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beautiful 5th position


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I have heard that 5th position shows if a dancer is good or not good. Is this true? Can you really tell just from 5th position? Also I was really impressed by a picture of Soloviev in 5th position. It was beautiful. Reading the threads here I have seen lots of pictures of dancers posted , but none in 5th position. Does anybody have pictures of dancers in 5th position to share on line.

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I think we need the ballet experts here, but I always thought that a beautiful 5th position that is supported by turnout, i.e., not with twisted knees, was indicative of the amount of turnout a dancer had and how strong the support was. I've seen what looked like many beautiful 5th positions when the dancer is still, but, especially among men, I've noticed that when moving to a pirouette preparation in 4th, the front foot turns to 20 or 25 minutes past the hour, instead of maintaining the quarter hour (opposite on the right foot).

My very favorite 5th position is in the broadcast of Apollo with Farrell and Martins that was shown in the Balanchine biography. Towards the end of the pas de deux, when both are downstage left, there's a little "plonk" in the music, where Farrell hits 5th for a second in perfect stillness, before moving on to the step step plie arabesque with the "listening" arms.

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The best fifths are not merely the fully rotated legs and feet flat against each other, heel to toe. A good fifth continues up through the torso and solar plexus. It helps a dancer define her/his axis and the feeling of it should be maintained even when the dancer is in motion. Dancers who don't use fifth in the body while dancing look splayed, as though nothing is connecting the various limbs.

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A fifth position, whether the arms be high or low, is a great diagnostic position to judge a dancer from, hence the controversy over Nureyev getting it right or not. When you're in fifth, you're very exposed, and so many dancers choose not to have such a revealing position released as publicity.

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That makes it difficult to dance Apollo, since one of the classic photo ops is during the second solo, when Apollo is in 5th position with his arms extended over his head and his hands broken at the wrists to form platforms, as if he's holding up the heavens.

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I think that we have to agree that a perfect fifth is exceedingly rare.

During my life time experience - quite a few years - I can only remember one single perfect fifth. I saw it as a child (and have never seen it again) and must admit that I was most horribly envious and started an almost religious program of strenous exercises that I equally religiously performed every single night before going to bed. Did I get a better fifth?

Nope, it did of course improve very much, but it never got to the point of my class mate's absolutely pure fifth. We were then only beginners and only required to do third, but this girl did a perfect fifth!

My exercises progressed and I could in due course do a very nice- but not perfect - fifth with right foot front - left foot front did not work very well, ever.

And the girl with the perfect body and the perfect fifth - as far as I know she gave up dancing when she was about thirteen and was never heard of again. Pity...

Somehow I think that we are born with a bone structure that allows us to make a perfect fifth and no amount of training or extra exercises will make it perfect, although there is always some room for improvement.

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Sometimes I feel that 5th position in ballet is like lotus position in yoga. The most important and basic position. In a book about the life of the buddha it was written how beautiful his lotus position was. My ballet teacher who is almost 70 has beautiful 5th position and when he does tendu from 5th it takes my breath away. Actually everything he does is so beautiful. I guess that is because his 5th is so beautiful. Or maybe other way round? Also he treats 5th position as if it is a sacred position.

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I am writing again because I just realized that ms/mrs Pamela Moberg has replied while I was writing my previous post. That is What I was wondering too. That if 5th position is merely something that people with better phisique can achieve. My teacher always says that he is not turned out, eventhough his 5th is beautiful. He also says that people who have perfect body tend to just sit in 5th with fallen buttocks. So i guess there must be more than just a good phisique in it. But again I can only guess because I myself am not yet able to disprove that law of better body better 5th .

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A friend who was a star with the Martha Graham company told me once that she'd never seen fifth position -- never REALLY seen it -- until she saw Nureyev. Partly becauese in those days, men were never fastidious about their fifths, and Nureyev WAS, and he "showed fifth" more courageously, he WANTED you to see his fifth, than any ballerina did at that time. And she felt she was just echoing what everybody felt at the time --

In that sense, fifth as a theatrical and choreographic fact, Nureyev's fifth was epoch-making. After Nureyev, other men had to pull their lines and rotate and show fifth position. He was the cause of better fifths in others.

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Here is a picture of Rudolf Nureyev in an unperfect fifth, but compare it to the dancer on the left (Nureyev's right) -- is it Francisco Moncion? -- and you can see a bit of what is being discussed in this thread. Nureyev's turnout goes right up through his legs to his upper body whereas the other dancer's fifth doesn't even seem to engage his thighs.

Nureyev

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Every ballet teacher says that your knees and toes have to be facing the same direction with turn out. But even With Nureyevs turn out it seems like that the feet have to turn out more than the knees in 5th position. Is it really possible for a human being to stand in 5th with knees and feet completly facing the same direction? Also the hip of the front leg seems to be visible in most of the dancers which means that there is a slight twist in the torso. In Nureyevs case this is almost invisible which is really rare.

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Omshanti, in the linked photo, Nureyev is standing croise, not en face -- and in that position the front hip is going to be visible.

I wish he weren't lifting his ribs so much in that photo, but he's clearly the midst of a port de bras that he's giving an expressive curve to--

Generally speaking, women have a better chance at getting everything rotated and stretched and presented for a perfect fifth. Some teachers believe that it's not possible to stretch both knees completely and allow a softening of the front knee -- it's a hotly contested issue.

But I'd suggest looking for photos of the young Darci Kistler in fifth -- or if you can find it, take a look at her performance in the NYCB "Bournonville Divertissements" video. Fabulously beautiful fifth positions -- many many small beaten jumps with beautifully rotated legs -- though if you watch it in slow motion you'll see that she actually lands from entrechat-six and takes off into the next one in "seventh position" -- completely turned out, but with her feet so overcrossed that her heels are on the far sides -- in plie her toes are touching as if she were in sous-sus. Extremely irregular, if not illegal, but she was coached for the role by the great teacher Stanley Williams himself, and he must have let it pass.......

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From a ballet teacher standpoint, I think it may be impossible to have both knees perfectly straight in 5th, but that's not the point. The point is to try to get both knees straight because the effort makes you stronger. This goes for many things in ballet technique--perfection is impossible, but it's the trying that gets you closer.

A correct 5th position is indeed beautiful and one can tell many things about a dancer from seeing it, but I advise caution--there is too much emphasis, IMO, on perfect positions these days and not enough emphasis on quality of movement. It's a fine balance dancers must strike--not enough emphasis on correct positions and the technique is sloppy; too much and the movement is stilted and unexpressive. I've seen quite a few students who can produce lovely poses but can't move between them, and this is a serious gap in their training.

Another issue with which teachers must contend is the popularity of the over-crossed 5th. It is every bit as much of a technical flaw as an under-crossed 5th in that it reveals a lack of ability to achieve precision with the legs and feet, and as it is more difficult to put the heels down during jumps and relevés, it opens the door to tendonitis and shin splints.

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A correct 5th position is indeed beautiful and one can tell many things about a dancer from seeing it, but I advise caution--there is too much emphasis, IMO, on perfect positions these days and not enough emphasis on quality of movement. It's a fine balance dancers must strike--not enough emphasis on correct positions and the technique is sloppy; too much and the movement is stilted and unexpressive. I've seen quite a few students who can produce lovely poses but can't move between them, and this is a serious gap in their training.

I thought ballet positions were the result of continuous effort in the body and positions to go through when dancing the steps therefore parts of the flow rather than isolated poses to stop at. So would not the emphasis on CORRECT positions improve the whole flow? Maybe the students who can create good poses but not move in between are not doing the positions correctly but just creating the shape superficially because they are able to do so physically. Correct positions with feeling of movement in them would definitely look more beautiful than perfect shapes made superficially.

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I've seen quite a few students who can produce lovely poses but can't move between them, and this is a serious gap in their training.

A number of professional dancers, too. Especially when primarily contemporary companies do the occasional obligatory classical pas de deux. :blink:

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A correct 5th position is indeed beautiful and one can tell many things about a dancer from seeing it, but I advise caution--there is too much emphasis, IMO, on perfect positions these days and not enough emphasis on quality of movement. It's a fine balance dancers must strike--not enough emphasis on correct positions and the technique is sloppy; too much and the movement is stilted and unexpressive. I've seen quite a few students who can produce lovely poses but can't move between them, and this is a serious gap in their training.

I'm only a lowly adult beginner :blush: but the way I see it the proper definition of a 'good position' is one that still has the quality of movement built into it. It should be seen (and felt!) as dynamic state which is held, maintained in time (even if that means for a couple of minutes) rather than a static (statue like) form which is adopted to please the eye only.

It seems to me there is a potential for conflict between the right position based on actual movement (you could call it the correct fifth for actually dancing) and one based on an ideal of 'perfection' which may or may not be be unrealistic from the point of view of the dancer's body type... and for beginners like me add:current flexability/conditioning/strength.

Me? ... I have what is known as a naturally 'perfectly rubbish' fifth. :blink:

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That makes it difficult to dance Apollo, since one of the classic photo ops is during the second solo, when Apollo is in 5th position with his arms extended over his head and his hands broken at the wrists to form platforms, as if he's holding up the heavens.

I am ashamed to admit that I cannot right now remember how he gets into this position -- 5th is indeed a very exposed position, especially en face, but it is easier to adjust your allignment if you are closing into 5th fron a tendu (using the inner thigh muscles and the friction of the foot on the floor) than it is if you are landing from a turn or (even trickier) from a jump.

At some point it might be interesting to discuss outward rotation in general, and its effects on traditional ballet training. There has been, in the last several years, a great deal of research and experimentation done on outward rotation by dance anatomists. A colleague of mine gave a fascinating paper on the placement of second position develope when the leg is fully out-rotated and the pelvis is kept flat to the front. The traditional image of "perfect rotation" had the leg directly to the side with the quadriceps, knee and shin on top, so that the silhouette of the limb has a little scallop shape at the arch of the foot. but the leg is actually capable of more rotation, placing the ball of the femur in a stronger position in the hip socket, but changing the outline of the leg so that the sole of the shoe is starting to face forward.

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At some point it might be interesting to discuss outward rotation in general, and its effects on traditional ballet training. There has been, in the last several years, a great deal of research and experimentation done on outward rotation by dance anatomists. A colleague of mine gave a fascinating paper on the placement of second position develope when the leg is fully out-rotated and the pelvis is kept flat to the front. The traditional image of "perfect rotation" had the leg directly to the side with the quadriceps, knee and shin on top, so that the silhouette of the limb has a little scallop shape at the arch of the foot. but the leg is actually capable of more rotation, placing the ball of the femur in a stronger position in the hip socket, but changing the outline of the leg so that the sole of the shoe is starting to face forward.

This seems more like the difference between Russian school and French or west Europian school of traditional ballet that has been there for a long time than a newly discovered fact. In Russia they simply open their legs to the side for turn out while in the west they rotate every thing outward to the full. If you look at French dancers you can see the sole of the shoe in a la second. I think that is why Nureyev increased his turn out after he defected to the west.

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omshanti, I've been thinking for several days of a photograph of Soloviev in releve in second position that to MY mind makes it clear that he's a good dancer -- BOTH legs are rotating -- not just rotated but actively rotating, you can see it, it's one of the most revealing photos I can think of. It was included in the article abotut Soloviev in Ballet Review several years ago -- all of the photos are interesting, some are really beautiful (some are not), but that one....

There was a similar photo of Henning Kronstam in second position in releve in Alexandra's biography of him, the similarity being in the visible active rotation of both thighs simultaneously, which (again, to me) is a touchstone for classical action.

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Soloviev is one of the greatest dancers of all time in my opinion. And I would say he was technically perfect ,or very close to perfect if the perfect ideal in ballet is impossible as MR Hans said. And he looks so natural in ballet positions without any forcing or tensing which shows how good the training must have been at the kirov in that era. The picture of him in 5th position that I saw was in Dance and Dancers from the 60s.

I have never seen Henning Kronstam so I can not give any opinion of him. Are there any videos of him available?

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This seems more like the difference between Russian school and French or west Europian school of traditional ballet that has been there for a long time than a newly discovered fact. In Russia they simply open their legs to the side for turn out while in the west they rotate every thing outward to the full. If you look at French dancers you can see the sole of the shoe in a la second. I think that is why Nureyev increased his turn out after he defected to the west.

Well, I don't know if I quite agree...if one teaches turnout with the goal being to get the sole of the shoe facing forward, one risks the legs not being completely to the side, whereas if one takes the legs directly side, the sole of the shoe will probably not face front except when the leg is raised above 90º. As every body is different, I don't believe there are any absolutes when it comes to teaching turnout, and I've found that a combination of these two ideals works best. You want the leg rotated in the hip socket as far as it will go, but you also want it to be fully side, so I would advocate for each dancer to use the approach that s/he feels works best for him or her. :)

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I was just stating the difference that exists between Russian school and French school regarding approach to turn out , and what happens as a result of that. I did not realize that I wrote anything to agree or disagree with.

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