Believe in the magic of dance.
Finding the Inspiration
Mastery is not enough.
To be a master technician in any field requires years of study, practice, refinement, and execution. This is true for all sorts of technicians, whether you are a ballet dancer or you are an architect. For an architect, after years of schooling, execution manifests in the designs they create; for dancers, it is in the performance. Both are end products of a technician’s journey. We all strive to be great technicians, but by itself, it is not enough.
Athleticism is often used to describe the value of a dancer, which is a reflection of the tool they have mastered: their bodies. Yet, an architect’s tool of choice may be a pencil, but that does not relegate an architect’s value to pencilism. Few dancers, when asked whether they see themselves as athletes or artists, say athlete. A dancer’s body is a tool and a good tool can help produce good work. Tool mastery, too, is not enough.
Inspiration.
For both architects and dancers, their goals are the same: to channel years of training, tool mastery, and refinement into awe among their audiences. Only their mediums are different. But whether it is the homes of Frank Lloyd Wright or the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev, something separates these two from other architects or other dancers. That something is inspiration and it is their inspiration that creates magic. They inspire because they were inspired.
A superior practitioner of any craft operating without inspiration is a technician. They could have the best education, work the hardest, and execute brilliantly, but without inspiration, a technician they remain. There have been many architects throughout history, but not many Frank Lloyd Wrights. It is inspiration that makes an artist.
Believing in the magic of dance requires every employee at Alberta Ballet to connect with and emulate what it is we do. It means moving from being educated, skilled, hard-working technicians to embodying and evoking inspiration, no matter what job we hold.
It matters.
The world has profited from the technicians that have come before us. But the world has been inspired by the artists who have taken their technical mastery to the next level. It is that inspiration that makes people want to follow in their footsteps and make them believe: I could do that, too. Those people inspire us to take dance, to teach dance, to watch dance, or to dance professionally.
That artistry also inspires us to work for a dance company in other positions. Every one of us who is not an artistic staff member could do the same job we do somewhere else—whether we teach math, supervise students in residence, process payroll, or steward patrons. There is a reason, beyond income, which inspires each of us to work at Alberta Ballet. That inspiration matters.
Aspire to inspire.
The arts produce an amazing amount of magic—from ambition to education, physical fitness to mental health, employment to community building. We call these the Social Determinants of Health. Believing in the magic of dance means believing that each of us, no matter our role, can help bring those determinants to others through our own efforts and inspiration. We should aspire to inspire.
This will mean something different for each of us, but each of us at Alberta Ballet needs to connect with that inspiration. It is a deeply personal journey. We have a responsibility to dig deep within and bring that inspiration with us each day for ourselves, our peers, our stakeholders, and the rest of the community.