A Revolution in Dance Training is Here

Although she is only in her thirties, ballet star Kathryn Morgan has been ahead of her time for about the past decade – seemingly anticipating the extraordinary change that happened to dance training (thanks to the pandemic) by about seven years.

Kathryn was a member of the New York City Ballet where she had an extraordinary rise through the company. She danced roles such as Juliet, Aurora, and The Sugar Plum Fairy all but right out of the gate and was promoted to Soloist just three years after joining as an apprentice. She’s appeared on The Today Show, won the Wein Award, the Movado Future Legends Award, the Janice Levin Award and has gone on to dance as a soloist with Miami City Ballet and guest with many companies across the country. But perhaps what has most set Kathryn apart is her online platform. After developing a medical condition that threatened to derail her career, Kathryn was (one of, if not the) first person in the dance industry to create an online channel that offered free classes, tutorials, tips and tricks, and a behind the scenes look at being a professional dancer. Not only is she an extraordinary teacher but she is a mentor and a true inspiration to an enormous, diverse online community and she is working to change the conversation about mental health, sizeism, and training within the artistic community at large.

And everyone thought she was “crazy” when she first started.

“I think people,” Kathryn explains, “Especially a lot of my colleagues…there’s this vision of smoke and mirrors, that everything has to be perfect, and seamless and we’re these ethereal beings, and I was pulling back the cobwebs and pulling back the drapes on that and I think people were slightly scared…they were like ‘I don’t know if this is a good idea, she’s going to ruin the ballet world! We’re not supposed to give hints, and tips and tricks!’ (But) I remember being eleven and no one taught me how to sew or tie my pointe shoes…everyone was just like ‘figure it out.’ So everyone was slightly worried. (Cut to) seven years later…”

What Kathryn has ushered in is an era that allows you to access the best teachers in the world often for free (or if not, very inexpensively.) It used to be that you were locked into whatever training you could access locally, and what you were able to afford. If you wanted to learn the famous Vaganova technique you had to be born in Russia and be accepted to the elite Vaganova Academy. Now you can pull up a YouTube video with soloist and rising Mariinsky star (and recent Vaganova graduate) Maria Khorava. Love the Royal or Paris Opera Ballet? Subscribe to their YouTube channel and you can take classes with the company. Want a cross-training Pilates or stretch class, or to really work on your pointe technique? Check out Claudia Dean or Kathryn Morgan and choose from an array of (free) full-length videos. Want to really hone your tap skills? Rent a class or sign up for a virtual group class with the leading current Broadway tapper Danny Gardner. And some of these teachers (Morgan and Gardner for sure) offer virtual private sessions.

But not only is this offering an easy way to take a class and improve access to, and quality of training, it’s literally changing the landscape of artistry and technique around the world. We’re moving out of the realm of dancers specializing in whatever technique they had access to – now it’s possible to pair the Vaganova epaulement with Balanchine footwork – the style of Broadway tap with the intricacies of “hoofing.” And dancers are starting to do it at a younger and younger age. The “secrets” of dance training are now open to the public, and it’s exciting to imagine how this will change dance in the years to come. It also allows adult students or artists who aren’t primarily dancers (or a certain type of dancer) to access premium training. Many of the best ballet schools won’t let you take class unless you’re preparing to become a professional ballerina…many classical dancers may be too scared to jump into a tap class out of nowhere…adults, depending on their location and profession, may find themselves in a no-mans-land of being too old to take the children’s classes, but not being a “pro” and having access to company class.

This new online landscape has improved my artistry and technique probably more than all the in-person classes I’ve taken in the past five years combined. I’ve learned secrets that were once only known to the select in-person students of a specific teacher – and guess what? Some of the things I’ve struggled with weren’t “just me,” – it was that I didn’t have the “secret” varied approaches that a limited few have had for ages. I can customize my daily workout depending on what I need, not what happens to be available locally, and I can train anywhere, anytime, whether at home or backstage (some shows and dance companies collectively put on one of Kathryn’s classes to warm up together before a show.) I’m not suggesting that virtual classes ever should replace in-person ones (far from it! In-person corrections, comradery, and just the general atmosphere are invaluable and a big part of why we dance in the first place!) But I don’t think there’s ever been a rival supplemental tool in the history of dance as a structured art form.

I would encourage both students and teachers to jump in with both feet and take advantage of this wonderful new world opening for us! Whether you’re an experienced pro or someone who’s just interested in dipping a toe in the dance world, and anyone in between, this is the future of dance training, and I can’t wait to see the amazing benefits it yields both in the short term, and long term future of technique, artistry, and dance in general. Imagine if dancers throughout time could collaborate with each other, instead of trying to figure things out individually. That’s the frontier we’re now standing on and I couldn’t be more excited!

These are the artists I would most highly recommend checking out:

Kathryn Morgan

(Ballet (Balanchine)/Stretch/Pilates/Conditioning)

YouTube Chanel Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/Tutugirlkem

Website: https://kathrynmorganonline.com

Maria Khorava

(Ballet (Vaganova)/Stretch/Conditioning)

YouTube Chanel Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/MariaKhoreva

Danny Gardner

(Tap)

On-Demand Rentable tap classes: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/dannygardnertapclasses

Weekly virtual live class at Steps - Mondays, 5:30 - 7 PM EST: https://www.stepsnyc.com/faculty/bio/Danny-Gardner/