Okay, so I couldn’t really think of a good title for this post. Video hasn’t killed anything in my life recently except my own misconceptions about the progress I’m making.
In the past year, I’ve really been trying to “bust my butt,” ballet-wise: taking class more often, taking actual physical notes, working like crazy on port de bras in the mirror at home, applying things learned in modern or aerials to my ballet training … even looking at my limitations and challenges through different eyes*.
*Maybe through cheetah eyes? Maybe not. Anyway … it’s like:
Okay, so I’ve got huge knees. So what? Nureyev had huge knees.
Okay, so when I’m in demi-pointe, only three toes (and the attendant portion of the ball of my foot) are actually on the ground … so what? I personally know at least two guys who are not only professional dancers, but key members of their respective companies, whose feet are shaped like mine.
Besides, I can physically lift my body off the floor with those three toes. Those are my jumping toes, y’all.
The thing is, where ballet is concerned, the goal-posts move constantly, and sometimes they move really fast. In other words, it’s easy to lose sight of the progress you’re making (especially when you routinely take class with seriously amazing company dancers — which, IMO, you should if you can; it will make you a better dancer).
This is, it turns out, where video can be an ally.
I shot my first bits of ballet video back in December of last year. Even watching them then, I felt like I had so, so very far to go.
I shot my most recent bit of ballet video today, while working on a new piece for Suspend (it’s about half ballet, half ballet-on-the-lyra, heh). I still, of course, feel like I have so, so very far to go: I will feel like that for the rest of my life, because that’s ballet for you.
But I also feel like I have come so, so much further than I would have thought possible in the intervening time.
It’s really, really hard to fathom how much I’ve changed as a dancer in the time that elapsed between those two recordings.
There are still times that I do weird things with my arms. I still have a bad habit of telegraphing the moments when I don’t quite remember what I’m supposed to do next (note to self : STOP THAT, ALREADY).
I still have challenges translating between the Movie-In-My-Head that I create when I’m making dances and the actual dance, because when I’m dancing I lose track of the movie in my head (so then I just wind up reverting to tons of rond de jambes or pique turns or whatevs; lately, attitude turns and renversé are in heavy rotation as well).
But the way I carry myself is surprisingly different. Surprisingly better. My arms kind of know what they’re about. My body isn’t basically a gelatin mold (I’m not talking about fat distribution, BTW — I’m talking about core engagement). My legs seem to more or less understand what’s going on. Everything is more or less on the same page more or less all the way through.
I can almost watch the video I shot today without cringing. I only have to cringe a little**, though I suspect that a year from now I won’t actually even be able to watch it, because when I watch it, some inner part of me will be all like, OMG! HOW COULD YOU HAVE THOUGHT THAT WAS GOOD, YOU TWIT!
**Like: it opens with this developpé, which is in and of itself awkward, because EVERY FREAKING TIME I make adagio dances they open with the same stupid developpé avant en effacé, except when they go croisé instead. Indeed, I am so thorough in this regard that the first partnered adagio I made opens with BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, mirroring one-another >.<
But, anyway, the developpé starts off nicely, and then just above 90 degrees my working leg is like, “Newp, too tired. Hahahahahaha.”
Leg be like: “Okay, so we start with trollface en effacé…”
So. Annoying.
Anyway.
Here’s my point: I think, too often, we don’t feel the progress we’re making in the ballet studio. We notice it when we suddenly develop a skill we didn’t have before (OMG DOUBLE ATTITUDE TURNS!), but the rest of the time we just don’t see it at all.
Ballet makes you weirdly myopic.
You forget how bad your single turns were six months ago. You forget that you didn’t actually have a reliable attitude turn.
You forget that renversé was hard once; that contretemps were just WTF (and definitely not something you could just toss into a variation, like, because); that your brisée was, exactly as its name implies, broken (pro tip: brisée is actually easier if you do it with the prescribed arms … though I could not even remotely begin to explain why). That your beats were, um, beat. That your developpé remained undeveloped. That your extensions were just, like, tensions, really.
You forget that, not all that terribly long ago in the grand scheme of things, you had some kind of crazy mental block about glissade-assemblé and spectacularly wild arms.
Video can help you with that — even if you can’t stand to watch your old videos again. If your brain is anything like mine, the endless blooper reel that is last year’s videos has been seared upon your brain FOREVAR, so you won’t have to watch them again. Video can remind you how far you’ve come***.
***And also that you’re STILL DROPPING YOUR FREAKING ARMS INSTEAD OF COMING THROUGH A PROPER FIRST, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, OMG, I CANNOT WATCH THIS ANYMORE, I’m feeling a little verklempt, talk amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic: FREAKING PORT DE BRAS, FOR G-D’S SAKE.
Anyway, at the end of the day, this all amounts to one thing: MOAR MOTIVATION (which, to be fair, isn’t a thing I really lack, where dancing is concerned).
Not to say that I’m not going to enjoy my week with two rest days (because it’s now been two solid weeks since I’ve taken a rest day, even though I was like I AM NOT DANCING ON MONDAY. OKAY, SO THEN NOT ON THURSDAY. FRIDAY? NO, MUST DANCE FRIDAY; EF IS TEACHING …Crap. It’s Sunday already, isn’t it?).
But I’m looking forward to further pursuing those elusive goalposts.
They’re not going to catch themselves, after all.
Today, a small group of us got to do an exclusive trapeze performance for a group of people who are way under-served in our community. It was fantastic to be able to take our show to them — they had a great time, and so did we.
Back at home, I managed to get some laundry done, then trundled off to the studio for Denis’ trapeze class and our mutual flexibility/mobility (which I definitely needed; in retrospect, I should definitely have brought the foam roller last week!) and acro-balancing 2 classes.
Suspend usually has good music playing, and I am unable to resist the urge to dance, so eventually I relocated myself to our dance corner. The dance floor is slightly sprung, but it’s still better than the concrete corner where I had initially been trying to convince myself that even itty, bitty jumps were a bad idea.
The meditation/yoga hammocks were still hanging down, and while mucking about on the dance floor, I happened upon the idea of leaping from one open space to another, skimming between visible and invisible zones.
I wound up playing around with the idea and eventually wound up recording a few minutes of the little improv that came out of it.
To be sure, there are definitely some complete WTF moments — like, at one point I wind up on the ground and decide that I should fold myself in half.
What am I thinking in that moment?
Who knows?
I sure as heck couldn’t tell you. At one point, you can clearly tell by the look on my face that I’ve realized I’m doing something that doesn’t really make any sense, and that I have no idea what I should do to fix it.
There are also some moments I really like; ideas that I plan to work on — a bunch of nifty développes, some interesting turns that kind of fold in on themselves; a sequence of pas de chats, another of glissades.
I wasn’t paying any real attention to technique (in case you’re curious, this is more or less what I look like when I go out clubbing, heh); instead, I was making up little rules in my head and seeing what happened when I attempted to follow them — but I think with some attention to technique, something could be made of them. I think next time I’m going to try alternating between the two methods of travel; in this space, that could be pretty interesting visually.
I didn’t notice until I had watched this a couple times that there’s also kind of a motif that occurs near both the beginning and the end (totally not planned; the end of the video is the point at which I realized I had like 2 minutes before my class started). There’s also a brief conversation with Aerial M, asked if I wanted the hammocks put up (when I said I was using them, she actually said, “Cool!” but you can’t really hear that bit).
There are also several moments in which I want to strangle myself for doing the weird things that I so frequently do with my arms, though in a way seeing them in video is helpful, because I don’t usually realize that I’m doing them (the downside of hypermobility: sometimes, you really have no idea where your body parts are).
Watching video of myself dancing, I’m always like, “Wait, why are you dropping your arms there? Why did you just — no! PUT THEM BACK, THEY SHOULD GO AROUND THE OTHER WAY, YOU MORON, DON’T—” and then I realize that yelling at a video of yourself is even dumber, somehow, than yelling at the TV.
Anyway, here, have this little video of me playing around in warm-ups and leg-warmers as a sort of aperitif, and I’ll work on making a better recording of Albrecht’s variation. I think we’re going to try to get the new balancé video done this Friday or next Wednesday, schedules (and weather; we’re crazy, so we’re planning on recording it outdoors!) being what they are.
Edit: PS, I know that a bunch of times, it sounds like I’m hitting the floor really, really hard — that’s an artifact of the way my phone records sound and possibly of the floor itself.
PPS: I have absolutely no idea which song is playing.
So Denis totally shot this last Tuesday, and I am definitely pretty tardy in posting it. We’ve been having some internet connectivity challenges that have made larger uploads (and downloads) difficult.
I think I look pretty tired in this video, as I’d just run through this routine four times in a row, but all of the choreography is there. Next, I’ll work on adding timings (synchronizing the routine to the music) and polishing the movements to add musicality and elan.
That is, once I’m allowed to get back on the trapeze 😛
The voice in the background is Aerial K, one of our instructors, who was working with one of our friends on the lyra.
Update: Oh, and the little thing where I flap my feet to find the bar after coming down from the Iron Cross/Egg/Stag/Switch sequence is pretty hilarious.
On Monday, M. BeastMode drilled us all about conservation of motion. Since I seriously need to work on that — I’m all about the attack, but sometimes at the expense of letting myself sort of fall apart — that was a very welcome topic.
Anyway, today, while catching up with the Tweeters after literally months of trying really hard not to look at Twitter ever because, seriously, it’s like being kidnapped by some secret spy agency; you go in and then you wake up and it’s three days later and you don’t know what happened and it feels like someone hit you in the head with a brick.
Okay, maybe minus the part about the brick, except when eyestrain occurs.
ANYWAY.
So today I saw this fantastic tiny video from Miami City Ballet, and I went, “HOLY CRAP. THIS IS IT.”
It’s in time-lapse, and that’s what makes it work. Here are these dancers, and their arms and legs are like all over the place, and their bodies DO. NOT. MOVE.
This, people, is how you use your core. This is conservation of motion. This is what will make your turns a thousand times better and your renversés and balances all Balan-shiny. This is what Ms. B picks on me about now that my pelvis seems to be more or less reliably sorted 😉
So, here you go. Watch (you may have to click through; I’ve never tried to embed a Twitter video before) and absorb, and then the next you’re in class, install and run this mental image. I am dead certain that this will help me, and pretty sure it will help almost anyone.
Tonight we perform NY premieres of @Justin_Peck's "Heatscape" and Liam Scarlett's "Viscera!" #MCBSpringTour2016 pic.twitter.com/wkrAwCvBw5
— Miami City Ballet (@MiamiCityBallet) April 15, 2016
First, let me state for the record, yet again, that not dancing drives me crazy.
Doubtless, the element of structure it adds to my time is critical, as is the element of physical exhaustion — but I think that, more than anything, I need the ritual and the communion. I need to check my mind at the door and do the steps. I need the order of barre and the challenge of the floor. I need to be not simply a dancer alone, working out his private salvation in turns and trembling, but a dancer among dancers. We are not solitary birds.
Second, an interesting thing has been happening in my life. The last year has made me less afraid to reveal myself — to others, but also to myself. I’ve learned to reflect on my own condition (in both the general and specific senses) in a new way. I’ve learned also to think more clearly about how my actions affect people around me, particularly those I love.
In some ways, this makes life harder. I begin to see the difficulty I present as a friend, with my abrupt flourishes of vigor and my equally abrupt retreats into solitude. I begin to see, also, the challenge I will face as long as I live; the tightrope-walk that is bipolar, with its precarious drops. I begin to see that to bolt forward without considering that in my plans is a fool’s errand.
In other ways, it makes my life better. Because something has shifted (Adderall, maybe?) in such a way that I can sometimes think about my thinking, I can begin to plan a life in which the room I must grant my illness is part of the design. Likewise, I can begin to step out on the ledge of public creativity again.
I have begun, once again, to believe in my vision and my voice.
Oddly enough, some of that has happened in the studio.
In real life, I have trouble with feelings — I can’t tell them apart very well, nor can I put them into words as readily as most people.
But I can dance them.
When I know the steps; when I no longer need to struggle to remember whether the next thing is pas de valse or balancé, I am suddenly able to summon feeling from the depths of my soul with trembling intensity. I am suddenly able to be transported; to let the music carry my heart and let my body follow it.
I used to be afraid of my own emotions (sometimes I still am: the crazy ones, in particular). Now, though, I’ve learned to manage them, like one manages a powerful horse, and I’m no longer afraid to turn and look at them.
At least, not most of the time.
It is true that I’m still afraid to look the out-of-control parts in the eye: the glittering mania ready to snatch the bit in its teeth and drag me out into the freezing void of space; the lightless depression, with its great liquid eyes, equally ready to drag me with it “down to a sunless sea.”
But the real feelings — pain and grief and fear, but also love and hope and joy — which I’ve kept at bay for so long… Those feelings I can now entertain; examine; hold in my hands. At least sometimes, for a while.
This is the work I am doing; the most critical work — in my therapist’s office, of course, but also in the studio and also alone, in my living room, with Holst’s The Planets whispering and shivering and surging from the speakers of Denis’ stereo system.
Little by little, I’m plumbing and charting the depths of my soul, filling in spots on the map that used to read, “Here be dragons.”
Life moves, and finally I’ve started to feel as if I’m moving with it.
This is a gift, a change, born from many seeds — but not least ballet, and the obedience of this body, which at last has begun to learn to belong to this soul.
Ahem.
Erm.
I mean, wow, video editing is kinda fun.
…I CAN STOP TIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMME!!!!!!!!!
Sorry. It keeps going to my head. (Worse: I’m editing ballet videos today, and they’re full of music that makes me want to dance, but NO! It’s a Rest Day. NO DANCING. Or, well, less dancing.)
*Although the attempt fails.
I say, “You don’t want to use your arms…” when that’s blatantly, obviously wrong; what I mean is, “You want to use epaulement and a soft bend in your upper body to create that beautiful diagonal line in the arms…”
Anyway, here’s my rambly little video about balancé. You’ll notice, near the end, that I attempt describe what NOT to do with your arms*, and then proceed to do exactly that.
You guys, sometimes it is really hard to think, dance, and explain all at the same time.
Anyway, in addition to a handy way to remember how to balancé, you now have a great visual example of how NOT to use your arms while you’re doing it.
You’re welcome! ^-^
For what it’s worth, I think it’s kind of hilarious how my head occasionally disappears into a cloud of light. My house is not well suited to filming anything dance-related; the rooms that have good light are either tiny and jammed with furniture** or have concrete floors, while the one room that is large enough and has a wood floor also has terrible lighting and a carpet (which is beautiful, but obviously ill suited as a ballet surface).
It’s still the best option out of the available rooms, though, so I’m going to have to figure out how to work with it if I’m going to make this a regular thing.
One last thing: the tights technically belong to Denis, not that he ever gets to wear them. They’re Joe Boxer brand, from K-Mart, and they’re so freaking comfortable it’s not even funny — just enough compression, excellent wicking qualities, stretchy-but-not-too stretchy, with no angry-python waistband. They’re also just long enough to tuck into your shoes, if you’re me.
If you go looking for a pair, make sure to either pop them out of the box if you can, or at least try to find the so-called “seamless” ones (which do, in fact, have seams). Some of the others do, in fact, have horrible waistbands.
And now, your feature presentation…
So I finally recorded a balancé video, at least. It’s taking 6,000,000 years to upload (apparently the Innertubes have sprung a leak or something?), but once that’s done I should have it up tonight or tomorrow (we’re going to a party tonight, then I have class and an opera in the morning and afternoon, so probably tomorrow evening, realistically).
The actual video quality is laughably bad, but it’s a start.
À bientôt, mes amis!
YouTube: BOSU Balance Series
danseur ignoble 