So the topic of dancing with one shoe keeps raising its annoying little head. And I’m apologizing in advance for my tone; this is me being a jerk. Why are we even still talking about this? I guess, of course, there will always be new teachers who haven’t quite beaten this particular dead horse as much as some of us have. But whenever this topic comes up, nearly everyone in the discussion insists that it is “two shoes or no shoes”. Yet we look at the competition stages and what do we see? We see dancers dancing with only one shoe, and these dancers, and their teachers, are coming up with some sort of justification for it.
I would like to pose the following question: is competitive dance a separate field unto itself?
I do not work in the competition sector. I teach pre-professional ballet students, pre-professional musical theater students, and NYC open classes in all levels ranging from beginner to advanced. Is what I teach my students a completely separate field or discipline from what competition teachers are teaching? I don’t think that it is. And I dearly hope that I am right about that. So where in this art form, in which I have spent my professional life, is the tradition and history of dancing with one shoe? And, quite frankly, I’m really not interested in hearing some complaint about the slickness of a floor, a need for traction, or the desire to make turning easier. I danced on a lot of bad floors during my professional career. We all wore two shoes (or occasionally no shoes) and we all made it work.
I would now like to address the complaint that dancing with one shoe telegraphs to the judges that all of the turns will be on one side. Everyone has a good turning side. Everyone. I am a “right-handed left turner” and it made me crazy my entire career. Even the most accomplished ballet dancers will arrange their solo variations to showcase their good side. Judges expect that most turns will be done in the dancers’ good side; let’s just hope that the training is progressing in a responsible way, under responsible teachers, who have as their goal to make the two sides as even as possible.
Lastly I’ll touch on the idea of this being a “new trend” to follow. Why would we follow this trend, especially since everyone is constantly saying that they disagree with it? And if we are the artists that we proclaim to be, rather than following trends, shouldn’t we be setting them?
Classical Ballet and All That Jazz 
Well said.
The one-shoe thing is related one of the things that bugs me about some (not all!) competition studios. Though I’ve never worked in one, I’ve had students who started at studios where they really only trained turns and leaps on the right side.
This seems like such an incredible disservice, as it both imposes unnecessary limitations artistically and inevitably creates muscle imbalances, never mind making life harder for lefties (or ambidextrous weirdos like me, who are better on the left in some skills and on the right in others).
I currently teach in a studio that does do some competitions, but where the primary focus is on teaching sound technique and artistry, and all of our students learn skills on both sides and wear two shoes (or, for modern, none). I think the fact that the founders of the program have strong classical modern & jazz backgrounds definitely informed the whole program’s approach.
The same approach is pretty common in gymnastics programs in the US, though the coaches I trained under in that area all insisted that we train both sides of every skill, and I suspect there are similar forces at play — a sense of limited time and pressure to produce a checklist of skills rather than a whole movement language.
I try not to be judgemental of individual teachers, but it kind of seems like maybe there’s room for the competition world to do some reflection about what it is and isn’t giving the kids (and occupational adults) who participate.
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*and occasional adults … d’oh!
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PS: to answer the question of whether competitive dance is a separate field: it does seem to have a different way of evaluating dance than does the concert-dance universe (in which I’m including ballet, modern, jazz, and other theatrical dance streams). In that sense, it operates as a separate field.
That said, a lot of competition programs and, indeed, the competition world at large don’t tell their students that they aren’t preparing them to audition for professional companies, college dance programs, etc, or careers in theatrical dance, so in that sense it doesn’t operate as a separate field.
I’m not sure how the competition dance world sees itself, though (and although I currently teach at a studio that does do some competitions, I’m specifically responsible for the ballet component, which is required for all students who want to compete but which isn’t directly involved in competitions).
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Thanks so much for adding your considered thoughts!
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