With one week to go before enrolment closes for the first session of selections for the First Level Course for Ballet Instructors - the three-year course offered by the Academy and recognised by the MUR - we offer some thoughts from former student Armela Meti for the Alumni Hall of Fame.
Armela, you graduated from the Dance School and recently completed the three-year AFAM course with top marks. When did you realise you wanted to become a teacher?
Devoting oneself to teaching is undoubtedly a choice that stems from a personal and genuinely altruistic need.
To be honest, I cannot identify the precise moment of my decision, nor can I consider it the spontaneous consequence of an inclination I felt as a child. My relationship with dance had a difficult time after graduating in 2016. Five days before the final exams, I suffered a serious ankle injury and due to documentation issues - I still had Albanian citizenship at the time - I could not access the auditions called by different companies to work as a professional dancer.
The disillusionment of that period had made me think I wanted to change my path, but I could not imagine myself in any other environment than that of dance. My return to the dance studio initially saw me working alongside the teachers of my very first school in Mondovì, assisting them during their lessons.
This 'new' point of view allowed me to look at dance with different eyes, arousing in me the need to return to Dance School with a renewed perspective.
The auditions for the first edition of the three-year AFAM programme convinced me to get back into the game, with new goals but with the same dedication that led me to graduate a few years ago. Teaching is an awareness that I have matured along my path, a choice that I repeat every day: today, when I enter the dance studio and look at my students at the barre, I feel I have found my place.
What is the most unforgettable memory of your time at the Academy?
After the total eight years I spent at the Academy, it is difficult to choose just one...
A memory I cherish, perhaps the most beautiful one, is my first dance lesson with Paola Vismara in the Nureyev Hall. I will never forget the adrenaline rush of that day and the emotion I felt when, putting her corrections into practice, I hear the Maestra tell me: 'Good, Armela!'. That moment emerges today with a different awareness: I realise how crucial the role of the Maestro is in the training of a dancer.
I want to be a reference figure for my students, to guide and motivate them, thus being able to contribute - even to a small extent - to their professional and personal growth.
Has your perception of the dancer changed during your training? Is there something you now perceive differently?
During my didactic training over the past three years, I have been able to sense, experience and finally truly understand how necessary it is for a maestro to 'know', 'know how to do', and 'know how to make do'. These three skills, which are consequential and equally interdependent, also sum up how my perception of the dancer has changed over time. When I was admitted to the Academy in course IV, at the age of fourteen, I 'did' (probably without 'knowing' too much).
The academic path I subsequently took taught me 'savoir fare', orienting my internal perception towards a conscious technical and aesthetic final product. Returning to classroom three years ago, in a dual role of teacher-pupil, I expanded my 'knowledge' and this contributed to improving my 'savoir faire'.
As a teacher, however, that same final product is no longer the external expression of a technical competence in first person, but rather a targeted and didactically coherent pathway, modulated from the outside by the teacher: 'knowing how to make do' is somewhat the secret ingredient that makes the teacher a Maestro, capable of grasping even the slightest nuance with a critical eye to give the student the necessary tools to express himself. This is the perspective with which I perceive the dancer today.
And after the Academy? How do you find yourself in Genoa?
As has often happened in my life, this new chapter also started in a different place from the previous one. After the thesis discussion in Milan, a trip to Alma where my parents live, just to pack my bags, and I landed in my new city, my new home. To date, in terms of work, I am involved in various educational realities: thanks to the support of teacher Tagliavia, I had the opportunity to start working in a school here in Genoa, as a ballet and contemporary dance teacher; I am also following the technical and artistic preparation of two athletes who compete at a competitive level, respectively in the disciplines of synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.
To whom would you recommend the First Level Course for Ballet Instructors?
These are three demanding years, attendance is all-consuming and the workload is not to be underestimated, but this course opens the mind as much as the heart. The fullness of the various teachings, both theoretical and practical, is inspiring and thought-provoking, under the guidance of valuable professors who make the learning experience fulfilling and authentic.
I recommend this course to anyone who has passion and a desire to get out there, keeping their personality alive and enriching the course with their own person.
