes, but the feeling has to be conveyed in an exacting way if you are professional. Putting your own feeling into it is incredibly limited, some girls may be better at dancing with the prescribed feeling that has been taught than others though, thats for sure. If you dance at the Paris Opera you would need to convey in an exacting way, their way. There would be a different feeling, nuance if you are at the Royal Ballet in London. Or Denmark which has it’s own Bournonville style which is far more stylised and the dancers have to have every head incline and subtle finger placment in that style. As I said, that includes every movement and breathe, the slight look behind the eyes and nuance of the shape, there is no room for individuality in the corps de ballet.
So, if I watched a dancer I would likely notice their training style, the ballet steps which the choreographer has created, the costume design etc. not the dancers individual creativity.

And that is what most little girls doing ballet (who are a good school) are training towards, an exacting style depending on the exam board they take.

I’m wondering if this little five year old is needing a bit of Saturday downtime though? School is tiring for those early years and she’s already doing two forms of dance from what I understand.

Activities are good but so are rest and play.

personally i would let a child drop a hobby but the understanding is that a different activity is going to take it’s place. i.e. no they can’t drop it so they can watch more tv, hang at the mall, game etc

I asked my daughter about this last night after her ballet class and she just stared at me incredulously and said 'of course everything should be perfect but if you don't convey any feeling it's just not going to look beautiful' and then explained to me exactly how differently the different people in her ballet class look while doing the exact same thing. So for someone who breathes this form of dance, tiny differences are massive.

Am assuming there are similar differences people see in various other forms of art that would be invisible to most.

Well I’m kind of on the fence.

To me it’s a bit like music. You can’t just play different notes but must stick to what’s on the page. But anyone who has sat through children’s concerts knows you can play every single note in order and it sounds like well… notes played in order. Bong bong bing. Then you can listen to someone play who really puts feeling into it- the dynamics, the lightness of touch, a slight lingering on a certain note - and it’s almost a different piece of music.

Ballet is the same. You can fling your arms into an arabesque like an automaton that’s had it’s button pressed, or you can extend them in an arabesque in a way that conveys a yearning for something just out of reach.

To be boring and invoke the Steven McRae doc again (I'm not obsessed, it's just I've watched it in the past couple of days so it's very much front of mind!), there's a sequence when he's rehearsing with a choreographer and he tells her about how one of his ankles isn't working or responding properly since his injury. She says something like, 'As we get older, we all have things that don't respond any more; that's where the artistry comes in,' meaning that you can/have to find a slightly different way of moving in order to still achieve the effect and express your character to the audience. I found that really interesting; I've always thought of ballet as being very prescriptive, but it seems that there is some (if not all that much) room for manoeuvre.

Well the question from the OP was ‘should I force my very busy daughter to continue in an activity she doesn’t enjoy because I wish I did it as a child and I think she might make a career out of it’ and the clear answer is ‘absolutely not’. And that would be the answer for pretty much any hobby. She’s 5. If she doesn’t enjoy it, she won’t want to do it and she won’t improve at it.

Then it went to all the reasons other people don’t like ballet specifically. All I can say to that is that I’m not a dancer, but my daughter is. I have never seen her happier than when she’s dancing and she has loved watching and doing ballet since she was 3. No pressure from me - I actually say no to extra classes regularly as I think it’s important she has time for her friends and homework and family and hiking and reading and everything else. But when she is dancing, she’s at peace. All the things you’d think would be damaging - the hair, the outfits, the pickiness… she thrives in it. Makes 0 sense to me but I can see it.

And she works really hard and does well and excels in shows and in her exams - and she’s still not good enough for a career as a professional ballerina so there’s really no reason for anyone to worry about missing out on that opportunity! That is really, really rare and only would happen through a lot
of hard work, a huge financial commitment and quite a lot of luck.

I would also argue that ballet doesn't really allow for the dancer to give their own artistic expression. The choreographer yes, the dancer no. Ballet dancers are literally told exactly what to do, from the steps, what to wear, even how to breathe or look with their eyes. They are the canvas and paints not the painter.

I think it is very different to some sports. For example when you run your leg will be pushed to it's limits but within the parameters of it's normal function.
Turning a leg outwards 90 degrees from the hip and landing from big jumps is not good for the body. Whipping your head to spot day after day on fouette turns is terrible for the neck.

I agree that gymnastics is probably worse.

Many sports at junior level are better for the body than ballet. This is before you take into account the mental effect of the very narrow aesthetic body requirements which put young girls into critiquing every little bit of their bodies in front of mirrors. Sport is not like this.