Noise Phobia

I thought I might tell you all about how and why I developed my intrinsic foot muscles - put simply, I couldn’t stand hearing myself dance onstage, and would go to great lengths to reduce my own noise level.  What I didn’t know was without even knowing it I was developing the intrinsic muscles under my feet.

So, by being a noise phobic dancer, unbeknownst to me, I was continually developing the intrinsic muscles under my feet, but more particularly, my toes.  Toes don’t get nearly enough attention, arches always triumph.  But, it’s the toes and under the pads of the toes that can actually soften the noise level which in turn develops sensitivity and control. This can be proven with a short experiment….Try to imagine you have to enter or exit a sleep deprived baby’s nursery without waking the sleeping baby.  Take particular notice of how you use your feet to move about the nursery.  Without even knowing it you are using your intrinsic foot muscles in order to be quiet.  I continued to work like this my entire career with The Australian Ballet.

I can remember a few particular ballets that immediately come to mind when I recall this specific phobia, the first one is the Hours Dance in Act II of Coppelia.  I was cast as the first corps de ballet girl entering from the wing.  If you are not familiar with this ballet, the first girl makes her entry in almost complete silence, running from one side of the stage to the other.  A long time to hear tap, tap, tapping across the floor!  Another moment was my first entrance as Clara in Graeme Murphy’s, Clara’s Story, which involves descending a long staircase whilst the orchestra is particularly quiet.  Not to mention all the white acts of ballets, like Acts II and IV of Swan Lake, Act II of La Bayadere and Act II of Giselle, to name a few.  Hearing myself dance was a personal torture!  Not only did it disrupt the cohesion of my particular character portrayal, but I was positive that it ruined the illusion for the audience.  

Consequently the ‘My Pointe’ program was born, following by the ‘My Beginner Pointe’ program, which are all about sensitivity.  I choreographed the technical aspect of these programs with my 20 years experience en pointe.  The exercises are very simple, repetitive and moderate in tempo.  The reason for this simplicity is to allow the dancer time to focus on implementing all the program entails, the repetition provides the brain time to consolidate what it has just learned, and the moderate tempo gives the brain and the body time to comprehend and integrate all the new material.

So, there you have it, my dance phobia out in the open.  The good thing is that I used that phobia for the better good and good things came of it.