Where a word can be a blow; teachers are learning when tough is too tough. (Coping With Criticism).

San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Muriel Maffre remembers the day her teacher at the Paris Opera Ballet School told her parents, "Muriel is a beautiful plant, but she can't dance." Only 14 at the time, Maffre went on to prove herself as a ballerina of international stature, but it took determination and mental toughness to get past that one dismissive comment.

Dancers--particularly the most motivated and talented--are a paradox. On the one hand, they are almost always ruthlessly self-critical, but they can also be just as easily crushed by adverse criticism, especially from a teacher. Nevertheless, young students with dreams of stardom often willingly pay a high emotional, as well as physical, price in the pursuit of excellence.

In 2002, when French government inspectors examined the inner workings of the Paris Opera's highly prestigious school, they reported on a system of Dickensian severity that many knew of, but few spoke about. Claude Bessy, who headed the school for over three decades and shaped the early training of some of the finest dancers in the world, came under fire for what the inspectors called "moral harassment" and even neglect on the part of the school's faculty [July, 2003, "Dance Matters"].

Interviewed in Marie Claire, Paris Opera etoile Aurelie Dupont recalled her six years at the school: "What upset me more than the pain of exercising was the nastiness. The adults were so cold. A little kindness and sweetness wouldn't have made us worse dancers."

Bessy's spirited defense of her disciplined approach sparked some debate. Dance of the highest caliber demands extreme rigor, extraordinary motivation and perseverance, but is it worth destroying a young dancer's self-confidence to attain it? Can there be discipline without squashing self-esteem?

"In France, they do not speak to you, they yell at you," says Pascale Leroy, who danced with Roland Petit's Ballet National de Marseille before coming to the San Francisco Ballet. "All the time, daily insults: 'It's not turned out enough. What's wrong with you? What kind of a fifth position is that?' I remember my teacher saying horrible things to me, but she loved me. It was her way to wake me up, shake me."

Even though she found the insults motivated her personally, Leroy, who has taught at the San Francisco Ballet School for 10 years, won't follow in the footsteps of her mentors. "We have to be careful not to teach in the way we were taught," she says. "Times have changed and the world is very different now. Children have difficult lives, and you cannot be as hard on them if their hair of their shoes are not perfect. We are responsible for them, and the risk of hurting them is bigger than the possible good."

"You don't want to learn to dance with fear," says Zola Dishong, who danced with San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, then jointly directed the SFB School with her husband Richard Cammack for many years. "I think that most people who have been in highly professional companies know what dancing with fear is, and it shouldn't be that way. Ballet should be joyous and it should show onstage that you're dancing from joy, not fear."

Although some might argue that iron-fisted teachers could be doing the students a favor by preparing them for the harsh realities of life in a professional company, Gordon Wright, who has directed The Harid Conservatory for over 13 years, calls that a cop out. "We should be trying to re-educate the abusers," he declares. "We should be sending young dancers out there healthy, not already broken."

As with other intense professional schools, the training at Harid is demanding, but Wright and his faculty are keen to create a nurturing environment that respects the dignity of the students as well. "I think emotionally teachers need to know how far they can push," says Wright. "Sometimes students are capable of doing more than they're aware of and the good teacher can push them to a new level. But you're walking a fine line in terms of motivating and encouraging, or driving them beyond what they can handle. You have to be demanding without being nasty."

Finding that balance is a constant challenge and one with which even the most experienced teachers continue to struggle. Sensitive, highly motivated young people often push themselves into an over-achieving furor. Wright has learned over the years how much influence even his offhand comments can carry.

"You find out later that sometimes it's misconstrued or they'll place such importance on a thing that you say, which perhaps was not intended that way," he says ruefully. "I look back at my own training, and we all have little things that stick in our heads forever. Now, I try to keep in mind when I'm speaking to a student, 'Is this going to be one of those things that they remember for some silly reason?' I want to be sure that it's something positive and good--not the other way round."

Bojan Spassoff, who co-directs Philadephia's Rock School with Stephanie Wolf Spassoff, observes that even the word "criticism" has a negative connotation. He tries to defuse any sense of personal attack on a student by stressing a scientific approach--evaluating each student's technique with a strong anatomic and kinesthetic sense.

"Dance is still passion, but you can be dispassionate when you analyze it," he says. "When kids get angry of depressed, it helps to say to them, 'Let's figure out the problem--let's take a detailed look at structure so we can maximize your performance as an individual person.'"

Approaching each dancer as an individual and working to develop maturity--artistically and emotionally--is also a priority for Daniel Lewis, dean of dance at Miami's New World School of the Arts. He believes that an emphasis on "positive teaching" leads to dancers who have a strong sense of self-confidence, and whose egos won't be easily derailed by corrections.

"Students thrive on constructive criticism," he says. "There's nothing wrong with telling a student they're doing it wrong, but there are positive ways of saying it. They do things wrong all the time. They know that, but they want to learn."

"I've found that negative teaching comes out when there's one point of view to teaching, and one idea of the kind of dancer you're going to produce," says Lewis. "Not everyone can become that dancer. You could be the wrong body shape, could have the wrong dynamics, and therefore are never going to get to that one point of view. You're always going to feel like you can't do it."

Accentuating the positive translates to learning style as well as teaching style. Lewis helps teach the students to take the positive things from class and bypass the negative. "I have to remind students that two teachers may say opposite things," he says, "and you have to sort that out for yourself. Take what works for you. You have to think and make decisions."

Indeed, you could say that for the teachers as well, who often continue to learn themselves.

"One thing I really enjoy about having my own school," says Dishong, who with Cammack now runs Contra Costa Ballet in Walnut Creek, CA, "is that I started formulating my own ideas about teaching instead of following what I thought the ballet world wanted. We all have been pushed to become enlightened and I think that's a good thing."

Fielding Criticism: A Delicate Balance

We all get corrected in class and have to sort out what is valuable for ourselves and what isn't. If the corrections are persistent, forceful, or in print, they are experienced as criticism--sometimes quite harsh. This can be a wake-up call that eventually helps you grow as on artist. Sometimes, however, criticism comes from a source you may not completely trust and, for whatever reason, can be toxic. The following pointers for navigating criticism are excerpted from a lecture that DM editor Wendy Perron presented at the American College Dance Festival, Central Region, in 2001. (To see the complete lecture, entitled "The Uses and Abuses of Self-Criticism," go to www.dancemagazine.com.)

Remember you are not alone. Every working dancer has withstood heaps of criticism, so don't let it isolate you. It is in the nature of our work that we are always trying to improve. Keep a balance between that necessary sense of striving and an equally necessary sense of accepting yourself.

Hold onto your whole self. Criticism is usually aimed at one aspect of your self. No matter how embarrassing of humiliating--or justified--the criticism is, remember that it's aimed at only part of you.

Visualize how you want to dance. After you receive a correction or criticism, go home and close your eyes and picture yourself moving with the qualities and technical abilities you desire. This kind of mental work can have a positive effect on your physical dancing.

Forget the mirror. We often absorb criticism, which then becomes self-criticism. This is OK, as long as it doesn't become self-attacking or obliterating. Don't let it make you hate your reflection in the mirror. Find a different place, one without a mirror, where you can put on your favorite CD and just dance.

Keep criticism in perspective. Aim for a balance between awareness of your weaknesses and pride in your strengths. Remember that the source of criticism is usually a single person. So don't be afraid to invite other people to give you feedback. If you encounter criticism that seems unduly harsh, check it out with a trusted friend. ("Hey, do my arms really look like sticks in that variation?")

There ARE differences of taste. After a particularly stinging criticism, keep an eye on that teacher or reviewer and get to know their aesthetic preferences. It may turn out that you simply disagree.

Don't dwell on past mistakes. Take in the criticism, absorb it, feel it like grief if necessary, and then move on. Whatever the damage was, try to apply what you've learned to future endeavors.

Use criticism to your benefit. Let it strengthen your determination and expand your horizons. Don't let criticism dilute the intensity of your encounter with dance, and never let it interfere with your sense of freedom in movement.

Imagine: Your faults could someday be useful. Fred Astaire, who had a vaudeville act with his sister Adele, found out that one producer said, "The girl seems to have talent but the boy can do nothing." He withdrew into the background and developed a modest and subtle stage presence. When film came along, his "blase" style read as elegant within the intimacy of the new medium, while other vaudeville performers were still projecting to the balconies.

Focus on the big picture. Remember that dance has a dimension beyond the physical. The body--as imperfect as it always is--is only part of the picture. Your energy, the quality of your movement, your feeling about the world, your dance spirit--that is what we see under the lights.

Mary Ellen Hunt is based in San Francisco and covers dance for the Contra Costa Times.