Category Archives: class notes
It’s Creative Arts Therapy Week, You Guys!
…And I am being a Delinquent Danseur. So I’ll open with some super-brief Class Notes:
Barre
Another new student this time (with amazing feet!). She shared my barre, and I proceeded to do the degage combination wrong because muscle memory (it was almost identical to one we use frequently in more advanced classes, but with slight differences — closing the balancoire front where it would normally close back, etc). I hope I didn’t confuse her too much! My grand battement was also wigglier than usual in the middle at moments, but not horribly so.
My balances were much better today. I am basically practicing nothing but balances at home. I am ridiculous. Need something in the fridge? Open the door. Coupe. Balance. Need something in the cabinet? Open the door. Passe. Balance.
Goings-Across-The-Floor
Because Louisville is one very Catholic town and it was the day before St. Padraig’s, we learned a couple of Irish dance steps (in the famous words of Willem DeFoe: “Kinda makes ya feel like Riverdancin’!”).
It wasn’t “ballet proper,” but it was fun; ridiculously so. Sometimes it’s good to mix it up a little and relax.
One step was basically a very kicky, bouncy, fast-traveling Pas de Basque; the other was sort of like saute-passe, only the working knee points straight ahead instead of straight out to the side. Fun stuff, and a nice change of pace. Of course, being Dancers Who Try Very Hard, we all tried to do them with our arms in correct Irish Dance form, and hilarity ensued (because, you guys, that involves fighting every Ballet Instinct you have ever cultivated).
By the end of class, we were all grinning like a pack of six-year-olds in a Pixie Stix factory.
Interesting note: it’s amazing how light you suddenly feel when you relax a little — which is, as always, something I need to work on (“Don’t make it happen, let it happen!”).
…And that was it. My leg was fine (I kept the little traveling jumps low), and I had a great time. Denis predicts that this will be my last week as a rehab student; while I’ll need to continue re-strengthening my calf, I’ll probably finally get permission to do big jumps for real next week. YAAAY! I miss my grand allegro! (Okay, so I may or may not have practiced tours-in-the-air a couple of times in the kitchen…)
Okay! Now onto the whole Creative Arts Therapy Thing!
So it’s Creative Arts Therapy Week! That means we get to celebrate everything about Creative Arts Therapy!
As such, I’d like to point your attention to the ADTA’s blog, where you’ll find a fresh entry about becoming a DMT!
You’ll notice that there are now seven accredited DMT Masters’ programs. Sara Lawrence has been in the process of gaining accreditation, so it’s good to see that they’ve made the cut. For a number of reasons, I’ve got my sights set on Drexel in Philadelphia, but it’s always nice to have more options.
Anyway!
Not so long ago, I really underestimated the value of the creative arts therapies — I like to tell people about how my knee-jerk response to Denis’ suggestion that I become a DMT was, “Dance therapy? …That’s for hippies.” It turns out that the more we learn about how the brain changes in response to experience, the more value we begin to see in things like art therapy and dance therapy.
However, the neuropsychological potential of DMT is only part of the picture (you guys, it’s hard for me, Mr. Neuroscience-Is-Everything-And-Everything-Is-Neuroscience, to write those words!).
To be brief: I know that for me, even outside of the formal context of Dance-Movement Therapy, dance is a critical part of the therapeutic process in ways that reach beyond measurable changes in levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor and so forth.
Ballet has boosted my confidence immensely. Spending several hours every week moving while barely clothed in a room full of mirrors and near-strangers has really forced me to think about my relationship with my own body (this hasn’t always been easy or comfortable, but it has been valuable). Learning to regard my body as capable (in some ways, exceptionally so) and trustworthy has also done wonders for me.
The class schedule adds order to my sometimes-chaotic life and gets me out of bed on my worst days. Numbering myself as a member of the broader communion of dancers bolsters my identity in ways that I can’t begin to express or explain. Knowing that I have class in the morning (or evening) is, likewise, protective against some of my less-helpful impulses: we have established that drinking can really hose things up for me, mood-wise, and ballet class bears such powerful emotional salience as to override the desire to go out and get hammered (or, well, have three beers, if you’re me).
We don’t yet really know how to measure things like that empirically with the tools of neuroscience, but their value is immense — even, perhaps, immeasurable. The process of healing and growth involves both discrete, measurable, empirical factors and factors that remain far more subjective and mysterious.
As a culture, we might not put much stock in those subjective and mysterious factors — but that doesn’t mean they’re not real. It’s likely that we’ll figure out how to measure them with the tools of neurobiology some day, but I don’t think that really matters. Growth and healing are evidence in their own right: when a paralytically-shy kid begins to emerge from his shell, or a hostile young lady learns to trust other people a little more, we may not always really grasp what’s going on a biological level — but we know for sure that something’s going on.
I can say that the little experience I’ve had with DMT in action — the practical portions of Linnie Diehl’s introductory intensive at 2014’s ADTA conference — has been transformative. There’s something magical about the process of moving together as a group, and there’s another level of magic involved in doing so under the guidance of a wise and experienced therapist. Literally never in my life have I seen such a bond of trust and fellowship blossom so quickly among a group of strangers.
I’m sure that, too, is something we’ll eventually figure out how to measure empirically with the tools of neurobiology. However, even if we never do, the value inherent in that process must not be underestimated.
I am not someone who naturally feels comfortable joining a group — I harbor a lot of distrust leftover from a childhood in which I was a perpetual outsider. Within the framework of DMT, however, dance is an amazing tool to combat that bred-in-the-bone distrust of groups: when you move together under the guidance of a qualified Dance-Movement Therapist, it’s not like distrust evaporates — it just tends to slip away when you’re not looking.
Once you give yourself to the process, as a participant, you can’t hold onto distrust. Connections get made before you realize it’s happening, and you become part of a whole greater than yourself.
That’s the feeling I love in ballet class — there’s a part of me that just absolutely grooves on that thing where we’re like ten or twenty or thirty little cells in this animal that is Class; another part that loves the sense that what I’m doing right now is the same thing that every ballet dancer, everywhere, does and has done since the dawn of the art (not that I usually think about that in class: there’s no time for philosophizing!).
Dance-Movement Therapy can impart that same sense of unity, and its tools provide the means to invite participants to step out of their own comfort zones. I’ll be the first to say that I was wildly uncomfortable with the mirroring exercise we did at the start of Linnie Diehl’s intensive — I was afraid, some how, that I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to connect; that I wouldn’t be able to follow other peoples’ movement patterns. Even though I’d done a similar exercises in acting and modern-dance contexts, it just seemed daunting, somehow.
I think I was also afraid I’d somehow do it “wrong,” and immediately be told that I had no business trying to become a DMT! (I was also afraid I’d find myself excessively hung up in the formal language of ballet, but that’s a different problem.)
Knowing that everyone else was trying and struggling, working to connect, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not, right along with me made that much easier. I was able to know that because Linnie Diehl was there to guide the process, and because afterwards we talked about how it went.
By the end of the warm-up, our little group of would-be DMTs was moving together, trusting each-other. I’m sure there are all kinds of perfectly good scientific explanations (hello, oxytocin!), but ultimately, it doesn’t matter why Dance-Movement Therapy makes that happen.
It simply matters that DMT does make it happen.
Danseur Ignoble: Mining the Elements (Friday Essentials Notes)
I am still making the most of my long purgatory in Essentials, (not so-) patiently working the basics while rebuilding the strength in my calf.
We had a new guy today — it was his second class, but I missed Monday evening, so we hadn’t met before. He’s an enthusiastic student and looks like he’ll stick around, which is great.
As I was heading down to the bus stop, we chatted about classes, and how Margie’s class is well worth taking no matter how long you’ve danced (though our new guy was really totally new).
I was reminded yet again how a basic class is never a waste of time. Even the most advanced dancer can stand to check in with the essential elements of his or her technique from time to time.
Just as importantly, perfection is an ever-receding goal. In ballet, you will never learn absolutely all of the technique perfectly. Thus, it’s very heartening to revisit your strengths.
Today I really focused on bringing musicality into my port de bras and épaulement. I also worked on one-foot relève balances, particularly on developing a better proprioceptive sense about my back. My right calf is still weakish; by the time it’s strong enough for serious work, I hope to have my back well and truly sorted. I am practicing balances like crazy at home, too.
I should stipulate: I can balance quite well as long as I’m moving (so my turns are better than my static balances would imply), and I can definitely balance for a few seconds at a time.
I can also generally balance longer when I step into demi-pointe. It’s rising to élevé or relève that seems to add the difficulty. Too often (just as when I was learning to track stand on the bike), I do fine until I notice that I’m balancing.
So it’s a question of finding my center and staying there as I balance. And, like, not doing whatever, “Oh, hey, look at that!” micromovement it is that knocks me over when I succeed!
Our Ballet Anniversary is coming up. I feel like I’ve had a couple setbacks, but overall I’ve gained a lot of ground as a dancer, especially in terms of musicality and expression (which were not my strengths as a kid: I got by on natural grace, but didn’t really make the effort to develop it).
I think that’s really good progress: what I admired in T when I first ventured into Beginner class was his grace, his musicality. I said I’d be pretty happy if, after a year, I was where he was then. I feel like I’ve attained that goal; like I’ve transformed from overwrought squid into, you know, something like an actual dancer.
The 17th, our actual Ballet Anniversary, is a Tuesday, so we won’t be in class on that exact day — but I hope to be back to working jumps, maybe, which will make a nice end to my first year back in the studio.
A year ago, I wasn’t sure where I was going. Now I have a goal and a long-term plan to reach it, and ballet is part of that plan.
Pretty cool stuff. I’m actually looking forward to the future.
That’s good progress, too.
Danseur Ignoble: Saturday Essentials Class With New, Improved Arms!
I love ballet for any number of reasons, not least the magical thing that happens when all the wiring you’ve been installing suddenly fires to life and, holy cow, you get it (thanks, neuroplasticity!).
Today was one of those days: in Essentials, everything was easy, and my arms were fluid and graceful and coordinated.
Margie asked me to demonstrate the sauté (arabesque) – chassee combo going across the floor, and I was able to do it on both legs. I kept it low and easy, though, and I’m sure Denis would appreciate that.
We had a new student who said she hasn’t danced in about 20 years, but she must have had excellent training. Her arms were lovely and she followed all the barre and center combinations like a champ. I hope she’ll come back!
No specific corrections today (except a note about making sure to get back to sauté-ing instead of Sissone-ing when my leg is done healing; I am still favoring that leg a bit, so often I do little Sissones instead of proper sautés) and a reminder (rather than a correction) to get my heels down between jumps.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Back to Monday Class Notes
Essentials tonight. Lovely, easy class: port de bras and épaulement hung together all through barre, full splits again, grand battement mostly sans barre, back to doing single-leg relevés on both sides. I was able to do our sous-sous-échappe exercise (also sans barre, because there’s really no excuse for using the barre for that at this point).
No jumps tonight, which is for the best. The calf is definitely just a touch sore, so jumps probably would’ve been a bridge too far. Little jumps and Sissones next week, I think (and whatever on the left leg). Temps levee, on the other hand, is at least two weeks out (on the right leg).
Across the floor we just did glissade-pas de bourree. Super easy, so I made an effort to make it look pretty (and succeeded, if I do say so myself).
Today was one of those interesting days on which I felt okay about my body throughout class. I’m still wrestling with being okay with my body. That’s going to be a long process for me.
Still, it does help when your turnout works, and your extensions are high, and your arms work, and you don’t dance like a squid on too much Ritalin. Then you can at least say to yourself, “Okay, so I can be grateful that my body is capable.”
For a long time I really struggled with that idea, because I thought that recognizing that was supposed to magically make the bad feelings go away, and when it didn’t it hurry and I resented it. (I also resented the heck out of the idea that people wanted to tell me how I should feel: and while I’m sure some of them actually did, a lot of people who have said, “… But it’s great that your body Works!” probably really didn’t intend that.)
It turns out that I’m not stuck forcing myself to only feel one or the other.
Instead, the dysphoric hurtiness and the gratitude can kind of coexist, like siblings in the back of the car, elbowing each-other now and then but also not killing each-other, which really kind of feels like a big deal, to be honest.
So the difficulty, the dysphoria that may or may not every go away, that’s still there, but I’ve reached a point at which I somehow simultaneously manage to be grateful for some stuff about my body (and not just my feet).
It doesn’t make the dysphoria not hurt, but it makes it less cognitively dissonant to sit with the dysphoria in the face of an emerging appreciation for what is rather an immense array of capability. I don’t know if I’m making any sense, here, because it’s such a weird, new idea for me (I’m sure that folks who are better-versed in dialectical behavior therapy are all like “Well, duuuh!” ;))
Okay. That’s enough trying-to-asplain for now.
Anyway, I plan to go home and RICE my leg and rest it well tomorrow. This coming week I have a bazillion things to do, including a doctor’s appointment to discuss meds. I will try to also get caught up on comment replies (which I’ve been handling kind of willy-nilly) and reading all the awesome blogs that you guys have shared with me and, I guess, also shared me with 😀
No Wednesday class this week.
G’night, everybody.
Val Caniparoli’s “A Cinderella Story” at Louisville Ballet
I’m going to keep this brief, because I’m soooooooo tired.
This was, simply put, a really surprisingly great show. Very different, very modern choreography; great music; awesome set design; excellent execution by the dancers — but the acting element was what really stole the show. (Also: Loved the wacko stepmother. She was brilliant!)
Dancers embodying their characters; playing with them; blurring the line between “dancer” and “actor” — that makes for great ballet storytelling. No awkward pantomime. One rather hilarious allusion to Swan Lake.
Enjoyed immensely; highly recommended. Did cabrioles all the way to the car (but only on the left leg!).
If you can go see it, do!
One caveat: some younger kids (and some less creative adults) may not groove on the very abstract storytelling approach. Our nephew (who turned 7 in January) really enjoyed some scenes, but a lot of it went right over his head. However, dance-mad kids with some ballet training will either love it (if they love dance, period) or haaaate it (if they’re classical ballet purists).
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Taking It Easy
Ballet is basically the ultimate sport/art for masochists (short, I guess, of the Sun Dance). Dancers push themselves hard; we push ourselves ’til it hurts, and then, generally speaking, we push a little more, because we figure that’s A) how you grow and B) how you prove yourself.
As such, we dancers can be a bit silly about recovering from injuries. First, there’s the “No Fun” factor (What do you mean, no jumps?! But I love jumping!); second, there’s the eternal fear of (GASP!) falling behind. :::shudder:::
Needless to say, after re-injuring my now nearly three-week-old calf injury last Saturday, I’m taking one for the team. Sucking it up and cooling it down.
Today, I did class, but I skipped the jumps, the one-foot releves and balances (on the right), and even the little springing sous-sous/echappe exercise that I normally enjoy so much (because it lets me show off, basically).
I’m also working slowly and carefully through just about everything, paying constant attention to whether or not that calf hurts. It’s not my natural approach to dealing with injury (which is, more or less, to pretend the injury hasn’t happened and continue apace), but, well … I think there might be something to it.
Taking it easy in class is giving my calf time to heal — but it’s also allowing me to focus on really sharpening up my basic technique, and I think that’s an invaluable opportunity. I’m working on really feeling turnout in all the right muscles (without clenching; I am like the King of Clenching, people, you don’t even know!), really feeling where my weight needs to be, and so forth. Pretty cool stuff.
The weird part of working through this particular injury is that it has made me very conscious of just how hard the muscles and tendons in my calves are working even when balancing at releve on both feet. My sous-sous is just not as stable right now as it usually is: my right leg isn’t all the way there.
Also, it was really weird doing barre stretch with no releve on the right foot. You develop routines; habits (dancers are rather infamous for being creatures of habit anyway). I had to think about how to get from a la seconde to en face. The answer? One very un-balletic shimmy. Like, work that booty, baby. But it got me there, so it flies.
I spent the time that everyone else was doing little jumps working my plies.
I do not use my plie sufficiently in jumps anyway: I have way overdeveloped the muscles that let you spring off of your toes, so I under-utilize the rest of my leg when jumping, and that’s how I injured myself in the first place (Ballet peeps! When your teacher yells HEELS ON THE FLOOR!!! as you saute across the room, that’s why!).
As my calf comes back online, I plan to spend a few weeks really concentrating on getting my heels on the ground and using the bejeezus out of my plie, even if that means smaller jumps for now. Eventually, it should let me manage even higher, more powerful jumps — which is pretty neat, since I’m already pretty good at high, powerful jumps: but first, I need to retrain my muscle memory and neural wiring so using the plie fully is part of the jumping process.
Going across the floor I worked on ballet walk and then little chasses on the right leg; on the left, I was able to do the saute arabesque-chassee combination. Switching back and forth every couple of strides made for one heck of an effective coordination exercise; I was able to get my legs to do it, but my arms got hella confused. I also got off one little cabriole — but just one.
I feel like this means I should probably play with doing different combinations on each leg on a regular basis, to familiarize myself with the process of rapidly flipping back and forth between two different choreographic elements. Though, now that I think of it in those terms, it feels like it should actually be easier to do than it was.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Time to go collect a movie and some stuff to throw together for dinner!
Ballet Squid Chronicles: More Cabrioles Followed By Argh
Margie’s class was great today, mostly.
Pretty barre. One long, effortless passé relève balance. Graceful work at center. Nice cabrioles. I got to demonstrate grand jete.
And then, boom.
This bizarre popping sensation in my calf, and once again I was done. Just like two Mondays ago, my calf would not work. I could stand, I could walk, I could jump on my left leg, but putting weight on the ball of my right foot was essentially un-doable.
The protective mechanisms that keep you from destroying yourself had kicked in. Interesting!
Fortunately, Denis was in class, so once we were really done, I asked him to take a quick look at my calf.
The verdict: no tears or anything, but in the process of compensating for my previous injury, I’d injured something else.
I’ll be doing only barre and maybe adagio for a week or so. No jumping; no one-leg relève balances on the right. No promenades on the right foot. No cabrioles 😦
Denis is lovely and has bought me some compression socks and a support sleeve thing for the right ankle. They feel really good.
Anyway, I’ll be back at it soon enough.
In other news, Claire’s secret mission was an audition with another company, and she got the job!
Which is both super exciting and kind of sad.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Cabriole
I took Margie’s class today, due to the calf thing (which is now almost entirely better).
Good corrections:
1. I’m still throwing my shoulders back in my turns (this was a self-correction that Margie seconded :D)
2. I flex my shoulders back too much when my arms are in second.
Edit: OMG, you guys, I just totally figured this out!
When I bring my sternum up and forward, I’m throwing my shoulders back, as if they can’t move independently of one-another.
In fact, they can: there is no bony connection whatsoever between the shoulders and the ribcage (creepy, amirite?) — just the cartilaginous one where the sternum and clavicles (collarbones) connect.
So it is, in fact, possible to move the sternum up and forward without moving the shoulders back — basically, if you think about keeping the shoulders down and moving the sternum up and forwards (as if someone has a hook through the front of your shirt!), it’s easier to do this without throwing the shoulders further back and thus hosing up all your turns.
Et voila!
Like, I go to allongé, basically, as my default second. This is what felt so different in Brian’s class (he made us do almost the entire barre with arms at second, and he made m do my second right).
This is another artefact of that benign hypermobile joint thingy. So having retrained my proprioception in my wrists and elbows, I now need to retrain it in my arms so second feels like second, instead of second allongé feeling like second. Normal second feels like I’m curled in on myself, but it looks really good and keeps my balance forward.
I came up with an analogy that works for me regarding développée avant from fondu — it’s like you’re using the inside of your heel to hand someone an egg.
If you turn in at all, you drop the egg, so you have to keep rotating the leg as it rises. For me, this forces a smooth, graceful extension.
I also did cabrioles while we did sauté arabesque, chassée across the floor, because why not? Margie mentioned it, so I whipped them out.
I didn’t do them on the right (supporting) leg, though — the calf is mostly healed, but I didn’t want to push it. As I got tired, my sautés on that side turned into sissones. I got called out on that, too 😉
Margie reminded me that I should be beating the bottom leg and letting the top one sort of rise off of it; did my next set with that in mind, and it worked like magic.
It’s one of those technique things I know but don’t think of. I tend to do some kind of crazy diagonal soubresaut thing instead.
So there you have it. Friday class with cabrioles. I’m looking forward to tomorrow ^-^
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Monday Class with Brian!
Claire is away on a secret mission (to know, to will, to dare, to not blab your favourite teachers’ ambitions all over the place!) elsewhere this week, so Brian (AKA Professional Dance Guy) taught class tonight, and it was a blast.
He gives a very good class — athletic but not exhausting, challenging but well within reach.
I mostly didn’t hose up his barre; I promenaded without any dramanade; I did some pretty-ish turns (and some turrible ones); I didn’t forget any combinations going across the floor (though I did count wrong a couple of times; how hard is it to count to 16? Seriously!).
Many of today’s improvements were the direct result of the sole me-specific correction of the day. Brian was walking around correcting people who were getting slouchy at the barre, and suddenly he walked up to me, grabbed me by the waist, and pronounced “Not you, too!”
It was definitely more a command than a comment: but up til that moment I thought I was pulled up. (To be fair, I started out pretty well, but then apparently I got sloppy without noticing it.)
Oddly enough, it turns out that feeling pulled up isn’t the same thing as being pulled up. And, strangely enough, being really pulled up makes you dance more gracefully… and makes your turns better, and makes your dramanades turn back into promenades.
This was especially important because we did our promenades en dehors, which is harder than doing them en dedans (though we were doing them at passé, which is easier than doing the Swan-Lake-arabesque-extended-cut promenades no matter which way you turn).
Apparently I feed off physical corrections: every few minutes I would feel Brian’s hands on my waist again, like a mental-physical reminder: Are you pulled up? Oh, yeah? Really?
My calf got a bit sore by the end of class, so my final petite allegro combination looked a little lame (literally), but other than that I felt pretty good about myself today. I’m starting to make progress again.
I’m also doing all my physical therapy exercises like a good boy and trying to eat enough food even though my appetite has kind of died again. I am not worrying about it now, though: it seems to do this from time to time, and I am still not at a point where it would be dangerous to shed some weight.
If I get there, then I’ll worry. Otherwise, I’ll just try to remember to eat enough even when I’m not feeling hungry. This is part of why I still track my diet religiously.
Okay, so that’s it for tonight. It’s nice to finish class feeling excited about making progress again!
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Onward and Upward
Tonight, Claire sorted my fourth position (which was too wide), silenced my too-noisy pique, and gave us all a number of general corrections about keeping our weight moving forward and upward.
This latter point makes adagio both easier and prettier. Emphasis on easier. Much less “construction crane,” much more “graceful swan.” Or, you know, fairly graceful turkey.
We did some nice choreography, lovely little jumps, and then I pulled the &#@! out of my right gastrocnemius soleus (thanks, Denis!) doing a petit allegro combination across the floor — pulled it so hard I couldn’t jump on that leg for the remaining five minutes of class (I was able to do pique turns using the right as the supporting leg, but not the left).
Brienne was in class tonight and showed me how to roll it out on a lacrosse ball. I think that, some naproxen, and a little RICE should sort it.
So there you have it. Your Humble Ballet Squid has finally succeeded in injuring himself during class, but not so badly he won’t be back in action this weekend.
In other news, Paul Taylor on Friday! Wooooohoooooo!
danseur ignoble 