Ballet for Contemporary Dancers
a firm technical foundation and freedom of movement

As she has trained some of the major American and European companies Janet Panetta is drawing from an extensive experience in classical and contemporary dance for her teaching practice. She is able to convey the technique rigidly yet humourously as well as giving individual feedback. The applied principles of alignment build a firm technical foundation and allow freedom of movement. Rhythm, line, direction and weight all become learning tools that can be transferred to other styles of dance.


Investigating Ballet
appreciating function as beauty

Janet Panetta’s work involves the deconstruction of movement into technical basics that dancers from varied backgrounds can understand. We work from bottom up, from foundation to anatomically solid movement. We work on the specifics of how one learns, how to analyze movement with the tools of weight, shape, space, rhythm, and time. It is the investigation of working from the inside out, from moving bones into shapes that allow muscles to function effortlessly and efficiently, thus discouraging muscular overuse. We remove all artificial affectations, leaving just the core technique, the physical architecture of the body. The ultimate goal of this study is to appreciate function as beauty. To understand, for example, that legs and feet working correctly become beautiful, and not to strive for beauty from an outside source. This is a practical, technical workshop, not a theory lesson. Everything discussed gets reconstructed back into movement.


Janet Panetta
Janet Panetta received her training with Antony Tudor, Margaret Craske and Alfredo Corvino and has been dancing with The Metropolitan Opera Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, ao. She has trained dancers of many major American companies, such as New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, etc., and has been a guest teacher for many European companies, such as Compagnie Mathilde Monnier, Ballet Preljocaj, etc., and in the schools PARTS, CCN Montpellier, a. o. She is ballet mistress at the Tanztheater Wuppertal of Pina Bausch.