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Pas decole BAC295
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Pas d’École
Demonstrations of the Paris Opera Ballet School (2020) [122:00]
The School of Dreams (2020) [77:00]
Students, teachers and staff of l’École de Danse de l’Opéra national de Paris
Director: Miguel Octave
Filmed at l’École de Danse de l’Opéra national de Paris (Nanterre), 2020
Video: 2 DVD9 NTSC, 16:9
Audio: PCM 2.0
Region code: 0
BELAIR CLASSIQUES BAC295 DVD [2 discs: 199 mins]

We usually associate the BelAir Classiques label with Blu-ray discs or DVDs of staged ballet performances, many originating from the Bolshoi. As indicated by the reviews they have generated, not least on this website, those releases have often been of the highest quality. Here, however, is something very different and quite unexpected. Of the two discs in this set, one offers a documentary about life for the boarders at the Paris Opera Ballet’s school for dancers. Based just to the west of Paris at Nanterre, it is, we are told, “the school of dreams”. On the other disc, we watch dance students, under the close observation of their teachers, demonstrating what’s described as “the different skills necessary to master the codes of classical dance and the French style”.

The disc of technical demonstrations – no less than 69 of them, with an average length of less than two minutes for each one - will be most fully understood and appreciated by dance professionals. I will therefore put it to one side here and instead concentrate on the documentary that I think will be of most interest to general viewers. It comprises a range of film clips of daily social life at the school and of its dance classes, along with interviews with both students and teachers. It conveys a great deal of enlightening information for anyone who knows nothing about life at a ballet school.

The very youngest children join Nanterre as “trainees” and hope to progress, after a trial period, to becoming full students. Each student is placed in a ranked “division”, ranging from the lowest sixième division to the top première division, admission to which is determined not, as you might have expected, by age but by ability. Thus, 14, 15 and 16 year olds might find themselves rubbing shoulders (or should that be legs?) with each other within the same classes. A mentoring system allows older, more experienced children to act as “little fathers” and “little mothers” who offer “guidance, advice and comfort” to their younger charges on any technical or, indeed, personal issues of concern.

The school day begins at 6.45 am when the students wake up. After breakfast, there are normal school classes between 8 am and noon. A break for lunch is followed by an afternoon devoted to dance classes and complementary disciplines. In spite of that morning of maths, geography and other traditional school lessons, it’s clear where the real focus for most students lies. “We go to class”, says one, “and then we pursue our dreams, our passion”.

As well as classical ballet technique, the afternoon curriculum includes folk dance, baroque dance, character dance and, for the most accomplished youngsters, contemporary dance. It’s certainly interesting to observe the classes, taught in some cases by some very distinguished Paris Opera Ballet dancers. We are not shown any barre exercises (considered too dull for general viewers, I’d imagine) but do get to see plenty of short rehearsal/practice sequences on a bare studio stage where friendly but firm teachers issue directions that will mean nothing to – or will even completely mystify – the layman: “Widen your back!”, “Follow your model!”, “Into the floor!”

We watch other classes associated with ballet training too. In the one that focuses on mime and gesture - of which the school considers children to be particularly apt students because of their uninhibited imaginations – we are treated to a delightfully amusing performance set to Leroy Anderson’s The typewriter. Meanwhile, a particular favourite of the vocal class appears to be Do-re-mi from The Sound of Music.

Film of the various classes is intercut with a series of short comments, sometimes amounting to no more than a few sentences, from individual children. Those are always interesting. How they speak and present themselves to the camera is striking in itself; all are well-spoken, self-confident and remarkably self-possessed for their age - a side-effect, perhaps, of following a dance curriculum that insists on constant awareness of one’s physical appearance and emotional demeanour. What they have to say is also striking. Few, for instance, seem to have been exposed to ballet before joining the school; the original source of their motivation to pursue a dance career was more likely, it seems, to have been Michael Jackson, jazz, hip hop or the Billy Elliot story. Sometimes, however, their words – and the way in which they express them - are more thought-provoking. Thus, several of the interviewees claim that dancing is important because it allows them to express their inner feelings. While that’s perhaps not too unusual a proposition in itself, it’s striking here not only because it’s expressed by young children but because of the way in which it consistently pops up: “It allows us to express emotions we can’t explain… Things we cannot express verbally” says one, “I can express a side of myself that I don’t really let out in everyday life” claims another and, from a third child with a particular well-developed elitist viewpoint, we hear that “This school allowed us to develop and to grow up faster, so we are more mature”. I’m afraid that I found some of those surprisingly sophisticated responses unconvincing. They were just a little too lacking in spontaneity. While I’m certainly not suggesting that the school’s culture embraces thought-control, I wonder whether the selection process for interviewees favoured those most likely to espouse a particular point of view and manner of expressing it?

In spite of the hint of elitism encountered above – and the fact that the students will soon be competing against each other for a small number of professional positions - the film shows what appears to be a harmonious camaraderie among the Nanterre students. They really all do appear to enjoy each other’s company and to benefit from an air of healthy competitiveness. The school authorities are, it seems, keen to prevent individuals getting too big for their pointe shoes and teachers wisely stress that ballet is a collaborative art in which even its biggest stars are reliant on other company members. As one puts it: “I tell them early on that, if they want to perform an art on their own, they should choose something else like painting or sewing, but not music or dance. They’re community arts. But this art, this community, is fuelled by individualities… chemistry happens when you dance together”.

I do, however, find myself worrying about a more general issue - whether the boarding school regime forces these young children too quickly into the responsibilities that usually come with adulthood. We do, it’s true, see a few shots of the youngsters playing together (table football’s a popular pastime, it seems), but the precocious and oh-so-serious child interviewees were more keen to stress the independence and self-responsibility that the school imposed on them at an early age. Alone in their rooms in the evenings, they make their own decisions about when to do their homework, what time to go to bed and so on. While one student attempts to put a positive spin on the matter - “We manage our lives, so we grow up faster” – another says simply and, to my mind, rather sadly “You learn to live alone.”

While the documentary takes no editorial stand on the issues I’ve raised, it doesn’t disguise the fact that school life isn’t necessarily a bed of roses. Several students are filmed talking about issues that concern them. Covid, for instance, may not have been too disruptive of overall life at Nanterre, but it does pose a few practical problems. Face-masks, it seems, are a particular bugbear. Not only are they physically uncomfortable to wear while training, but they prevent dancers seeing their partner’s important facial expressions. The pandemic is not, however, the students’ only health concern. They are also well aware that many of them will suffer a physical injury at some point during their training and, while most of them seem to take that prospect in their stride, I do have some concerns about a culture that allows a child to experience what she describes as “a long period of guilt [my emphasis]” after an accidental injury.

As students progress towards the première division they are challenged to master increasingly difficult dance techniques. Finally, once they have completed their final stages of training, they take part in an annual competition to win places in the Paris Opera Ballet company. Some students, of course, may end up not making it. While it’s true that 95% of the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet are Nanterre graduates, that still leaves many of the school’s students unable to obtain positions there – or perhaps failing to become professional dancers at all. The school realistically prepares its pupils for that possibility by encouraging them to have a range of interests and enthusiasms that might be the basis of other career options, with one teacher keen to remind students that “human beings are omnivorous, nor dancivorous” (it probably sounds more elegant in French).

Even so – and without ignoring the reservations that I’ve highlighted in passing – you come to the close of this engrossing and well-filmed documentary with the impression that, on balance, the disciplines and work ethic instilled by ballet training will prove useful to these dedicated children, whether they become the star ballet dancers of the future or instead choose to follow an entirely different path in their lives to come.

Rob Maynard



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