Speed and panache

A few years ago, the director of a London-based ballet company publicly challenged the way ballet is taught in Britain. More recently, additional havoc was caused by an article by an equally prominent journalist who lamented our schools’ apparent inability to produce first-rate stars. In each instance, British ballet teachers and directors of prestigious ballet schools professed themselves outraged, and replied with vitriolic, though often narrow-minded, letters to the editor and lengthy articles.