Current Status and Issues of Ballet Education in Japan

An Analysis Based on the 2nd "Nation-wide Survey of Ballet Education"

Abstract

In order to clarify the actual situation of ballet education in Japan, we carried out nationwide exhaustive surveys of ballet schools twice in 2011 and 2016. We sent questionnaires to 4,630 ballet schools in 2011 and 4,793 in 2016 and collected 1,484 and 1,557 valid answers respectively. By comparing the results of the two surveys the following was revealed about changes in the ballet education in Japan in the past five years. First, in terms of ballet teachers’ competence, the rate of ballet schools with a teacher who belongs to a professional ballet company decreased from 28% in 2011 to 23% in 2016, but the rate of ballet schools with a qualified teacher didn’t change statistically, from 15% to 16%. As a result of content analysis of free answers of the questionnaires, we found that wide discussions about an appropriate qualification system of ballet instruction among the stakeholders were required in Japan. Second, in terms of teaching content, the implementation rate with regard to open classes and courses for pointe work, variation, and adagio statistically increased. The rate of ballet schools with a student who had participated in a ballet competition also increased statistically, from 51% to 63% in the past five years. These changes can be explained as management effort of ballet schools and from a marked increase of ballet competitions in Japan. As a result of content analysis of the free answers, we found that more investigation of the ballet competitions was important for improvement of Japanese ballet education.