Hans

Unlike my first post, this is not a daydream. I actually had a dream about teaching a ballet class, and I'm still not sure what that implies in terms of my sanity! I was giving an adagio, and the really crazy part is that I remembered it when I woke up! It's not the most interesting or creative combination ever, but I might use it for my class on Saturday. It goes like this: Adagio, 4/4 time. 5th position croisé, R foot front. Measure 1: Beats 1-2: Developpé devant. Beats 3-4: Passé to 1st arabesque. Measure 2: Beats 1-2: Plié, change arms to 2nd arabesque. Beats 3-4: Pas de bourré dessous. Measure 3: Beats 1-2: Developpé derrière to 3rd arabesque. Beats 3-4: Plié, change arms to 4th arabesque. Measure 4: Beats 1-2: Pas de bourré dessous. Beats 3-4: Tombé forward on the L foot, R foot pointe tendue derrière, and port de bras bending forward with arms to 3rd. Recover, close 5th, arms to preparatory. Measure 5: Developpé L leg to ecarté devant. Measure 6: Beat 1: Rise to demi-pointe. Beat 2: Tombé onto the L foot raising the R leg ecarté derrière, arms to 3rd. Beats 3-4: Pas de bourré dessous. Measure 7: Beats 1-2: Developpé the R leg to attitude derrière croisé. Beats 3-4: Tour lent (promenade) bringing the working leg to retiré position. Measure 8: Beat 1: Extend the working ( R) leg to effacé devant. Beat 2: Rise to demi-pointe. Beat 3: Tombé onto the R foot, raising the L leg in 2nd arabesque. Beat 4: Pas de bourré dessous. Now, if only I could plan all my classes in my sleep!

I see it's on MPT next Monday at 10:30pm, so I look forward to watching it then. Not sure about WETA.

Just tuned in to WETA and the only thing playing is Antiques Roadshow.

I'm growing (or perhaps just realizing that I always have been) disenchanted with the quality of boys' training. I feel that in mixed-gender classes, they do not receive the same quality of instruction the girls do, and I don't think there's any reason for this. Contributing to the problem, in my opinion, is the lax standard in terms of attire. Letting the boys wear soccer shorts is fine when they're 8, but even when they are 10 and in proper attire, they wear saggy tights and oversized shirts. Imagine if the girls came to class in leotards three sizes too big with the crotch of their tights somewhere around their knees--it would never be allowed, and for good reason: properly fitted ballet attire allows the instructor to see the muscles better so they can offer corrections. What this boils down to is boys who do not develop the same work ethic girls do in terms of perfecting their technique, unless they are already very observant and self-motivated from a young age. By the time a boy is a teenager and has developed his own motivation, the foundation that good early training would have given him is not there. How to fix the situation? It's simple: Hold boys to the same standards as the girls!

I might be mistaken, but I think Oleg Vinogradov was a Pushkin pupil, too. It is very interesting to look at this list and see who studied under whom! Who taught Sizova?

There may not be a pas de chien, but there is a sort of dog position: attitude derrière with the leg not directly behind the dancer. Dog at the fire hydrant.

Update: The Joffrey MySpace page is at http://www.myspace.com/joffreyballet. It should be visible to anyone.

Maybe one has to be a member in order to search it; I was logged in when I found the Joffrey profile, and that contains links to several other pages.

Well, it appears that the ballet companies are all jumping on the MySpace bandwagon: Joffrey has a profile and so do Ballet Florida and Ballet Arizona--even Discount Dance Supply has a MySpace page!

Hubbe has indeed taught at SAB.

When I was at SAB, that is how it was taught (to the advanced male students). I also saw it done that way (close-up, in slow motion) on the "Enfants de la Danse" documentary of the Paris Opera Ballet School, although I don't know if that's changed.

Hm, regarding very small beats, yes it is necessary to be able to do them, but I would teach students (at first) to open the legs as much as possible with each beat because otherwise they are harder to see and lack brilliance. Once the student had clear, precise batterie, I would then teach faster entrechat-six, &c. However, one thing I cannot abide is the stylized version of royale currently in fashion during which, instead of opening the legs, closing them again with the same leg front, opening them again, and changing the legs, the dancer merely over-crosses the legs on the first beat and then opens and changes the legs.

I would think that would be common sense for most dancers. Fast movements can't be as large as slow ones.

Even knowledgeable people have different tastes.

We have all heard, read, and seen in performance that petit allegro has started to fall by the wayside as dancers and choreographers focus on ever-higher extensions, larger jumps, and more pirouettes. This is to an extent natural and necessary as costumes become more revealing and we learn more about the way the body works (movement emanating from the torso instead of the extremities). However, it is possible to train dancers (who become choreographers) to be more attuned to the use of the lower leg and foot while still giving them the ability to perform larger-scale movements. Such training begins (as do so many things in ballet) at the barre. Movements such as battement fondu, battement soutenu, and rond de jambe en l'air that used to be performed almost exclusively with the leg at 45º (toes level with the middle of the supporting calf muscle) now are often performed almost exclusively with the leg at 90º or higher. The position of the working foot sur le cou de pied creeps higher as well, almost to a demi-retiré position, so that during battement fondu at 90º or above the dancer does not draw the foot from a true cou de pied position to retiré before extending the leg; s/he simply raises it to a very high cou de pied/demi-retiré and extends it from there. It is not wrong to practice these movements at heights above 45º; indeed it is a necessary part of a dancer's training, but it should be more the exception than the rule. Those three movements (along with battement frappé, which does not usually get distorted because it is difficult to raise the leg high while maintaining a strong, sharp movement) form much of the basis for petit allegro. For example, pas assemblé is a battement soutenu at 45º with a jump, and pas ballonné is essentially a jumped battement fondu. It requires a very large jump to perform rond de jambe en l'air sauté at 90º, and that would alter the timing and accents of most petit allegro combinations; therefore that step is more suited to grand allegro. When practicing movements normally done at 45º, it is helpful to make sure they are done correctly. The foot sur le cou de pied must truly be on the neck of the foot, not on the calf muscle, and in raising the leg to a higher position such as demi-retiré or retiré (retiré position is different from battement retiré/raccourci, which may finish with the working leg in retiré, demi-retiré, or sur le cou de pied positions) one must take care to always pass through a true cou de pied position. Pirouettes, too, can be useful in helping dancers become used to working with the legs at 45º and thus developing a greater awareness of the lower leg. Often, students first learn pirouettes from 5th or 4th position at retiré or demi-retiré height. When they learn grands pirouettes, AKA pirouettes in open positions, they generally start learning them at 90º. However, pirouettes sur le cou de pied without movement of the arms are useful even for advanced students to learn the appropriate action of the back muscles during all pirouettes, and students who can hold the working leg solidly at 45º but who are not yet able to do grands pirouettes at 90º can learn pirouettes in open positions at 45º. In fact, this would probably help them advance more quickly to pirouettes with the legs higher because of the control required of the back muscles. I advocate for a greater focus on allegro during ballet class (and lengthening the standard class time to 2 hours instead of 90 minutes, but that is another blog post). A very common ballet class format for jumps is a "warm-up" combination consisting of small temps levés in 1st and 2nd positions as well as changements, then a "petit allegro" combination with assemblés, jetés, glissades, and pas de chats, then a "grand allegro" combination with grandes sissonnes, grands jetés, and jetés entrelacés (AKA grand jeté en tournant). I prefer a more gradual approach. After the "warm-up" combination, one might do a combination of assemblés and small entrechats to reinforce the stabilizing muscles of the torso. This could be followed by perhaps two or three combinations involving small jetés, ballonnés, ballottés, emboités, ronds de jambe en l'air sautés, larger turning jetés, brisés, small cabrioles, small sissonnes, larger entrechats, and échappés. These would provide a transition from petit to medium (moyen?) allegro, for which one would do larger sissonnes, échappés, entrechat-six, and ronds de jambe en l'air sautés at 90º. Then, finally, a grand allegro with grands jetés, grands sissonnes, grands échappés, entrechat-six de volé, double tours en l'air, large cabrioles, fouettés sautés, &c. Obviously it is not necessary to strictly pigeonhole every step as either "grand allegro" or "petit allegro" and there is no need to specify precisely where a step ought to occur in the progression of classroom exercises. Mixing and matching steps teaches students to handle a wide variety of choreographic styles with ease and grace. I provide the above paragraph to demonstrate the idea that allegro need not be rigidly broken up, that it can/should instead be a seamless progression of ever-larger and more complicated movements. Finally, I realize that the negative examples I have provided above are not representative of everyone's experience and that many teachers are working against such technical mistakes and misplaced attention. There is much good training as well as bad and mediocre that occurs every day, and I provide examples of bad training so it may be seen, recognized, and corrected. I realize that bad training is not mistakenly exalted everywhere.

I can only surmise that having that moment recorded in a documentary inspired Ivanova to work extremely hard on her petit allegro!

I can just imagine the Kingdom of Sardines scene! But this thread is getting off-topic....

I'm not able to find the name just now, but the man who dances the Paquita pdt on "Kirov Classics" has incredible batterie. Veronika Ivanova tops my list of female dancers in that department.

I think "the miseries" could pretty much describe the entire corps during most of that ballet!

Surely it cannot be legal to ask such a thing; I suppose they must have had dancers volunteer.

I would think a dress named for Farrell would pretty much have to be white.

I confess that I dearly love text messages. However, the idea of sending them during a performance appalls me.

I was able to see the mini-store, and I think it's a great idea.

I believe it is different for every school. The best teachers on earth cannot do much with students who are not talented, and talented students won't get very far with poor instruction.

Dancers have a name for what Durante does on that Sleeping Beauty tape: air-biting.