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Ballet and music are the only
art forms that absolutely require years of intensive training before the student can perform, even in the most humble circumstances.
No matter where you are in your journey, private study will be an essential part of it if you want to reach your highest potential.
The outline below will help you find what you need.
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For Beginners
Acquire good habits early; bad dance habits are hard to break. Look carefully at different schools; sit in
on classes; ask questions.
What are the teachers demanding? If you see a strong emphasis on body alignment (placement) and
musicality, you are probably in the right place.
And if you prefer to work privately, I can help you get a good start.
For Intermediate Students
By this time you understand the importance of placement, turnout, extensions, and so on, but mastery
is still in the future. What do you need?
Look closely in the mirror. Do you see any of the following?
• Hips protruding in back
• Ribs protruding in front
• Sagging abdominal muscles
• Turned-in thighs
• Unpointed feet
• Sickled feet
• Bent knees
• Tense, clenched hip muscles
• Tense, clenched neck muscles
• Hunched shoulders
• An awkward or stiff port de bras
• Unharmonious lines
Use your memory and your mind to find 2 others
• Recurrent injuries
• Difficulties with music
Now study the chart below. Do you see what you need?
Music
It
is my personal conviction that without music, there can be no dance.
The
ability to move with music is essential to every dancer's training.
I
have often been surprised to meet students who have danced for years without becoming attuned to the rhythms of the music
they are dancing to.To me this is a serious fault in training. A deficiency in musical sensitivity can, and must, be corrected,
as it is not possible for anyone to succeed as a dancer without it.
Skillful
students have come to me citing problems with pirouettes, jumps, big waltz movements, or other sticking points in their technique.
Many of these can be traced to neglect of musical rhythm. In these cases, further technical training is beside the point;
the student must learn to find and use the musical beat to energize and refine their movements.
The
well-known neurologist Oliver Sacks, in his book Musicophilia, has much to say about the powers of music. Dr. Sacks clearly demonstrates
the seemingly magical power of music to help people follow intricate sequences of movement, or retain in memory great volumes
of information. He shows how the power of rhythm to shape and coordinate movement can push athletes and dancers to new levels
of skill.
Every
dancer should take note.
Pirouettes
Here I must say something about the pirouette, one of the most complex moves the ballet student must master.
Anyone having pirouette problems, even at the more advanced levels, can solve a lot by getting back to square one with the
following routine. I can't emphasize strongly enough the need to accomplish all of the following, before a good pirouette
can be achieved:
The relevé passé from
5th or 3rd position. From a closed position, the body doesn't need to go anywhere but up, and thus can land in the passe perfectly
placed -- hips square, weight in center between the legs. In my experience, the student's biggest mistake is sitting too far
sideways into the standing leg when doing the releve -- this throws the whole movement off balance. Perfect placement must
be achieved in one beat, at the moment of relevé.
The student should do the relevé passé without turning, many times at the barre, many times in the center, until
there is perfect placement at the top of the relevé -- every time. Then arm movements can be added.
The big mistake in using the arms in pirouettes is failing to
separate the arms from the shoulders. If the shoulders twist in the plié, the placement will be thrown off in the relevé.
The arms should move independently -- open one, close both, with no twist in the shoulders.
Once the perfect relevé passé from the closed position can be
done consistently, it should be done with a quarter turn. The relevé position, arms and all, should be perfect every time.
Then move on to the half turns and full turns. One big arm mistake in the full turn is letting the arms drag back behind the
body. That will stop the turn in its tracks and throw off the balance. The turn should end, still on relevé, in a perfect
position, arms and all.
Then the turn can be tried
from 4th position. The problem here is to achieve the same perfectly placed position as from the closed position. The body
now must go both forward and up. Inside turns are the same -- perfect placement must happen in one beat, at the moment of
relevé.
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Naturally all this is greatly simplified. It suggests ways that many of you can work on improving your own technical faults.
But if you need an outside eye to help you with these corrections, I’d be glad to oblige.
Now go for it!
For Advanced Students
At this point you are ready for refinements. Presumably you have achieved all the skills outlined above. What’s next?
This is where I usually bow out. Once you reach the advanced level, you need a different sort of coach, one that can work
with you on performance qualities, roles, partnering issues, bravura steps. I know a few coaches of this sort, and will be
happy to give you their names.
However -- if you still need work on any of the points listed above, I’ll be happy to hear from you.
Good Luck to All!
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