alaneE

Hans,

i'm finally reading this post.

Very interesting 2 things: first, the important thing about the use of petite allegro onstage is its relatoin to social dances -- and hte social dances of hte moment are not very footy, EXCEPT for country-and-western, which haven't changed much. Lindy hop had lots of use for quick foot-work, and ofcourse polkas, etc. and tap was incredibly intricate i n such things, but popular dance fashions aren't with us now.

Second, and really unrelated, do you know the tape of 50 Bournonville Combinations? Fabulous combinations, demonsttrated by Rose Gad and Johann Koborg [sp?], which intermingle large and small steps in the most fascinating ways. I don't know where to begin! There are so many ways of donig tombe-pas-de-bourree -- sometimes it looks like a cabriole, sometimes its unquestionably a cabriole.

SoI'll just say you MUST check it out. it supports your concerns in every way, and gives a thousand examples of how to attack the questions you're concerned with -- sur le cou de pied is very strongly addressed.

gotta run, late for my day job.

Well...I am new here and it's late.....but, in Company Class it is the responsibility of the teachers to prepare the dancers to dance in the choreography that is present. when I was Balletmeister in Zurich for Uwe Scholz petite allegro was the high lite of the class. as Uwe did not use to much Grand allegro and the dancers needed to actually work on speed... Speed and coordination needed to be a large part of the daily training........

As it has always been a little difficult to encourage boys to "wear tights" etc, there is often a lack of firm-ness in their teaching. They normally develope a bit slower then girls and are laging behind in their motivation, thus most teachers tend to favor the boys and relax their standards in order not to scare them off. The larger established schools have the few boys that are serious about dancing and in these schools the problem is a bit different. Attire in class is actually more for the discipline of the student then for the teacher. I spent many years teaching proffesional dancers in europe and had no problem in seeing what needed to be correctedon on a dancer due to his or her attire....

I really do believe that the first step is encouraging men to enter the class....the secon d step is to make them interested enough to stay, the third step is to teach them love and discipline for an art form....(but yes i agree with u)