Dalla sala di danza alla stanza di casa: apprendimento performativo e corpo danzante in pandemia

With Covid-19-related restrictions, dance classes moved online in many cases. What is taken away together with bodily co-presence includes synchrony of music reproduction, i.e. a truly shared sonic environment, adequate space for moving (even individually), and an intersubjectively shared visibility field, which appears the most problematic for the accomplishment of learning objectives. Motivation, with its obvious effect on practicing thus learning, appears to be linked to the presence of the teacher, with her evaluative gaze, and to the presence of the other co-practitioners. (Self-)Correction too is deeply linked to the other actors involved, their visibility to the trainee and their own gaze. Based on a series of interviews with ballet dancers and teachers conducted during Winter 2021, and drawing on previous ethnographic research, the article reflects on the relation between trainer and trainees in learning and practicing ballet and shows how peer-to-peer coaching is also crucial. In a way, the pandemic-related restrictions worked as a "natural" breaching experiment (Garfinkel 1963, 1967) for dance teaching and learning, thereby highlighting the fundamentals of the kind of interaction that underlies one’s socialization to a bodily, kin(aest)ethic, performative practice.