The Cecchetti Council of America is an organization
dedicated to maintaining the standards and method of ballet training
established by Cav. Enrico Cecchetti. The organization uses his teaching
and writings in a sequence of grades, carefully measured as to degree
of difficulty and physical development, and provides a system of accredited
examinations to test the student's proficiency within those grades.
The Cecchetti Method
What is the Cecchetti Method of training? It is a rigorous system drawn
up with careful regard for the laws of anatomy, and it is designed to
endow the human body with all those qualities essential to the dancer...balance,
poise, strength, elevation, elasticity, "ballon" and so forth.
These
qualities are naturally not the monopoly of the Cecchetti Method; they
are the ideal of every school of training. But the Cecchetti Method
differs from those other schools in the endeavor to reduce the dancer's
training to an exact science, by imposing a formula evolved over years
of preparing boys and girls of many nationalities to become dancers,
to knead and shape their bodies to bear the strains and trails of public
appearance and to fit their muscles and tendons and nerves to respond
readily to whatever steps and movements might be required of them by
the choreographer.
The imposition of a spartan unalterable regimen, according to which
every day in the working week has its own particular set exercises,
is an essential part of the system. This ensures that different types
of steps are infallibly practiced in a planned sequence, stretching
and contracting each set of muscles in turn and to a carefully calculated
degree. Each exercise is executed to the left as well as to the right,
beginning one side one week, and the other the next. The cumulative
effect of such exercises carried out in the prescribed manner is definite.
Another important feature of the Cecchetti Method is that the student
is taught to think of the movement of the foot, leg, arm, and head,
not as something apart, but in its relation to the whole body, which
develops a definite feeling for line. Again Cecchetti laid down that
it is more important to execute and exercise correctly once, than to
do it a dozen times carelessly. Quality therefore rather than quantity
is the guiding rule. The Cecchetti Method is classic in its purity and
clear-cut style; it is classic in its strenuous opposition to all extravagance
and fussiness of movement; it is classic in its insistence on the importance
of line.
The complete Cecchetti Method includes a very full vocabulary of movement,
including nearly forty "adages", composed by Ceccchetti himself
for the development and maintenance of balance and poise in every conceivable
position and in every type of movement, the body being supported on
either leg. The eight "Ports de Bras", or exercises to develop
the graceful movement and coordination of the arms, are generally admitted
to be unsurpassed.
The prime purpose of the Cecchetti Method is that the student shall
not learn to dance by trying to imitate the movements executed by his
teacher as a model for him to follow, but shall learn to dance by studying
and imbibing the basic principles which govern the art; in short, to
grow and develop from within out, to become completely self-reliant.
One final point; although Cecchetti insisted upon strict adherence
to his program of daily practice, he invariably advocated that the lesson
of the day should be followed by studying unseen steps composed by the
teacher in order to develop the student's powers in "quick study"
and his ability to assimilate new steps and new "enchantments".
There have been critics who declare that there is "no method".
The fallacy of such statement is, I submit, self-evident.
It is argued that to do a certain set of exercises on each day of the
week is soul-destroying, and that it is essential to keep the student
interested. But is it not rather a question of whether the student attends
class in order to amuse himself or be entertained by the teacher, or
whether he is taking classes for the sole purpose of learning his job?
The most celebrated musicians do not disdain to practice daily certain
scales and exercises which they have practiced thousands of times before.
They do not do this for amusement, but to make their fingers supple
and sensitive, to increase their extension, and to develop their powers
of touch. There is, unfortunately, no royal road to becoming a dancer,
and those who pretend to be able to turn out a finished dancer in a
few months by what is euphemiously termed "intensive training"
may be dismissed as bogus teachers trading on the credulity of parents.
The dancers is truly born of toil, tear and sweat.
It has been well said by that great critic the late Andre Levinson,
that the dancer is both violin and violinist. The violinist cannot play
without his violin, and there is a considerable difference in playing
on a an instrument purchased for $20.00, and a Stradivarius. The dancer
cannot dance until he has made his body into an appropriate and sensitive
instrument. Cecchetti's series of difficult "adages" are designed
for that very purpose. Expressiveness is the touchstone of every art,
and this is especially true of the art of ballet, and not until a sequence
of movements is known by heart can the dancer invest those movements
and steps with expression and learn the thousand and one graduations
of "color" which can be accorded to them.
I believe the Cecchetti system to be infallible and physicians have
testified to the soundness of it anatomical principles. Given a suitable
body, it will, in the course of a few years, change the neophyte into
a skilled dancer endowed with all of the desirable qualities I have
already cited, provided its principles are followed with care and attention.
But, as in all walks of education, teachers vary. It is not enough to
have the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge, one must know
how to impart it and possess the experience and taste to adapt it when
the student falls short of the required standard of physique.
In proof of the values of the Cecchetti Method, I could cite the names
of many prominent dancers who attended his classes and those of certain
of his successors and have admitted the benefit they derived from his
teaching. But this is crystallized in the charming tribute paid by Anna
Pavlova to her old teacher:
"The feeling of great gratitude I have for what you have
taught me, is blended with my love and respect for your personality."
"When you finished your brilliant career as the first dancer
of your day, you devoted your life to the difficult art of teaching
others; with what proud satisfaction you can now look round, for in
every part of the world nearly all who have made a name for themselves
in choreography at the present time have passed through your hands.
If our goddess, Terpsichore, is still in our midst, you, by right,
are her favored High Priest."
I will conclude with one more reference. It is generally admitted that
the finest company of dancers ever seen in Western Europe was that formed
by the late Serge Diaghileff, whose refined taste and innate artistry
directed the whole of its brilliant existence from 1909 to 1929. It
was to Cecchetti that Diaghileff entrusted the responsible task of maintaining
the technical efficiency of that company which at one time numbered
as many as a hundred dancers, including some of the greatest artists
of the age.
Again, when Diaghileff thought he had found a potential genius in a
youth names Leonide Massine, it was to Cecchetti that he entrusted his
training, just as, a few years later, he confided another boy, Serge
Lifar, to his care. Our own Frederick Ashton learned to dance from Massine
and Marie Rambert; the latter also taught Anthony Tudor - and so I could
reel off name after name of dancer and choreographer of the art of ballet.
But the few examples I have given as surely sufficient proof of the
value of that splendid legacy, know as the Cecchetti Method, which my
colleagues and I have sought to preserve and propagate for the service
of dancers everywhere.
The Cecchetti Method
Written by Cyril W. Beaumont
