Category Archives: balllet

Very Funny, Universe

Very Funny, Universe

Jan 22

Posted by

Before tonight, I had managed never to really fall off the trapeze before. I’ve dumped myself off handstand-style once, but that doesn’t really count.

Tonight, I managed to take a legit fall—during my audition.

In retrospect, I made the wrong call abotu my music: instead of just going for the piece I’d intended, “La Mer,” which was a little too long, and letting them cut it off, I opted for “Beyond the Sea” (Bobby Darin’s version).

It turns out that the tempo of Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” is actually quite a bit faster than the recording I have of “La Mer.” I was tired and attempting to adapt, and somewhere along the line my brain decided halfway into an egg-to-pike inversion that I was actually doing the arabesque roll to sit that comes at the end.

20161004_085517.jpg

Uh-oh. Here comes the Failboat.

Since one wraps one’s arms for the inversion in question, it’s not possible to do the roll in question without breaking said arms. I’m more afraid of breaking bones than of falling, so I basically just let go.

Failboat

Allll Aboooooaaaaard!

 

Apparently it was a pretty spectacular fall—and a technically-correct one 🙂 I tucked and rolled, and as a result the only parts of me that hurt are my forearms, which is what happens when you wrap your arms and then do crazy shizzle.

I popped back up and was ready to hop back on the trap before they even had a chance to cut the music (though they did, in order to make sure I was okay). I sorted my way through the rest of the trap routine, though I didn’t do the arabesque roll at the end; my arms weren’t digging that.

Ironically, the rest of the audition went pretty well, and apparently my trapeze improv looked pretty great (the fall was evidently quite exciting as well :D).

So, that’s my life for you. When I do finally manage to fall off the trap, it’s in the middle of an audition.

the-most-interesting-cat-in-the-world

At least I didn’t fall down during the dance portion? I did fall down during the acting part, but that was on purpose.

So there.

~

Oh, also, ballet was good today, petit allegro was far less bad than usual, and we discussed rehearsals for showcase, etc.

We also had a Physical Theater workshop, and afterwards I was chatting with the teacher, and she said something like, “So, you dance ballet?”

And I said something like, “Yeah, a little modern, but ballet is really my first language and my first love.”

Then she said, “I could tell—the legs!”

😀

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Eat All The Food.

Posted in adventures, aerials, auditions, balllet, life, mistakes

2 Comments

Tags: , , , ,

On Technique: Frappe, Elevated

Jan 21

Posted by

Fifth in a series of posts on the details of technique that focuses primarily on steps and aspects of dance that I’m struggling with. Take it with a grain of salt.

I find it helpful to write things out in an effort to get a grip on them. These aren’t so much instructions (though if they work for you, awesome!) as observations.

Today, in HD’s advanced class, we were given the option to do the frappé at the barre on flat or rélevé as we saw fit.

Since I’m trying to see my way back to being fit, I chose to do the whole combination on rélevé. 

Frappré en rélevé has been a bit of a white whale for me for a while. I tend to knock myself off my leg. Today, HD fixed that for me.

The source of the problem it seems, is that en rélevé, I tend to snap! my leg out from the knee.

Not only is this bad for your knees, but it has a way of making your turnout muscles say, “Aw, hell naw!” and let go. Hence, the knocking-one’s-self-off-of-one’s-leg part.

HD caught this and told me to squeeze the working leg out, as if against the resistance of a Theraband (or, in my mind, a giant vat of chocolate pudding … I went to class without breakfast this morning).

On the second side, I tried it, et voilà! 

Much better frappés en rélevé.

So that’s today’s snack-size serving of technical notes: yes, frappé should be quick and sharp, but it’s still a squeeze and not a snap!

That’s it for today. Problems to solve in the world, etc. (Dancer problems, but still…)

Posted in balllet, technical notes, uggghhh...technique

6 Comments

Tags: , , ,

Hmm

Jan 20

Posted by

I’m curious about a thing.

Every time I walk into a brick-and-mortar dance shop, people assume I’m a professional(1). Occasionally, this even lands me a Professional Dancer Discount (not gonna argue with that).

  1. A professional dancer, that is. Not, like, a sex worker or a hit man (though, let’s be honest: those both seem like career paths for which years of ballet training might be a reasonable form of preparation).

This makes me curious. Is it because I’m an adult buying dance stuff for myself (as opposed to buying dance stuff for a child). Is it because I’m a guy? Is there possibly some other reason?

Adult dance peeps: does this happen to you? If so, any thoughts about why?

Posted in adulting, balllet, it is a silly place, life

Leave a comment

Tags: ,

Ballet Homework! 

Jan 19

Posted by

BW continues to be amazing, as always. 

Tonight became Turns Class. This resulted in Turns Homework, as follows:

  1. Passé Pulses*: plié & spring into your highest passé whilst shooting arrows of intention from your supporting leg right through the center of the earth and out the other side. Then use the turnouts and the other muscles of the upper leg to pulse the passé just a little higher and back several times without changing anything else.
  2. All The Singles: prepare fifth (to get your turnouts in the game), tendu à la 2nd, rond into a Goldilocks fourth (not too big, not too small), and then: turn, land fourth, plié eight times. Then do the other side. You can do these at the end of class; it takes about a minute.
  3. I Am An Aeroplane**: place your arms à la 2nd and set your feet in a small 2nd (parallel is fine). Keeping everything engaged through the core, rotate back and forth until you want to die. 

*I think this one might be specific to fairly advanced students with a sound passé. You really want to do it at your maximum turnout or you’re going to wind up working the wrong muscles, which isn’t going to help anyone.

**I feel like this one needs video. This is not the aerobics version in which you twist at the waist. It is exactly the opposite of of that. Your whole body moves together. The whole point is that everything remains engaged.

I have, of course, taken the liberty of giving these creative names and memorable descriptions. All three are suitable for use in the kitchen, which is, as all dancers know, where we do our Turns Homework.

The goal, of course, is to prevent handbasketry.

Still pretty much my favorite graphic. I think I’m going to get this printed on a t-shirt.

Posted in balllet, class notes

7 Comments

Tags: ,

The Best Five Words Any Dancer Can Hear

Jan 19

Posted by

…Besides, of course, “You’re hired, here’s your contract.”

Modern went well today. It was just me, and we worked a lot on release and … hm, what I’ll call the redistribution of tension.

My ability as concerns modern in general and release technique in particular varies drastically depending on various things.

I am, after all, Central Casting Troubled Ballet Boy, which means I am also Uptight Ballet Boy.

When I haven’t been doing modern class regularly in a while, I have to completely re-learn how to relax and release and let my head have weight and stuff like that. My first few classes usually leave me convinced that I dance like a poorly-maintained robot. It takes a little while to learn to feel my body again.

Once I figure all that out, though, things start to get considerably better.

Today was one of those revelatory classes. Parts of my body remembered how to modern, and I continued working on applying the general lessons I’m working on right now.

Anyway, at the end of class, LT said The Five Greatest Words to me:

You’re such a hard worker.

If there’s one thing dancers seem universally to respect, it’s a solid work ethic.

It makes sense: dance is work.

We go to class and we work. We go to rehearsal and we work. We get out there on stage and we work. We stand in our kitchens working on our balances and our turns. Even if our sleep, we dream about dancing, and our brains work overtime.

As dancers, everything we do is work, and no matter how talented you are, your talent will get you nowhere if you don’t show up and put in the work.

So when someone tells me I’m a hard worker, it means a lot to me—especially since, as a kid, I was The Talented One That Doesn’t Realize He Has To Work, and part of me feels like the rest of my life is basically a chance to atone for being that jerk.

In other news, I’m starting to “get” the choreography for the showcase piece. LT explained the concept today, and that actually really helped—a light went on in my mind. I’d been thinking of it as sort of a jungle cat kind of feeling, but that wasn’t working. In fact, it’s more like searching for something in a swirling fog.

Thus far, this has been a good week for me, dance-wise, except for the part where I hit myself in the face with a girl (yeah, that happened) but I didn’t drop her, so it’s all good?

Besides, she’s solid Cirque stock and not the kind of person to be phased by such things. We were doing that one lift that literally nobody I know can think of what it’s called right now where you scoop your partner up as if in a basket and toss her (or him) up onto one shoulder in a front balance. Every time everyone tries to think of what the feck it’s called, we just wind up going, “Well, it’s not fish dive…”

Essentially, it’s this:

front-balance-lift

Ganked via Googles.

…Only, in this instance, with fewer tutus and sleevy things and more grunting and sweat.

I didn’t give it enough oomph on the first go, so the second time I way overdid it and basically flipped my partner into my own face instead of rolling her up to my shoulder. Heh.

On the upside, our partner acro instructor said, “On the upside, that means you can definitely do this!”

Lastly, in other, other news, there’s a four-day Easter ballet intensive (for adults) at Holistic Ballet in London. I’ll add it to my 2017 intensives list. It’s all about La Bayadere, and it looks like there’s two levels; the beginner group will be learning the entrance from “the Kingdom of the Shades,” and the other group will be learning Gamzatti’s Act II variation.

It doesn’t look like there’s a variation planned for guys (though I wouldn’t object to learning either of the above, to be honest).

Honestly, I think the entrance from “Kingdom of the Shades” is one of the best possible pieces of choreography to learn as a beginner, since it can be learned and executed well and then continually refined. The ladies at Lexington Ballet’s intensive did it last year, and it was so lovely, even without the ramps.

Anyway, I must now run away and go dig through AS’s costume closet, then go collect BB for class tonight.

Posted in balllet, modern, work

4 Comments

Tags: ,

Ah! There You Are!

Ah! There You Are!

Jan 18

Posted by

The turnouts seem to be slowly returning to life.

Class today was incrementally better. I was able to feel the turnout muscles without training my entire mind upon them like the Eye of Sauron hunting the One Ring.

sauron-turnouts.png

As a giant nerd … erm, I mean, as a serious ballet student, I felt that this point required illustration (stolen from Independent.co.uk via Teh Googs). Also, it really bothers me that I didn’t quite manage to center my caption :/

The result of this was that I actually got a compliment on my passé in Killer Class. It came attached to a minor correction for the placement of my arm, but it still totally counts, mmmkay? (The funny part is that I think I got the same correction from BW last week. Derp!)

arm-at-passe-barre

This is approximate, of course, but you know … close enough.

 

I also tried to apply the principle I’ve been exploring in modern class—for me, stretch isn’t a good indicator of placement. This did much for the appearance of my adagio and for the effectiveness of my turns.

Right after terre-a-terre, though, I inhaled a roving dust bunny, which proceeded to stick to my uvula and cause me to cough my brains out :/ Stupid dust bunny. Stupid uvula.

I used about 6,000,000 tissues while Killer B gave us the combination for the warm-up jumps, but still managed to recover in time to do them.

We then did a tiny petit allegro that went:

sisson simple avant
petit assemblé
sisson simple arrière
petit assemblé
changement (x4 I think?)
echappé
entrechat quatre
entrechat quatre

Or something along those lines I may have the number of changements and echappés wrong. Regardless, it ended with a pair of entrechats quatre.

My beats were still mostly messy, which is annoying. They’ll get better as I regain all the strengths.

Grand allegro, on the other hand, was less than optimal, because I kept forgetting that there was supposed to be an assemblé after a glissade, and thus getting off the music and being like, WTF, OH NO, INCOMING, ABORT ABORT!!!

…Because, of course, this was a combination that changed directions in the middle, so if you were ahead (or behind), things were going to get weird in your little individual flock.

On the balance, though, class was pretty good, and definitely indicates that I’m on my way back.

In other news, my Dance Team small group is gamely doing some hard stuff, and also my quads are currently on fire, which indicates that I’m still using them too much (read: not yet using the turnouts enough).

Anyway, time to go dangle from the ceiling, after which I am probably going to borrow a corner of the floor during Open Fly and video what the choreography for the small group’s dance is supposed to look like.

Tomorrow I have to call UPS and hound them about the location of a pair of ballet shoes that I ordered, since they were supposedly delivered to my mailbox on Tuesday. Since there has been no sign of ballet shoes in my mailbox, or indeed of a UPS truck, I’m guessing they may have been delivered to the wrong address.

Needless to say, I’m feeling a little peeved, as the new shoes are Blochs, and I was eager to try them out and see whether I like them at least as much as my favorite Sanshas (assuming, of course, that I’ve ordered the correct size).

I may just go buy a pair at the brick-n-mortar shop, as I need to pick up another dance belt anyway, and also I have no patience. But either way I am going to hound UPS about my shoes.

Posted in balllet, class notes

Leave a comment

Tags: , ,

Knockin’, Rehearsal #2

Jan 17

Posted by

Set two more segments of the dance tonight and ironed out half the costuming issue. 

I say “set,” but they’re really only half-set, as we didn’t run them with music (we were all too tired to screw around with all that). I did set them with the music in my head, though.

I have another phrase in my head, but I don’t feel like I’m quite hitting what I’m trying to say, so I’m going to sit on that one this week.

This piece is very adagio and really quite serious, which means we need to approach it a little carefully to prevent accidental silliness. 

Screenshot from

From last Monday. Prolly the only preview for a while. This is how people attitude when they’re half asleep (seriously, I think my eyes are literally closed!), which is what happens when the only feasible slot for rehearsals is at 9:30 PM on Monday  😉

^This is actually right at the beginning of this dance. Which is good, because this movement begins on one knee and one foot and involves pressing sloooooowly up into attitude without falling on each-other. The supporting leg basically does all the work getting you from “on bended knee” up to attitude (and then you arabesque, and then you penché, and then you failli…). In short: engage all the things.

Definitely the kind of thing you want at the beginning rather than the end (not that I’m any nicer at all to us about the end). 

It’s a screenshot from a video, btw, hence the slightly pixelated image quality. 

Posted in balllet, choreography

Leave a comment

Tags: , ,

The Morning … Erm, Evening After

Yesterday, BW said something like, “Just wait, you’ll hate me tomorrow,” when we were all gushing about how much we love his class.

Happy to report that my legs (and arms—even he said, at one point, “Wow, all this port de bras is really tiring!”) are doing fine today. Backs of the calves are a little tight, but that’s what I get for neither properly stretching nor thoroughly foam-rolling them.

Tonight we begin integrating the partner work in Knockin’ (which, you guys, really needs a better working title). We’ll see how things feel after that 😛

Last night, as I was attempting to fall asleep, my brain conveniently remembered that we have an audition coming up for which we need to whack together 3 minutes of trapeze or lyra work. It proceeded to keep me awake for two hours choreographing :/

Have I mentioned that I really wish my Muse would at very least move to this time zone? I don’t mind if she chooses not to live in KY, but FFS, could she maybe try living in New York instead of San Francisco or Seoul?

OTOH, feeling better about the audition now. More worried about the dance part thanks to the fact that I’m sometimes memory-challenged when it comes to remembering modern dance combinations.

Posted on | Aside

Extra Class With BW

Jan 15

Posted by

BW taught an extra class this morning. The student body comprised three girls and me, all fairly experienced dancers. He gave us the usual long, graceful barre, then really beautiful combinations when it came time to dance. I concentrated on working classical turns from fourth, having Balanchined the hell out of them all week.

Our terre-a-terre was the simple one we often do on Thursdays: piqué turn x2, soutenu turn x2, piqué turn x2, (tombé) chaîne x4.(1)

  1. Per BW: men’s technique generally calls for a tombé into chaîne turns. I probably mentioned it on Thursday. IMO, it is easy easier to do them this way, anyway. 

Not a difficult combination to remember, but one which can be refined indefinitely. It’s invaluable for learning to keep your body in one piece and also not to overdo the launch on the turns. My chaînes are growing less bad bit by bit thanks to this combination.

We were in the biggest studio today, and oddly enough I think that helped. My brain didn’t automatically think, CLEAR THE WHOLE LEVEL LEVEL IN ONE PASS—GO!!! 

Astoundingly, petit allegro also went pretty well (though my beats were sloppy). 

I’ve been wrestling with making my petit assemblé clean: my grand assemblé is usually good, but it’s definitely too big and high (and slow) for petit allegro. I couldn’t figure out why. BW suggested less brush. I tried it that way, then adjusted the snap of my inner thighs so the actual assemblé occurred at the apex and not just before landing.

Anyway, those adjustments worked. Now I’ll have to try to remember them next time I’m in class. 

I also finally got my jetés and coupé-jetés to lighten up, largely thanks to BW’s demo of the combination. I realized that I’ve been afraid if making them look too tap-dancy (not that there’s anything wrong with tap, of course; it’s just not what you’re going for in ballet class).

I’m not about to say that I found myself channeling Erik Bruhn today, but ultimately, my petit allegro sucked less than usual. 

Sadly, it doesn’t appear that BW win be teaching this class on the regular. On the other hand, it’s a chance to dance in the really, really huge studio, so I might add it into the rotation. Also, the floor in there is so nice.

My body is sorting itself. I found my deep rotators doing their job at several key moments in class today, which was nice. It’s feeling less like, “Egads, will I ever be able to dance again?!” and more like it’s supposed to feel. 

Spent the remainder of the early afternoon teaching turns and working on choreography. I’m at this point in the piece that really requires partnering, so we’ll work it tomorrow night. 

Posted in balllet, class notes

Leave a comment

Tags: , ,

We Got a Lotta Class 

Discovered there’s a new class on Sundays at the Mothership. We’re off Monday for Dr. MLK Jr day, so I’m going. 

The line between dedication and masochism is kinda hazy, isn’t it? 

Posted on | Aside

← Older Posts
Newer Posts →