The mind in dance.(Ballet dancers)

At eighteen years of age, I had already been a member of the New York City Ballet for three years and had just been made a principal dancer. While performing at the ballet company's home, the City Center of Music and Drama on 56th Street in New York City, I developed a system that I believe has maximized and improved the quality of my performances.

Early in the morning or on my days off, I sit in the empty auditorium, gazing at the stage. I am envisioning a variation from my repertoire, imagining, in detail, first how I will look in costume, then how I will enter the stage and from which wing. As if watching a movie, I then dance the variation in my mind the very best that I can, or even better--the leaps a foot higher, the space covered double what I have done in the past. I picture the expression on my face, the use of my arms and hands, and the speed at which I move. A dream of the possible, glorified, runs on an imaginary loop through my mind, sometimes in slow motion, sometimes accelerated.

At first, I run this imaginary film to rhythmic counting alone (without music, melody, theme, harmony, etc.)--creating a blueprint of mathematical time. For example, I launch into a leap on the first count (or beat), float through the second and third counts, and land noiselessly on the fourth. Next, I rerun these movements, adding, in my head, the melody of the music in place of the counts. Each of these processes I repeat multiple times.

Now I am ready to make the imagined concrete. Up on the stage, I rehearse what I have envisioned--step by step, count by count, without music, over and over again. Sometimes I spend as much as two hours on a dance sequence that is perhaps one-and-a-half minutes long. During these repetitions, I count the beats out loud as I dance, even rehearsing how I will breathe. I also practice the dance movements in three different tempos: slow motion, ideal, and accelerated (in case the orchestra conductor has an adrenaline rush during the performance). I am now prepared to handle any tempo that may emanate from the orchestra pit.

To end my practice session, I dance the entire variation, singing the melody as though it were an aria. Sometimes as I dance, I speak out loud to an imaginary audience. I comment on what I am doing and sell it to them: "Watch this! Did you like that? Here comes the biggest leap!"

Many years after creating this process, I read about athletes who demonstrably enhanced their performances using visualization techniques. Scientific articles on the mind-body connection confirmed my own experiences. Similar anecdotes from fellow artists further corroborated my belief in the connection between the body and the mind. Several times, the ballerina Suzanne Farrell described how she would lie in a warm bath and mentally rehearse a ballet. Conrad Ludlow, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, would put on his makeup while wearing a wool skullcap. "Why, Conrad, are ...