“The dance is in the stillness between the steps.”

—L’Ancien

I’ve been trying to think of a way to think about this ever since I returned to dance.

That’s it, guys. Right there ^^

Without the stillness, dance is just chaos. In modern, sometimes chaos is the goal—but even in the most chaotic moment in the most chaotic ballet, you’re always showing the audience a series of living stillnesses.

This is why, even at the barre, the moment of full extension in tendu is important, but so is the moment when you stand in fifth.

The stillness between the steps is where ballet lives and breathes.

Incidentally, this is why my group had to do the first grand allegro twice: we didn’t really show the arabesque in the air in our temps-levée arabesque.

We thought we were getting there, but we weren’t. We were still moving through from point A to point B instead of reaching through the stillness of the arabesque as we soared

We also got called out for not really jumping: I have begun to suspect that L’Ancien would rather see me really jump and be a little late than not really jump and be exactly on time. I’m built for big jumps. I should really use them.

Anyway, we fixed ourselves on the repeat. I have no idea what my TLA looked like because, for once, I was using my eyes correctly.

After class, L’Ancien said to us, “You’re completely different dancers than you were even two weeks ago.”

And then he said these three beautiful words:

“Very, very good.”

That is the best possible way to close out a ballet class on your birthday.

This afternoon and evening: trapeze class, audition, dinner, party.