The idea that metrical accent might be related to an embodied sense of "up" and "down" is implied by the terms "upbeat" and "downbeat," and is central to theories of meter as gravitational field, such as those evolved by Robert Hatten and Steve Larson. Yet as Hatten himself notes, upbeats and downbeats do not always map conveniently on to upward or downward movements in dance. Drawing on ethnographic research among trainee ballet teachers and recent theories of musical meter, this article discusses some practical and theoretical problems that arise when trying to teach about meter in the context of ballet training. It is suggested that empathic listening and perspective taking, rather than appeals to common embodied experiences of meter, may be key to developing better interdisciplinary understanding between musicians and dancers.

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This chapter discusses disagreements and misunderstandings about musical time in the context of ballet classes and rehearsals, and the degree to which musicians’ metric-counting is regarded by both musicians and dancers as more correct than ‘dancers’ counts’. Metrical anomalies in music by Tchaikovsky, Bizet, and Verdi used in children’s ballet classes are examined in the light of research by William Rothstein on national metrical types and Franco-Italian hypermetre, and found to be less anomalous than they might seem at first. The problems of representation and human movement in these examples are discussed with reference to debates about dance in non-representational theory (NRT), and conceptual and disciplinary boundaries in music and dance scholarship.