The Trap, The Magic & The Secret; How to use the Mirror in Ballet
The Creativity Page
By Mirella Simoncini
April 2025
In every ballet studio the mirror is there. Sometimes it’s a big help, sometimes it shows you things you’d rather not see.
It’s not clear exactly when mirrors first showed up in dance studios, but they became common in the 20th century, when training started to focus more on technique and alignment.
MAGIC
For teachers, mirrors make things easier They can check the whole group at once, and demonstrate steps without having to keep turning around.
And it makes corrections easier. Sometimes you need to see something to actually feel it. For example you might be lifting your shoulders while doing a pirouette and you are not aware of it! Seeing yourself while the teacher explains what she sees makes the difference. Like magic, all of a sudden you are feeling it, because you can indeed see that you are lifting your shoulders.
TRAPPED
The mirror has a bit of mystery, it captures the untold story of each dancer’s journey and reflects the shared moments of connection between friends working side by side.
Still, mirrors can be a mixed blessing because a mirror doesn’t tell you everything. If you get trapped in the mirror, not literally but simply by focusing on the wrong things in your reflection, you can lose the feeling of the movement and the moment.
THE SECRET
A good ballet teacher doesn’t only look at what she sees on the outside. A teacher looks beyond and sees more layers than a mirror can ever see. The big secret here is that: “we don’t use the mirror in ballet to see, we use the mirror to feel”.
Technique is important, but so is letting go. Learning to dance means learning to trust in what you feel and completely enjoy the dancing itself.
“We don’t use the mirror in ballet to see, we use the mirror to feel”. – Mirella Simoncini
HISTORY
A Quick Look Back
Nobody knows who put the first mirror in a ballet studio but they became part of ballet training in the early 1900s.
Before people started making mirrors, as we know them today, people were polishing stones like obsidian in ancient Turkey around 6000 BC to see their reflection. Later, the Egyptians polished copper to make mirrors. The kind of mirrors we use today only came in 1835, when German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a method of coating glass with a layer of silver
