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Ballet instructor gives posthumous gift to his students

Kelly Nicholaides
Staff Writer, @rovingwriter

RUTHERFORD — In the last months of renowned choreographer Robert Atwood's life, the Rutherford resident wrote "Bob's Ballet Book: Uber Ballet" as his last gift to his students, as well as future ballerinas. After his death in 2015, colleagues in Germany, where he choreographed the summer ballet for years, took charge of Atwood's last work, vowing to have it published. The book, which is in both English and German, was released last week.

Robert Atrwood's book.

Transforming the way modern ballet is taught, Atwood spent 40 years bringing dance to classes around the the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area and across Europe.

In the weeks before he succumbed to stomach cancer at age 63 in 2015, Atwood wrote the 30-page book. Readers spin through Atwood's thoughts on changes in the dance's form and function, the unusual personal path he took to performing arts and some humor with his "10 Commandments of Ballet" section.

"As soon as one tries to watch himself dancing, he is no longer dancing."

— Robert Atwood, Ballet instructor

"The book is a reflection of who he was and how he taught. Bob focused on people who danced later in life, not kids, but more adults and teens. Bob broke [ballet] down, made it simple, but not easy," says his widow, Rosemary Loar. "In many ways, this book contains his pearls of wisdom."

Robert Atwood is pictured teaching at the Tanzprojekt in Munich in 2014.

Recently published via ePodium by Atwood's closest friends, the book is part ballet theory manifesto and part insight into his life. A sports enthusiast turned dance guru with a vision to change the way ballet is taught, Atwood's introduction to the performing arts began with influence from his prodigy musician father. He was born in Massachusetts, but the family moved to New York after the Korean War. The slim Atwood loved sports but couldn't compete, as he was physically behind his classmates. He vicariously enjoyed serving as a statistician or manager instead.

At Haverford College, his roommate introduced him to modern dance clubs. "As a small and weak boy who already felt 'behind' and 'different' from the rest of my classmates, I did not have the courage to take a class that my peers might condemn as 'girlie,' " Atwood writes.

But getting involved with dance clubs was the "miracle" he needed. "For the first time, I was involved in a physical endeavor that I could do. My relative physical weakness was not a factor, and in some ways was a positive, because my body did not have a lot of muscular habits to unlearn and was receptive to the very specific muscular development required of dancers," he wrote.

Robert Atwood is pictured teaching a ballet class at Alvin Ailey Dance School in New York City.

Although he graduated with a political science degree at the academics-focused college, Atwood pursed dance at the rate of three classes a day, five days a week. However, nothing in dance came easily to him, and he found himself more drawn to instruction than performance. "Lacking athletic instincts, I had to analyze everything about every new exercise, every new movement I learned," Atwood writes, going to to explain that he developed an internal kinesthetic sense. "I would position myself directly behind the teacher or demonstrator, imagine myself in that person's body and try to feel in my body the way I could see his muscles working."

These early analytical observations in dance later helped propel him into a world-renowned ballet instructor who taught at Alvin Ailey Dance School, Steps on Broadway, colleges in Austria, Sweden, and Germany, and the BFA program at Marymount Manhattan College.

"Bob had a clear and structured understanding of the concept of ballet, and he lived this concept in talking and demonstrating — always on a musical basis," said Claudia Jeschke, friend and translator of Bob's Book.

Atwood developed his instructional style with influence from Zena Rommett, learning "a perfect format," including floor exercises while lying down to help students make the connection between internal sensation of muscles working and the execution of ballet while standing.

Jeschke, a dance history scholar and professor at Universität Salzburg, Musik- und Tanzwissenschaft, and one of Atwood's closest friends and collaborators, said the book serves as a tribute to Atwood and his legacy.

A Renaissance man who spoke fluent German, Atwood had collaborated on Jeschke's scholarly research on 19th-century ballet. The two produced the DVD "Sensuality & Nationality in Romantic Ballet" in New York. They read dance notations, images and descriptions from historical sources in order to translate them into dance. The scholar and the ballet instructor gave lectures at universities in Germany and Switzerland after the DVD release.

The impact he left on students is bold. "Some of them said that they were addicted to his clearly structured, highly musical classes, because they were a challenge not only physically but also mentally and they allowed anybody condition to adapt," Jeschke says.

The book features sections such as "Bob's 10 Commandments of Ballet," which basically tells the student not to get frustrated or denigrate their work, and to breathe, honor the music, avoid judgment and keep it simple.

Russian Ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev's interview on PBS greatly influenced Atwood's teaching and served as a revelation and a departure from the detailed technical corrections Atwood was used to receiving when he danced. "'Pushkin [the Russian ballet teacher] never gave a correction. But his combinations were so musical that the music and movements taught me,'" Atwood wrote, quoting Nureyev. "The concept that the musicality of an exercise can in itself be a teaching tool revealed a whole new direction for how I taught."

His  "General Tips for Teachers" section includes deconstructing the the Platonic hypothesis that "form follows function," noting that these principles, although applied in earliest ballet instruction, cannot be applied today. He notes that bodies in modern American ballet classes that have not developed to handle the strains caused by movements in dance result in injuries. The majority of ballet classes are not filled with ideal physiques with a wide range of rotation in the joints, Atwood points out.

Ballet as an art form is part physical, part visual, he indicates.

"Teaching dance is teaching physical sensation. The interesting irony is that dance is a visual art form, but the dancer is never able to observe himself dancing while he is dancing. Elements like the direction and angle of the body, and the focus of the eyes are all parts of the dance movement. Therefore, as soon as one changes one's direction or eye focus, one has also changed the movement. As soon as one tries to watch himself dancing, he is no longer dancing," Atwood writes.