Where Rituals Live: From the Ballet Barre to the Morning Line-Up
Every ballet class in the world begins in nearly the same way. Dancers place one hand on the barre, settle their weight and wait for the first chords of the plié. Then come tendus, dégagés, ronds de jambe, frappés, adagio and grands battements, always in much the same order, before the class moves to the centre and, eventually, into the air. At the very end comes the révérence, a gracious bow of thanks to the teacher and the pianist.
The sequence has been handed down for generations, and it is one of the things I love most about ballet. Rituals are where values become habits.
Why the order matters
The structure of a class is not tradition for its own sake. It is careful physical training. Pliés warm the joints and wake the deep muscles of the legs. Tendus articulate the feet. Each exercise prepares the body for the one that follows, so that by the time a dancer attempts a grand jeté, she has built the strength, alignment and warmth to land safely. Skip the preparation and the body pays the price.
There is an emotional rhythm in it, too. The barre gives a dancer somewhere to arrive. Whatever happened earlier in the day, the familiar music and the familiar steps invite her to breathe, to focus and to be present. The ritual becomes a gentle passage from the noise of the world into the quality of attention the work requires.
The same shape, beyond the studio
I see the same shape in the finest hospitality. Many great hotels begin each day with a brief line-up: a few minutes in which a team gathers, shares what lies ahead and reflects on a value it holds in common. Service then follows a rhythm of its own: a warm greeting, attentive care in the middle, and a fond farewell.
Read side by side, a morning line-up and a ballet class look remarkably alike. There is an arrival. There is focused, attentive work in the middle. And there is a farewell, offered with grace. The fond farewell and the révérence are, I think, close cousins.
Rituals as emotional intelligence
It would be easy to see rituals as rigid, but the best ones do the opposite. They free people. When everyone knows how the day begins, there is less uncertainty and more room for warmth. A shared ritual quietly tells a team: this is who we are, this is what we value, and you belong here.
Rituals also protect the people who perform them. A dancer who warms up properly is less likely to be injured. A team that gathers briefly at the start of the day can notice who is stretched thin, share what lies ahead and begin together rather than alone. That is emotional intelligence built into a structure, so that care never has to depend on anyone’s mood.
Small, repeated, sincere
What makes a ritual work is not its grandeur. It is its sincerity and its repetition. A greeting that is rushed and recited means very little; a greeting offered with real attention can change the shape of someone’s day. A plié done carelessly builds nothing. A plié done with full presence, thousands of times over, builds a dancer.
In my own leadership, I think about rituals in small, human terms. How does a conversation begin? Do people feel greeted, or merely processed? Is there a moment to recognise good work before we hurry on to the next task? Do we close the week, or a demanding project, with something that resembles a révérence: a genuine thank you to the people who made it possible?
Returning to the barre
What I find most moving about the barre is that no one ever outgrows it. The most celebrated principal dancers in the world still begin their day with pliés. Mastery does not release them from the ritual; it deepens their respect for it.
I hope to lead with the same humility. Values do not live in a handbook. They live in what we repeat, gently and faithfully, every single day: the greeting, the attention, the care in the middle, and the grateful bow at the end.