BEHIND every ballet you see and behind every dancer on the stage, there is a person who remains for the most part unacknowledged, yet to whom all successful performances are largely due.
That person is the ballet master. (Let’s make that title gender male for the sake of simplicity.) The ballet master is responsible for training the dancers, teaching the ballets, coaching and rehearsing them, drying tears, slapping backs and picking up the broken pieces so that the show goes on the next day, and the next, and the next.
Ballet masters devote long, intense hours to their work – even longer than their wards, the dancers. It’s not surprising they tend to have a poor work/life balance. They are middlemen for everyone -- between dancers, physical therapy, wardrobe, publicity,…
