Dancers, do you think it's important to know the proper spelling for all of

Question:I'm on a crusade for the preservation of proper spelling and pronounciation of traditional ballet terminology. I am afraid... VERY afraid of what I see here. I give up on English... that's clearly hopeless, but the ballet dictionary is only 120 pages! OK, OK! French accents don't count!
Signed; Gorge Ball N Shine

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm on a crusade for the preservation of proper spelling and pronounciation of traditional ballet terminology. I am afraid... VERY afraid of what I see here. I give up on English... that's clearly hopeless, but the ballet dictionary is only 120 pages! OK, OK! French accents don't count!
Signed; Gorge Ball N Shine

I think we should have Balletbonics....Ton due would work. Only kidding....How can a person communicate with another by the written word if you have no idea how to spell it. I think it is the responsibility of every teacher to teach each every aspect of the form of dance they teach.....and spelling is one of the aspects along with the meaning of the terms. One of my first jobs was at a convention and I was to teach a tap routine. Never knew that I had to abbreviate the steps in the notes.....My notes were 4 pages long. Much too long. I learned the hard way, what was the correct way to write tap. So if you want to be a teacher... learn to spell so you can also pass it on...Keep the Art form going for generations.....

I think it is. I hate misspelled words with a passion.

well with an experience I had it is. I was applying for a job as a dance instructor and knowing how to spell everything I could do came in handy for making a good impression

if you want to look professionnal in what you doing, than its important to know the proper spelling of all the terms you use. or else, people will think you are just a beginner, and ballet is just a hobby, and you dont want to take it seriously as a career

Well... I hate it when anything is spelled wrong. But I won't go out of my way to find the correct spelling of a word that I'm not quite sure how to spell, especially in ballet. I know how to spell all the basic terms, but i'm not about to look it up...sorry!

(Dealing with stuff like this in dance turns it into another scholastic challenge like school. And when I go dance I want to do anything BUT think of school. So...there you have it.)

Good luck on your crusade. =)

i don't even do ballet and i have to spell the words right. like pas de bourrée (pronounced padaberé) i spelled it the way i thought it sounded and it didn't look right to me. i looked it up on wikipedia. they have all of the right spellings there for almost every ballet term.

I believe knowing how to spell the terms and knowledge of what they are used for is a basic requirement for all dancers, not just ballet. For instance, devant, coupe, stage left, pas de bouree, etc. While you might know the pronounciation of words, but sometimes, just maybe, you'll have something written down and you'll have to decipher it. It also helps if you have other teachers come in to teach special classes, and you are expected to understand and know the terms.

Yes, it is important.
The only excuse for being majestically beautiful is being superiorly educated. Joking. Just as it's not OK to forget to button up your dress or comb your hair it is not OK to write carelessly. I think many people here are very young. I'd give them a break about ballet terms. However, I recall being able to write without spelling errors in my native language by age of 12.

I agree that know how to spell these words is important, but I would say it more important to be able to pronounce them and know what they mean other wise you would just be lost in class. I also think a lot of dance teachers realize the importance of spelling these terms correctly. In my beginning dace class we got a vocabulary/spelling list to adress this problem and it has helped me a lot for the papers we write for class, and when I need to write our coreography so I don't forget what I coreographed the next morning because I'm so sleep deprived.