My Opinion – HALF CENTURY IN AMERICA

Dancers are National Human Treasure
What Eifman Ballet Means to Me
Existing Role Models for Real Human-being
Inherit the legacy of Alessandra Ferri, Ballerina Actress
What is Ballet?

Dancers are National Human Treasure

Dancers are National Human Treasure, not the disposable stocks.
New York City Ballet must reinstate two principal male dancers who they fired on account of exchanging nude photos.
It may not be plausible conduct but serious enough to be fired?
No. It did not violate the work ethic, not criminal.
If the Plaintiff who sued NYCB did not add two names to the Complaint, NYCB would not have fired them.
Just to be defensive, by demonstrating “Oh no, we are not tolerating those conducts,” to deny the accusation of the Plaintiff, “The NYCBS and the ballet company have been providing the fraternity atmosphere to induce such incidence.,” they sacrificed the two principal male dancers.
It is understandable that whoever now the acting artistic director(s) as their roles to protect the company tends to be defensive, over-reacted to preserve the reputation, instead of considering the matters more thoughtful independent evaluation. Is it ethical to ruin two principal dancers just to present a superficially good face to the administration of the ballet company?
Let’s get back to the original standpoint; if Mr. Balenchine were alive now, how would he treat those two valuable dancers. The answer would be obvious. He is confident about his school and company. He would not sacrifice those two men. He would also extend his hand to Plaintiff, the young female dancer, to return to the company because he knew that it is life to secure dancing activities for a ballet dancer.
I sympathize with the young lady very much. She was upset so severely that her boyfriend emailed her nude photos to his male friends with derogatory comments. She is so mad that she wanted to destroy his career, so she sued the ballet company, too. That was not enough. She added two other male dancers who purportedly exchanged the photos. She destroyed their career. What is the saddest thing is that she quit the ballet company. She is about to ruin her career, too.
What the ballet company should do is to save her and two male principal dancers. What she wants is, as she said, that the company should change. Instead of being defensive and asserting, “No, we are OK.”, the company should have listened to their students, faculty, ballet dancers, and ballet masters & mistress; from there, some better change or solution would come out. To be able to join the Ballet Company, how many years, they discipline themselves. Dancers are national human treasures; we have to treat them with delicate hands. They are precious stone ground and polished.

What Eifman Ballet Means to Me

I just love Eifman Ballet performances. That’s it. Then I start probing why it’s so captivating me.

Number One:

It has many excellent, technically superb dancers with extreme athleticism, acrobatic skill, and the capability to express feelings and emotion, captivate the audience believing as real, not acting. His choreography demanding the very limit of human potential is one’s wonder. But, the fearless dancers perform with vigorous zeal; that is another wonder. Eifman’s magnetic power to attract capable dancers and extract their potential to realize his world of ballet is a phenomenon. It is nothing new to hear that dancers are expected to express feelings and emotions in ballet circles and music and other art forms. The technique can be taught but expressing feeling and emotion is hard to teach and learn, which is said/heard many times. One representative of a prominent ballet company said, “We are looking for the students who have something we cannot teach.” There have been many famous ballet dancers now and past who are technically superb but never be able to act well-expressing feelings and emotions. Therefore, it is worth noting the question of WHY Eifman Ballet has so many dancers equipped to be able to dance with emotions and feelings. First, Mr. Eifman himself is capable of expressing feelings and emotions as he advocates “self-expression.”

He choreographs as he feels like his intuition leads him to create movements exploring emotion and psychology. I assume that the dancers who apply to work for him are attracted to his choreography, beliefs, and values. Among them, Mr. Eifman would choose the most potential ones who enact his world. Definitely, there is solid human bondage not only between the choreographer and dancers, but a whole company as a unit;

that is the magnetic power to draw the heart of the audience. Mr. Eifman explained this phenomenon, “I infect them (dancers).” in jest.

Number two:

In any performance, we hardly see any mime. Instead, Mr. Eifman expresses the story through dancing movements. For instance, in “Anna Karenina,” Anna and Bronsky returned to society from eloping. In other choreography, all of the corps de ballet walk away with a gesture of ignoring them. But in Eifman’s version, they express their contempt and ignoring by the fantastic dancing interweaving with the dancing of Anna and Vronsky. While they are dancing joyfully, the minute Anna alone or together with Vronsky approaches them, they swiftly change their direction and dance away from the stage. The superiority of his choreography is vivid, no need for Mime.

Number three:

In any performance, we hardly see props. If we do, props are very simple, which contrasts and emphasizes with superbness of dancing. For instance, stretching a piece of cloth becomes a wall, in “Russian Hamlet,”

the long wooden plate with bench high becomes a lane where Tachianna strolled while Onegin is dancing on the stage. Dancers use a simple bed or table by moving them or jumping on them to arise excitement. Even simple props become a part of dancing. Creative imaginations are abundant and have no limit.

Number four:

One scene to the next scene is very swift. Just about the second of blinking eye, the new set starts. Very efficient stage setting.

There is no time to be bored.

Number Five:

On his home page, he says, “For me, ballet is more than a profession. It is a means of existence, my mission on the earth. Using its resources, I am compelled to convey what is given to me from on high. Most likely, I would simply suffocate on my emotions if I didn’t have the possibility of expressing them through art. For me, the choreography is art that is deeply religious, in the broadest sense of the word.” He is a luckily born genius, as he admits, and a role model of realizing self-expression (in his term), realizing a real human being. Many of the protagonists in his choreography become insane.

I perceive that he is warning that one, whose emotion and feelings are blocked, inclines to take alternative mentality, insane ( which the outsider label), but for them, it is the survival choice. I also think that he cast the question to the whole world, “Religions are diminishing along with their good values and nourishment to our mentality. If we cannot force people to believe in religions, we must pick up good values in religions to utilize in our lives.

Mr. Eifman states on his home page, “I create ballets of a different kind, where self-expression become the subject andin which there is drama, philosophy, characters and an idea connected with a performance. And I am sure that this is the ballet of the future. Believe me, many of my young colleagues will follow the road that I have taken. This road leads eventually to man.”

I take his statement that he is suggesting the solution to us.

To live healthy life mentally and physically, all human beings need to have “self-expression,” identifying and hopefully expressing feelings and emotions. How to implement this is another question to which we should probe the solution.

Existing Role Models for Real Human-being

Existing role model for Real Human-beings

Currently there are two persons exist in this world who are the real human-beings, that I know of. Both of them are genius ballerina, and called as “Dancer Actress”. One is Sylvie Guillem, the other is Alessandra Ferri. I would like to quote what they have said in the interviews, videos and articles to portray their personality in each own way being “REAL PERSON”.

Ms Sylvie Guillem was quoted that the ballerina who would come out once in every hundred years. Since she was so talented, she had been flooded by so many offers and demands. For survival she must have learned by herself to protect her integrity by expressing her wanting and feelings. She was nicknamed, “Mademoiselle Non”.

She said; “If you are afraid of losing something, you diminish yourself.”,

“If you are doing what others told you to do, you are living for others.

I want to live for mine.”

“I never do anything I don’t feel like it.”

Since she was so talented and sought after ballerina, she could afford to say “No” to anyone. Yet she was not in any sense immature or spoiled or anything bad. She was just not superficially nice and diplomatic to deal with others. She is just honest good person. Her working ethic was notoriously very high and she was known as perfectionist. She mentioned the difficulty of being gifted. “It’s also difficult when you have gift to know that you have to work. Because it’s also easy to stop where you are and use the gift you have. Doesn’t give good things in the end.”

In the video “Sylvie Guillem” (RM Arts 1993), one of the critics describe her, “If you

look at photographs of British dancers even before she arrived on the scene, you’ll see that they were all trying to keep their legs just as high as she is. It’s just that she is the one with the physical ability to do it best and to do it most impressively and to make the audience watch it.” To which, Sylvie Guillem answers, “ When I go on stage, I just give myself…..I never had the plan, ‘I ‘m going to show that,’ ‘I’m going to give that.’, I just do what my instinct feels at the time. That’s it.”

If we interpret what she was saying through the framework of “the real person” equipped with “Sound Pleasure Principle”, we can understand what she was saying. Indeed, she was dancing as she was feeling. She just retired at the end of last year, 2015, after 40-year career. Now she is going to work as an environmentalist to protect earth. She possesses high self-esteem. Accordingly, she incorporated high values. Following her pleasure principle, she wants to save earth, even if her contribution may not be significant, she knew. Not to impress others, but her satisfaction. How does she look? She doesn’t wear mask of smile to talk in camera. She can afford to show her real face looking right straight into camera. Her eyes are so transparent, with no residue of bitterness or anger. Objectively some of what she had done may not necessary correct in objective sense or rather bizarre. Yet those were what she wanted to do, instead of considering what others would evaluate or what would be appropriate. Because of her personality well equipped with sound pleasure principle, she is very healthy. Simply she has been living as she feels and as she wants, she had had such long dancing career, 40 years. Of course she was born as genius and extremely talented. But without her personality structure, a real human being, her artistry would not exalt to that high level.

Alessandra Ferri

Since Ms. Ferri retired from ABT, it has been seven years. Fortunately, she came back recently to dance on stage sporadically. We have so many technically superb dancers in the world. Some of them are also good at acting. But in most of the cases, between good technique and/or acting, they show a gap, to let audience notice that they are doing a job, or simply they are out of acting momentarily. Ms. Ferri never lets the audience feel that she is doing her job. Some dancers say that they become selfless to become Juliet, a very dramatic protagonist. It is understandable what they saying to transcend from daily self and to enact Juliet. While Ms. Ferri says, “What you are seeing is not a fictitious person, you are seeing me as Juliet.” “An artist is to have a courage of being yourself.” Her statement seems to contradict with that of other dancers. Why so? Simply because her personality structure is fundamentally different from that of ordinary people. To learn from her how to be so perfectly a dramatic dancer is not as easy as to learn some mimes, techniques or steps, because you have to internalize the clusters of basic values which compose her personality. The common factor in her basic values is REAL, TRUE.

Following is the excerpt of my letter to Ms. Alessandra Ferri dated 12/15/13 prior to going to New York to see her performance, “Cheri”:

I am so happy to learn that you have been and are active for your artistic activities. A few times, I have searched your name at Google to see if you are dancing somewhere in the world. I missed your performance of being real self, not “doing job”. In this most busy season, I tried hard to get flight ticket, hotel, and will go to NY just to see your performance again on the 29^th, matinee, 2:00pm.
Who am I？
I am 74 years old retiree who enjoy ballet class 5 days a week. I have a very modest scholarship foundation for boys for ballet class since 2007. http://sites.google.com/site/petitoasisfoundation

I noticed that some boys have excellent technique and physical attribution yet lack self-expression, feeling, due to self-consciousness, inhibition of emotion. It may be nature and or combination of up-bringing. If possible, I would like to offer some help to them. I have been subscribing to Japanese Dance Magazine for some time. I read an article that Roberto Bolle was very thankful to you for helping him to develop getting in touch with feeling and express feelings. I wonder how you could develop real-self in you. You boast that “What you are seeing is not fictitious Juliet. It’s me, real me is there.” Indeed, you are enacting Juliet real. I would not expect that you do that only on stage. I understand that you have a cluster of values to respect truth, real feelings and to act out your values. You regulate yourself to be approved by you, not to be approved by others. That’s the core of your confidence to be able to open up yourself. I would like to ask you how you got those values, theory or conviction. At least, who you think have given you influence. If I could interview you, I would be delighted. If not, maybe you would create your web-site and share your cherished values with your admirers.

“What exactly you want to know?”, said she casting her eyes 45 degree downward with the straight voice of some kind of psychotherapy concentration.

“Who taught you to be true?” I heard my voice saying right into her left temple. She smiled through her nose and said, “Nobody”. After a second pause, she said, “By myself.” I cast down my eyes at 45 degrees and said, “OK”. In the next moment, she sprang out to the other side of the hallway to join the crowd of fans. I was overwhelmed with my realization, “She is a genius. Genius can learn by oneself. In my case, I had a mentor. But genius does not need a mentor.”
I just walked away.

I have accumulated materials about her talking in a video and article clips from newspapers and magazines. I would like to analyze and portray her personality quoting her own sayings:

In the 1998 video, “American Ballet Theatre,” she talks putting both of her feet on the dressing table and she talks without smiling, with a thoughtful face, letting the camera shoot her diagonally from her back. Also she appears in front of the camera without make-up, with no smile, natural expression. Other dancers appear with stage make-up, being shot from the best angle, with smile and speaking nicely to show the best possible image of themselves. She is showing her natural self as she talks:

“I don’t know what makes an artist different from a technician. I think it’s the courage of being yourself. You need courage to do that in life. And it happens the same on stage. I was born in Italy, in Milan. I started dancing really early. I think I was about four. And I had this passion for music and I used to want to become that music. And the only way I knew was by dancing.”

The starting point for Ms. Ferri to be a real person was TO BECOME MUSIC by dancing at the age of 4 years old. I can imagine that a little innocent girl dancing whole heartedly melting into the music, feeling the music, expanding her imagination. She started spontaneous movements, improvised dancing from the beginning. When she got older, like everybody else, she faced the reality which imposed on her conformity, to meet with the expectation of others, social acceptance. She must have sensed that that would cloud her transparency in her personality and cloud her free spirit in her dancing (to become music, to use her term). To be “being herself” (to use her term), she must acknowledge and experience her feelings, good or bad, to keep her personality transparent, like a child. To be able to express herself, what she thinks important, as she put it, she has the courage of BEING YOURSELF, (not to pretend as GOOD to be acceptable to others), and meantime she learn or disciplines herself to correct the side of her which is not acceptable so that she can let it out. So she is almost always comfortable to open up and/or express her real self. She regulates her values and behaviors to be acceptable to herself primarily. The common factor in her value system is honest to herself, truth, real and transparency. Being this way, she gets real confidence and can expand her dancing and acting so dramatically as we witness.

Following are other excerpts from the same 1998 video:

“It’s like when you find the love of your life, you can’t, you don’t know why exactly. And it’s the same with Julio. I mean we are extremely free on that stage. I trust him completely. He trusts me. We hardly speak ever in rehearsal. We hardly rehearse. We don’t talk about things. It just all comes out. The preparation that’s involved in dancing a dramatic role is known and learn and read the book and then forgetting about it. Then learning the steps, and then forgetting about them. And then finding everything you know of that person in you. So, really when I am playing Juliette, I am playing me as Juliette. I’m not trying to find a Juliette that’s not existing. But my feelings come out. And my emotions, my way of being loved, and my way of hating—my whole life experience.”

These statements were given with very sincere transparent expression, no smile. The statements themselves speak out her conscientious personality. She values the quality of personality before dancer. She does complete preparation for the role. The role is being assimilated into her system. No wonder why she can say, I am playing me as Juliette. These are the statements being honest with herself. There is no fear or reservation for being misunderstood or being taken out of context. She is taking a risk for being honest to herself. But in the meantime she GETS WHAT SHE WANTS, stronger confidence and to be able to perform so dramatically on stage.

I don’t remember where and when I read it. But she mentioned that she eats a light breakfast and lunch, yogurt and fruit, because of grueling hard works. But she said, “I am an Italian. I eat normal dinner.” She likes the Italian style of enjoying the meal as the important element of being human, as opposed to restricting diet by certain calculation.

Another excerpt which details her work ethics from New York Times article on June 17, 2007:

“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes. I get really absorbed in it,” Ferri said. “Then with the years, I don’t have to do that kind of preparation again – it all comes out naturally. It’s been interesting, looking back and looking at myself through my roles and seeing how I’ve matured as a woman. The nice thing now is that I am so free in them that I can actually improvise the role every night, and I improvise it many different ways. That is something that you only achieve through years of dancing something, and through experience.”

Excerpt from Dance Magazine (Japanese), April 2014, Interview on her as a Juror for Prix de Lausanne: (I reversed to English what was translated into Japanese.) “What is your advice for the younger dancers?”
“Each dancer has own uniqueness. Everyone has own experience, and own soul. There is no advice which can help everyone. What I want young dancers to remember is that each one’s career is unique. Dancers tend to compare them with others. But each one has different talent. When I look back myself, I never be the dancer who excel in technique. But that short-come opened the new path. I may not good at ‘Don Quixote’ but ‘Giselle’.”
Her advice is not only for the younger dancers, but for all human beings old or young. She is advising that one has to know oneself well first in order to find the way to develop oneself.

In 1998 video, she inferred that technician is not artist by saying, “I don’t know what makes an artist different from technician.” In 2014, after 16 years, she implies that a technician is also artist by saying, “…each one’s career is unique, each one has different talent.” We can interpret this change in her statement as her maturity.

The consistent factor in both seemingly contradict statements is that she is truly saying what she knows, believes as true at the time. Not to please others, but to be honest to herself at the time.

.We cannot learn to become genius. But we can learn from WHAT genius says and practices.
“To become music by dancing”
This is the state of mind totally involving dancing interpreting music. Closest practice is to attempt improvising dancing with given music, and/or favorite music. This practice will enhance spontaneity and musicality to enhance expression of feelings, imagination.
“The courage of being yourself”
“You need courage to do that in life”
“And it happens the same on stage”
We tend to give our image to be likable to others, saying nice things and smiling, avoiding offensive words and negative feeling such as anger and so on, while we are feeling differently. We are afraid to be disliked by others, because we get backlash. This is why you need courage to be “being yourself.” To be able to afford being yourself, first you have to regulate yourself to be approved by yourself rather than to be approved by others. It is much difficult to be approved by yourself because you cannot lie or hide to yourself. Being true, the state of mind becomes more transparent, if not completely. This is a pre-required state of mind in order to unfold dramatic dancing, true acting, to become the protagonist. An analogy is that we can see scenery clearly in the clear air. We can see the genuine color on the white paper. As Ms. Ferri says, “We need courage to do that (to be yourself) in life. And it happens the same on stage.” the daily life discipline to be your real self, being yourself, is the pre-requisite to become spontaneous dramatic dancers.
Internalize the role by extensive efforts, whole heartedly:
“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes. I get really absorbed in it,”

Not only learn the role mentally, memorizing steps, but more so absorb the role whole heartedly at feeling level. This will give her ease to act out herself as a given protagonist. Again giving the heart to learn the role is another factor to reach dramatic dancing.
“Conscientiousness”, a word we hardly hear any more. But her personality can be described by this one word. Simply her inner world, personality is coming out on stage naturally. We can learn to be conscientious each in our own way. After all, beautiful qualities in personality are the ultimate factors to blossom virtuoso.
These two real persons (that I know of, I am sure there are more in the world) are genius and self-taught. To become a real person, it is not necessary one has to be a genius. An ordinary person like me can become so, too.

I say, “I have been doing what I want to do. I lead my life as I feel like it. My feeling is the decision maker for me. I am a contended person. I do not control myself by reasons. If I ever control myself, I control myself by my self-love, self-esteem. For me, reasons are some of secondary drives to choose.

Inherit the legacy of Alessandra Ferri, Ballerina Actress

Since Ms. Ferri retired from ABT, it has been seven years. Fortunately, she came back recently to dance on stage sporadically. We have so many technically superb dancers in the world. Some of them are also good at acting. But in most cases, between good technique and/or acting, they show a gap to let the audience notice that they are doing their job, or they are out of acting momentarily. Ms. Ferri never lets the audience feel that she is doing her job. Some dancers say that they become selfless to become Juliet, a very dramatic protagonist. It is understandable what they are saying, to transcend from daily self to enact Juliet.
While Ms. Ferri says, “What you are seeing is not a fictitious person, you are seeing me as Juliet.” “An artist is to have a courage of being yourself.” Her statement seems to contradict with that of other dancers. Why so? Simply because her personality structure is fundamentally different from that of ordinary people. Learning how to b a dramatic dancer is not as easy as learning some techniques or steps because you have to internalize the clusters of fundamental values which compose her personality.
The common factor in her fundamental values is REAL, TRUE.

Following is the excerpt of my letter to Ms. Alessandra Ferri dated 12/15/13 before going to New York to see her performance, “Cheri”:

I am so happy to learn that you have been and are active in your artistic activities. I have searched your name at Google a few times to see if you are dancing somewhere in the world. I missed your performance of being real yourself, not “doing job.” In this busiest season, I tried hard to get a flight ticket, hotel, and I will go to NY to see your performance again on the 29th, matinee, 2:00 p.m.

Who am I？
I am 74 years old retiree who enjoys ballet class 5 days a week.
I have a very modest scholarship foundation for boys for ballet class since 2007.
I noticed that some boys have excellent technique and physical attribution yet lack self-expression, feeling, due to self-consciousness, inhibition of emotion. It may be nature and or a combination of upbringing.
If possible, I would like to offer some help to them. I have been subscribing to Japanese Dance Magazine for some time. I read an article that Roberto Bolle was very thankful to you for helping him develop, get in touch with feelings and express feelings. I wonder how you could develop real-self in yourself. You boast that “What you are seeing is not fictitious Juliet. It’s me, real me is there.” Indeed, you are enacting Juliet real. I would not expect that you do that only on stage. I understand that you have a cluster of values to respect truth, real feelings and act out your values. You regulate yourself to be approved by you, not to be approved by others.
That‘s the core of your confidence to be able to open up yourself. I want to ask you how you got those values, theories, or convictions. At least, who you think has given you influence. If I could interview you, I would be delighted.
If not, maybe you would create your website and share your cherished values with your admirers.

After the show, I joined the bunch of fans in the corridor to wait for Ms. Ferri and Mr. Cornejo to come out from the back door. When they stepped out from the door, she recognized me and said with a lively smile and beaming eyes, “Thank you for everything. I got your letter and flower.” I was rewarded by seeing such a heartfelt expression. I asked, “Maybe can I ask a few questions now at the lobby?” “I have to go,” she said. “Maybe by e-mail?”
“What exactly you want to know?”, she said casting her eyes 45 degrees downward with the straight voice of psychotherapy concentration.
“Who taught you to be true?” I heard my voice saying right into her left temple. She smiled through her nose and said, “Nobody.”
After a second pause, she said, “By myself.” I cast down my eyes at 45 degrees and said, “OK”. In the next moment, she sprang out to the other side of the hallway to join the crowd of fans. I was overwhelmed with my realization, “She is a genius.
Genius can learn by themselves. In my case, I had a mentor. But genius does not need a mentor.”, and I just walked away.
I did not feel like joining the crowd nor even saying “Thank you” to her.

I have accumulated materials about her talking in a video and article clips from newspapers and magazines. I want to analyze and portray her personality quoting her sayings:

In the 1998 video, “American Ballet Theatre,” she talks about putting both of her feet on the dressing table, and she talks without smiling, with a thoughtful face, letting the camera shoot her diagonally from her back. Also, she appears in front of the camera without makeup, with no smile, natural expression. Other dancers appear with stage makeup, being shot from the best angle, smiling, and speaking nicely to show the best possible image. She is showing her natural self as she talks:
“I don’t know what makes an artist different from a technician. I think it’s the courage of being yourself. You need courage to do that in life. And it happens the same on stage. I was born in Italy, in Milan. I started dancing really early. I think I was about four. And I had this passion for music, and I used to want to become that music.
And the only way I knew was by dancing.”

The starting point for Ms. Ferri to be a real person was TO BECOME MUSIC by dancing at the age of 4 years old. We can imagine that an innocent little girl dancing wholeheartedly, melting into the music, feeling the music, expanding her imagination. She started spontaneous movements, improvised dancing from the beginning. When she got older, like everybody else, she faced reality, which imposed on her conformity, to meet with the expectation of others, social acceptance. She must have sensed that that would cloud her personality’s transparency and her free spirit in her dancing (to become music, in her term). To be “being herself” (in her term), she must acknowledge and experience her feelings, good or bad, to keep her personality transparent, like a child.
To be able to express herself, what she thinks important, as she put it, she has the courage of BEING YOURSELF, (not to pretend as GOOD to be acceptable to others), and meantime she learn or disciplines herself to correct the side of her which is not acceptable so that she can let it out. So she is almost always comfortable to open up and/or express her real self. She regulates her values and behaviors to be acceptable to herself primarily. The common factor in her value system is honest to herself, truth, real and transparency. Being this way, she gets real confidence and can expand her dancing and acting so dramatically, as we witness.

Following are other excerpts from the same 1998 video:

“A partner is extremely important. And one of the greatest qualities for me in a partner is humanity. I mean they have to be a person before a dancer. I have to see the person in front of me. I have to pair somebody that is able to look at me in the eyes and really look and really see what’s going on inside of me. And I have to see what’s going on inside of him.”
“Something is linking me and Julio. It’s hard to tell what it is.”
“It’s like when you find the love of your life, you can’t, you don’t know why exactly. And it’s the same with Julio. I mean we are extremely free on that stage. I trust him completely. He trusts me. We hardly speak ever in rehearsal. We hardly rehearse. We don’t talk about things. It just all comes out. The preparation that’s involved in dancing a dramatic role is know and learn and read the book and then forgetting about it. Then learning the steps, and then forgetting about them. And then finding everything you know of that person in you. So, really when I am playing Juliette, I am playing me as Juliette. I’m not trying to find a Juliette that’s not existing. But my feelings come out. And my emotions, my way of being loved, and my way of hating—my whole life experience.”

She gave those statements with heartfelt transparent expressions, no smile.
The statements themselves speak out her conscientious personality. She values the quality of personality before a dancer. She does complete preparation for the role. The role is assimilated into her system. No wonder why she can say, I am playing me as Juliette.
These are the statements being honest with herself. There is no fear or reservation for being misunderstood or being taken out of context.
She is taking a risk for being honest with herself. But in the meantime, she GETS WHAT SHE WANTS, has stronger confidence, and to be able to perform so dramatically on stage.

I don’t remember where and when I read it. But she mentioned that she eats a light breakfast and lunch, yogurt and fruit, because of grueling hard works. But she said, “I am an Italian. I eat normal dinner.” She likes the Italian style of enjoying the meal as the important element of being human, instead of restricting diet by specific calculations.

Another excerpt which details her work ethics from New York Times article on June 17, 2007:

“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes.
I get really absorbed in it,” Ferri said. “Then, with the years, I don’t have to do that kind of preparation again – it all comes out naturally. It’s been interesting, looking back and looking at myself through my roles and seeing how I’ve matured as a woman. The nice thing now is that I am so free in them that I can actually improvise the role every night, and I improvise in many different ways. That is something that you only achieve through years of dancing something and through experience.”

Excerpt from Dance Magazine (Japanese), April 2014, Interview on her as a Juror for Prix de Lausanne: (I reversed to English what was translated into Japanese.)
“What is your advice for the younger dancers?”
“Each dancer has own uniqueness. Everyone has own experience, and own soul. There is no advice which can help everyone. What I want young dancers to remember is that each one’s career is unique. Dancers tend to compare them with others. But each one has different talent. When I look back myself, I never be the dancer who exel in technique. But that short-come opened the new path. I may not good at ‘Don Quixote’ but ‘Giselle’.”

Her advice is not only for the younger dancers but for all human beings, old or young. She advises that one has to know oneself well first to find a way to develop oneself.

In the 1998 video, she inferred that technician is not an artist by saying, “I don’t know what makes an artist different from technician.” In 2014, after 16 years, she implied that a technician is also an artist by saying, “…each one’s career is unique,…each one has different talent.” We can interpret this change in her statement as her maturity.
The consistent factor in both seemingly contradictory statements is that she is truly saying what she knows, believes as true at the time. Not to please others, but to be honest to herself at the time.

We cannot learn to become geniuses. But we can learn from WHAT a genius says and practices.

“To become music by dancing”

This is the state of mind totally involving dancing interpreting music. Closest practice is to attempt improvising dancing with given music and/or favorite music. This practice will enhance spontaneity and musicality to enhance the expression of feelings, imagination.

“The courage of being yourself”

“You need courage to do that in life.”
“And it happens the same on stage.”
We tend to give our image to be likable to others, saying nice things and smiling, avoiding offensive words and negative feelings such as anger, while we are feeling differently. We are afraid to be disliked by others because we get backlash. This is why you need the courage to be “being yourself.” To be able to afford being yourself, first, you have to regulate yourself to be approved by yourself rather than to be approved by others. It is much difficult to be approved by yourself because you cannot lie or hide from yourself. To be approved by others, you can hide your true feelings or just superficially be nice.

If you have regulated your values and behaviors to be approved by yourself, you will find it easier to be “being yourself” – there is not much to hide, especially if you hold the value, “hypocrisy is bad.“ You end up being a really good person instead of being a superficially good person. Because any one of us to live in society must get along well with others whether you be superficially nice or truly nice. The state of mind becomes transparent more being true, if not completely. This is a pre-required state of mind to unfold dramatic dancing, true acting to become the protagonist. An analogy is that we can see scenery clearly in the clear air. We can see the genuine color on the white paper. As Ms. Ferri says, “We need courage to do that (to be yourself) in life. And it happens the same on stage.” the daily life discipline to be your real self, being yourself, is the pre-requisite becoming spontaneous dramatic dancers.

Internalize the role by extensive efforts, wholeheartedly:

“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes. I get really absorbed in it,”
Not only learn the role mentally, memorizing steps but also absorb the role wholeheartedly at a feeling level. This will give her the ease to act out herself as a given protagonist.
Again giving the heart to learn the role is another factor to reach dramatic dancing.
“Conscientiousness,” a word we hardly hear anymore. But her personality can be described by this one word.

Simply her inner world, personality is coming out on stage naturally. We can learn to be conscientious, each in our way. After all, beautiful qualities in personality are the ultimate factors to blossom virtuoso.

What is Ballet?

Understanding by Toshiko Honda 1994

The Core Philosophy in Ballet: Value the MEANS to reach the END.

For instance, in a battement (the raising of the leg), every teacher would stress, “Do not do this and that. Don’t move your upper body when you raise your leg. It doesn’t have to be high (i.e., the “END”), but make sure you raise your leg correctly (i.e., value the “MEANS”). You will reach a good end-result eventually. This philosophy can be applied to all other aspects and activities of our lives. For instance, almost all of us someday have to be able to earn money to be independent to live. Earning money is the goal, the “END.” How to earn money is the “MEANS.” You don’t have to acquire quick and/or a lot of money at the expense of choosing a bad means. Choosing the correct MEANS to reach the goal, the “END,” will eventually lead to a satisfying result. Not all of us are going to be professional dancers. Even those who have become professional, someday, might change their occupation. Even these active professionals can apply the philosophy of ballet to other aspects of their life.

How far or how much an individual can benefit from this philosophy depends on how much one can incorporate this value into one’s personality.

How you can incorporate the value into your personality:

Knowing, believing, and practicing. By accomplishing these three things, one can incorporate the value into one’s own personality, which also can be called “true knowledge,” or “true value of oneself.”

Again, “knowing” to raise your leg correctly is essential is one thing. “Believing” that knowledge is another thing. “Practicing” and realizing that knowledge is the third and the hardest thing. If one continues accomplishing these three elements, one can acquire the core value of the philosophy of ballet into one’s personality. That value can be applied to other aspects of one’s own life.

Great!