I often publish free technique tips and articles for aspiring dancers and the dance community in general. Whether you are a current student, adult beginner, teacher, or parent, I would love to get to know you better.
I have been lucky enough to teach hundreds of aspiring ballet students in the last few years and impart to them the secrets of prima ballerinas and world renowned professional dancers.
But… before I tell you how I can help improve your dancing, let me start off by telling you how I got here and why I am writing this.
I had no idea what to expect but like many others, I always wanted to be a ballerina, so I built up the courage and finally made it to a class. When I arrived I quickly realized everyone else had been dancing at least a couple of years already and here I was, the newbie, standing in the middle of the studio not even sure if I was wearing the correct ballet attire.
My mother had never danced and knew nothing about ballet, so I couldn’t ask her for any advice. Like many other mothers, she really wanted to help but she just had no idea know what to do for me. You could only imagine the embarrassement and intimidation I felt as a teenager standing all by myself in the dance studio with all these experienced dancers and caring 110% about what everyone else thought of me.
The teacher must have seen how nervous I was. She came over and started asking me some questions about how I found the studio and what I was looking to get out of ballet class. Being a little old to be starting ballet I got the impression she didn’t think I was going to be around very long.
She showed me a few of the basics so I could at least keep up with everyone else before they got into the advanced stuff. She then addressed the entire class and we started our warm-up at the barre.
That I could handle. Although I had the gracefulness of an elephant I at least could bend my knees. I only just survived the rest of the barre by watching the others in front of me and trying to mimick them as best as I could.
Then came centre practice with temps lié and pirouettes. Apart from not having a clue what these movements were, I could hardly balance on one foot in a pirouette. The teacher was telling us to snatch our foot to retiré, spot our head, use our arms, relevé right up onto demi pointe and hold our centre tight. This was all a little overwhelming because I didn’t know what half of the words she used meant and I was still just getting use to the plié.
Then came allegro and she called out things like battement jetté, changement, and pas de bourrée. I was totally overwhelmed with all this french stuff. My dream of becoming a beautiful ballerina was very quickly fading away.
When I got home after class… Read more…
