Introduction The teacher-student relationship is acknowledged as the heart of performance coaching, and a good quality relationship is deemed essential to enhance well-being and performance development. To establish such a quality relationship, a shared reality of mutual understandings, interests, and goals, as well as established trust and good communication appear vital. Despite the importance of this relationship, within the context of dance, it appears that there is an inconsistency between the ideal and actual in dance teaching, where teachers seem to overestimate the quality of their own teaching behaviors compared to their students` perceptions of the same teaching behaviors. However, there is a lack of theoretical understanding as to how and why such differences in perceptions arise and develop. Therefore, developing a more in-depth understanding of the establishing and quality of shared realities in asymmetric relationships, such as those between teachers and students in the performing arts, is particularly warranted. Methods A longitudinal narrative design with multiple interviews was adopted over an eight-month period. Three female pre-elite ballet dancers between 17-18 years (Mage = 17.3) and their primary ballet teacher were recruited to the study using purposive sampling. The interview guides were guided by the conceptual framework of Shared Reality Theory and previous research focusing on interpersonal trust. Hence, a theoretical lens was used deductively. Data were analyzed using narrative thematic analysis to interpret in what ways the participants made sense of ongoing episodes, actions, and relations in their life story as teacher or student. Results Findings indicated that there was established shared reality only on the epistemic level (i.e., a professional, but not on an emotional/personal level) across the teacher-student relationships. This was achieved by a common perception of what matters in the world of ballet education and that the students found their teacher trustworthy. It appeared that achieving a shared reality between the teacher and the students at a relational level might be challenging within the authoritarian apprenticeship culture in ballet. Hence, the culture set the frame for a professional and distanced relationship where teachers should give clear instructions and feedback, and where the students` role is to adapt to the teacher`s feedback. Conclusion Extending earlier research in performance psychology, the findings demonstrated the influence of ballet culture on the perceptions of what constitutes a relationship that develops between students and teacher. It appears that greater consideration of relationship quality is needed within ballet education and further research is warranted to understand the perception of shared reality in more depth and its implication for the physical and psychological well-being of young ballet dancers.
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