Piqué Turns Forever: Honoring Ms. Gibb and Joyful Pedagogy

Back in August, I learned that one of my first ballet teachers, Ms. Keren Gibb Hilliard, had passed away. I knew her as Ms. Gibb. She was a huge reason I started ballet, and certainly a reason I kept up with it. She had a way of using imagery that connected with my young mind. She held high, but fair, standards for us that made my overachieving, rule-following self feel “seen.” 

I really did feel seen by her. When I almost started tapering down my ballet lessons to focus on golf (believe it or not, I wasn’t half bad), she gently let me know that I was going to be cast as the lead in the upcoming school show, and the class that I was going to drop just so happened to be the class I would need to be in to rehearse. She gave me so many opportunities without pressure or judgment. In her class, I learned to love ballet in its purest form. I still have a core memory of doing piqué turns in a circle in her class, and simply feeling like I could do that forever. Looking at the flood of social media comments around the announcement of her passing, it is clear that countless other dance students felt the same way. Most of her students did not become professional dancers, but have maintained a love for ballet because of her. 

It sounds like such a simple thing: teaching a young person to love an art form such as ballet, but as I’ve worked in this field, I’ve learned how deeply complicated such an endeavor can be. How do you hold standards for discipline but remain positive? How do you stay body-neutral when you dance and teach in front of a mirror that demands technical mastery? How do you teach a young person that the fun is actually in working really, really hard and never quite being perfect; never being “done”?

I’m not sure I have any of the answers, but I do try. I maintain very high standards for behavior and etiquette, but I strive to pair that with joy, laughter, and connection, rather than fear. I try to focus on the function of the body, rather than the aesthetic. I try to explain that mistakes are a part of learning, and that progress is always the goal. I tell my students to “lift their cheek for a kiss” when in croisé devant, just like Ms. Gibb told me. 

The thing is, Ms. Gibb worked in a community ballet organization in Huntsville, Alabama, whereas I work at a conservatory housed within a large performing arts center in Tampa, Florida (which still isn’t exactly NYC, but you see what I’m trying to say here!). It’s very easy to feel like we teach very different ballet classes. I am meant to be training future professional dancers, while that wasn’t her studio’s mission. But is that really true? I mean, I started dancing with her. I also have many students who want to be doctors and engineers and go to prom and be a person outside of the studio. We both, first and foremost, teach children with lives and dreams. Odds are, very few of my students will become professional dancers either. 

Will they love what ballet did for them? 

Or will they only remember what ballet did to them? 

So many of my own negative feelings associated with ballet and ballet teachers are tied to, in hindsight, caring teachers trying to prepare me for the professional field by telling me, in various ways, why my body just wasn’t going to work. Despite their good intentions, they almost made me lose the joy in those piqué turns. Self-awareness and understanding the realities of an elite art form are great things, but I’m still pretty sure I could’ve been just fine without quite so many traumatic comments about my teenage body, especially once I had already decided that I wanted to go to college and do, well, exactly what I am doing now… 

The ballet field holds onto this belief that things must remain as they are in ballet education as a form of preparation for the professional field. And yes, of course, students must be properly prepared for the professional field through pre-professional training. I also wholeheartedly believe that all ballet students deserve to receive high-quality ballet education, regardless of whether or not they want to become professional dancers, and with that comes high standards for technique and artistry. But doesn’t ballet live in Huntsville, Alabama, as much as it lives in New York City? Doesn’t a little boy learning tendus in a gym experience ballet as much as a boy in a ballet conservatory? 

Impact is not as simple as listing what students have gone on to do within a field, and there is no quantifiable record of how many times you made a student feel like they could do piqué turns forever. But my goodness, that should count for something. To nine-year-old me, it was everything. 

So, thank you, Ms. Gibb. Even though there were many teachers, methodologies, and degrees after you, I wouldn’t be here without you. I can only hope that I can carry on a fraction of that legacy. 

Photo courtesy of Rocket City Ballet