The Magic of Mirrors

"The practice mirror is to be used for the corrections of faults, not for a love affair, and the figure you watch should not become your dearest friend."

- Agnes de Mille

Mirrors are used in the dance facility to focus on problems when correcting yourself. Such as when you are out in ballet center and are working on alignment. To make sure your body position is proper, the mirror comes in very helpful. You are able to look at yourself and fix your mistakes. A problem with correction of the mirror may come when dancers leap across the floor. It is in habit for many dancers to watch themselves in the mirror as they do grand jetes from wall to wall. This is not a good characteristic to have because it throws your hips out of alignment. Your whole body shifts weight as you open up your hip, which may become habit and can hurt the execution of the leap in performance.

The availability of mirrors are also useful when choreography is just beginning to be taught, and watching of the instructor is needed. This is extremely helpful when teaching younger children, because they need to see your constant direction. On the other hand it is also very beneficial to older dancers being taught choreography in a very quick fashion. It gives them a chance to search out for help and ask questions when parts do not match. The problem with watching during choreography is that some dancers tend to overuse the mirror and rely on them for their memory of choreography. This will result in the dancer not knowing the routine by the time of performance. A solution to the problem is to cover the mirror and force dancers to retain choreography week after week. This helps tremendously in long term memory of choreography for older dancers, as well as get younger dancers to focus and remember theirs too.

Mirrors are helpful during turns when you need to spot, you’re able to locate and lock your eyes on an object as you rotate. When there are sparse places to look in front of you the mirror can help you find an object on every wall of the room. A point to remember in this situation is that you should never spot yourself or any other moving object. It can throw off your spot and will most likely result in travelling across the floor.

Mirrors are an amazing device for dancers of all kinds to use, however they do have their drawbacks in some situations if not used properly, or if dancers become accustomed to them for too long. Point be that you should not rely solely on the mirrors in your dance facility, but of course use them when provided and beneficial to you.

~Julia Brewer