What is a Rehearsal in Ballet?
This chapter explores rehearsals, asking what they represent practically and philosophically and when does practice in rehearsals yield to the finished product of a dance ready for public viewing. It considers the hours of labor, failure, and interruption that constitute life in the rehearsal studio as the dancer is shaped by the choreographer and rehearsal director. Rehearsals are considered in contrast to the rules of inviolability protecting a finished performance. Using Ballet 422 by Justin Peck as a case study and examples from reality TV and films to paintings, rehearsal rooms are explored as places of hidden preparation, visual pleasure, and the imaginary as well as fascination for audiences. Ballet dancers are taught to survey themselves through mirrors, the eyes of rehearsal directors, video cameras, and iPhones as ever-expanding systems of surveillance. Although ballet dancers spend the majority of their professional lives in rehearsals, the nature of what goes on in the rehearsal studio has too rarely been the focus of dance studies scholarship.