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ABOUT ATTITUDE! In this fascinating exploration of how artistic talent emerges and endures in the lives of teenagers, Katharine Davis Fishman follows eight young dancers through a year of study at one of our nation’s premier dance schools. At an age when many kids flounder, what does it actually mean to follow a passion? Fishman reveals how, at The Ailey School, it’s about “Attitude”—a ballet term that dates back several hundred years, but also a reference to that precious mettle we all need a little bit of to survive but had better not exhibit too much of in order to succeed.
Drawing on the literature of adolescence, socialization, and the development of talent, Fishman discovers a very special brand of determination possessed by these dancers. Providing a poignant window into their worlds, she traces the intricate connection between fierce commitment and innate ability. It is during the adolescent years that young people’s ideas about their place in the world begin to crystallize. How is the experience different for teenagers who have organized their lives around honing a performing talent? Attitude is for anyone interested in the world of dance, the psychology of talent, and the nature of adolescence in contemporary America.
EXCERPTS FROM ATTITUDE! Introduction Talent has always intrigued me. When I was a child, I had a friend named Genie who was a violinist: she was never available for play dates on ordinary afternoons, and twice a year my family and I would troop over to The Mannes School, one of New York’s prime musical institutions, to see her onstage in a pink ruffled dress playing a precious antique instrument donated by a famous performer. I grew up in New York in the area that became Lincoln Center, and there were artists everywhere: actors in my apartment building, singers down the block, painters and writers in duplex studios across the street. For much of my life, my neighbors have been people who came to the city – from the far west, the deep south or the outer boroughs - to test their talent and get away from being different where they grew up.
The Audition At ten minutes of ten on this first Saturday in August, 2001, the front hall at The Ailey School is totally quiet, though not uninhabited. A few teenage girls wearing large numbers on their leotards walk silently in and out of the studios that abut the hall, talking to parents who wait outside. Inside Studio Three, some fifty more numbered teenage girls are stretching on the floor and at the barre, whispering to each other, sipping from water bottles, or sitting cross-legged beside their backpacks meditating. Aside from their undisputable trimness, they vary in size and shape; their hair is short or pinned up in some sort of bun and occasionally corn-rowed. About two thirds appear African-American; the rest are everything else. |
