Thursday!
Moderately sucked at modern today. Ballet, on the other hand, was rather good, except for the part in which I misunderestimated my tendency to travel and lame-ducked myself right into the shelf-desk thing on which the music system resides.
Also, salient men’s technique bits: instead of B+, preparatory position for dudes is usually with the back leg straight (notable exceptions: Balanchine et Bournonville(1)); likewise, we generally chassé into hell turns chaînes. I suspect that’s how I learned then as a wee bairn, in fact, because when I do then that way my body suddenly to the, “Oh, you mean these things!” instead of, “ABORT! ABORT!”
- Autocorrupt always tries to make this “Bidonville.” A bidon is a bottle, like an old-fashioned water bottle for bike racing. The idea of the magnificent Erik Bruhn arising from a school founded by someone named “Bottletown” never fails to make me chortle with unrestrained mirth.
BW has a gift for bringing out the best in his students—or at least in me. BB agrees, though. We both love his classes.
In other news, I’ve evolved an alarming tendency to do turns on autopilot, then think I haven’t done them and do extra turns. WTF even if that? I threw in an extra stepover, even.
In other, other news, I forgot my legwarmers, so BW lent me some of his. He described them as “fashion backward,” and we joked about how they look like they were knitted from a 1970s sofa, but they did the job just fine.
Each Spring, sofherds guide the half-wild flocks down from the hills, where they’re shorn of their thick winter coats before returning to the range (via Pinterest).
I remembered to give them back after class. It feels weird, somehow, to hand someone a sweaty ball of legwarmers, though—which is in itself weird, as exchanging sweat-soaked hugs with other dancers seems perfectly normal. Maybe it’s the, “Oh, here, have some sweat to take home” angle that feels so weird.
Anyway, this is one of of the nice things about taking a tiny class taught by a friend. If you forget your legwarmers because your brain is full, your teacher can lend you his without making everyone else who forgot theirs feel unloved or whatevs.
Anyway, I’m quite tired and looking forward to my rest day tomorrow.
Posted on 2017/01/12, in balllet and tagged BW's class, forgot my tags, men's technique. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
danseur ignoble 
I had to borrow some guy’s vest the other day, which was comically small on my chest and shoulders (yay skwaaatz) and ended up drenched in stink. Also, skipped(!) Thursday night class because the gf was just back and it seemed decent. meanwhile, just did some breakfast turns and yes! coming on nicely out of straight-back-legged fourth.
btw, “bidonville” is French for “shanty town” or “favela”. somewhere where plastic jerry cans are central to life.
Somehow, that definition of “bidonville” is even more hilarious in this context. Thanks! (Also a useful term to keep on file…my French is so boring and stiff, just like my modern was yesterday.)
Well done on the breakfast turns!Those were the ones I was working last night—the Balanchine standard, instead of the Balanchine legs/French arms hybrid I’ve apparently been doing for goodness only knows how long. I like the straight-back-leg launch.
Perhaps the exchange of sweaty goods operates as some kind of unconscious tribal ritual. “Here are these stanktastic things back; now we are brothers.” Like being “blood brothers,” but in a way that is wildly incomprehensible to people who don’t dance…
Also: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/balanchine-teaching
I keep two pairs of leg warmers and an undetermined number of socks (for jazz) in my dance bag and I frequently end up loaning them to people. The sweat is never an issue really (but then again, women usually sweat less than men).
That’s really sweet of you! It’s amazing how legwarmers can go AWOL (I found mine in my bedroom, even though I don’t remember either bringing them in or wearing them in…).
Re: sweat—OMG, I sweat so, so much. OTOH, BW does, too, so I think maybe we have an understanding. IIRC, someone in the company actually described him as “a really graceful sprinkler system” during Nutcracker. Prior to that I thought I was the only one who used that analogy 😀
Hahaha that is a good one, I have to remember that! Sweating can be really annoying (I know from the SO’s experience, not my own). I only used to really sweat in hip-hop class, which was basically 80 minutes of non-stop calisthenics smoothly transitioning into choreography.