Tag: how to do ballet
-
Chassé You Don’t Stay: The Connecting Steps of Ballet
They say, when it comes to a professional dancer, that you can tell how talented a dancer is based on their connecting steps. Some say the petit allegro is the tell-all of a dancer, but when it comes to ballet these days, we often get caught up in pirouettes, hypermobility and flexibility, and what is…
-
Daily Ballet Vocab: Tendu Pour le Pied
Daily Ballet Vocabulary: Sometimes it is hard to remember the names of ballet terms or the technique behind them, but today we are bringing you ballet vocabulary!
-
Notes on Demi Plié
Ballet is hard. Really hard. No matter how ballet has progressed, the fundamentals of ballet have always stayed the same: turnout, pointed feet, and becoming something unattainable and unimaginable. Yes, these are the fundamentals, but the principals that ballet is based on have constantly changed throughout the decades to progress the technique. The first of…
-
NEW @ A BALLET EDUCATION
A few new things are finally here at A Ballet Education! The first thing up is, I am putting up a bunch of videos on Youtube. I promise that the quality of filming will get better! Also, a lot of you have asked to be fully illustrated instead of doodled… and my answer has…
-
NOTES ON ROND DE JAMBE…
Notes on Rond De Jambes (a terre) “Round of the leg on the ground” poster available here in 3 sizes. (click here) Eeesh. This is one of the hardest steps at barre in ballet. The exercise requires a ton of control and focus. In theory, this step should be really easy and a lot of…
-
Notes on Jetés… petit jetés… and awful petit allegro
There is nothing in the world… and I mean nothing… better than a really good, really clean, really technical petit allegro. Yup, it can turn any bad day into a great day… or it can turn a great day into a crappy day depending on what side of the glass window you are standing on….…
-
Notes on Pirouettes… en dehors… part one
I have been avoiding talking about anything at center as I am trying to focus on my book, BUT a lot of you have asked… a lot… So, when it comes to pirouettes, I probably could write a good 10 pages about them… With that being said, I was never a turner… In fact, I…
-
Notes on Dégagés…
In the beginning there was pliés, followed by tendus, and then came dégagés. It is the way the universe designed it… or the French. Because of this, there are two types of techniques out there… Good technique and bad technique. Unfortunately, there is a lot more bad technique out there than good technique. (Seriously… I’ve…
-
Notes on working from the backs of your legs
I would hate, and I mean hate it, when a teacher would yell at me or give me the correction: you are gripping your quads, work from the back of your legs. The correction itself is an insult because they are basically saying you are about to get thick thunder thighs, but they wouldn’t tell…
-
Notes on Port de Bras… well clarification
In America, we use the vocabulary term “port de bras” too much. We overuse the term quite a bit… Then again, in the English language, we have a tendency to group ideas together under one word, limiting our vocabularies sometimes. So, I would like to talk about, how in America we use “port de bras”…
-
Notes on the Basics… my basics
Apparently, once again I have to go in depth to defend my blog… and truthfully… At this point I don’t really care, with the exception of recent negative comments and emails from other ballet bloggers and ballet teachers… Let’s talk about the basics of ballet and not the fact that other blogs rarely quote their sources,…
-
Notes on Tendu… well tendu devant
If you thought standing in first position was hard…. try moving in ballet. Moving in ballet looks easy, due to all of the painstaking and financially draining years dancers train before getting an elusive contract. In ballet the first thing you learn is plié, but because I have not mastered the art drawing a plié…
-
First Position: it is so hard
Ballet is hard, like really hard but teachers expect young children to get into classical positions by the age of 5. And you know, at some dolly dinkle studio they are teaching their students ridiculously hard techniques to students who are like 9…. If people really understood the body and complexities of ballet technique and…
-
Should You Hyperextend?
The obvious answer is yes. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ridiculous and silly. Everyone goes on and on about if you should hyperextend your knees or if you shouldn’t hyperextend and blah blah blah. The answer is pretty obvious at looking at any ballet photo or video. Now, to be a little more precise,…
-
5 things your teachers will never tell you… and they should
If you are ages 11+ and you are training in ballet, like seriously training… Not like the, I dance ballet twice a week, supplemented with 4 jazz classes, leaps and turns and competition rehearsals… Like REAL TRAINING… Meaning you are taking at least 3 hours of ballet a day, and you are pushing yourself constantly.…
You must be logged in to post a comment.