Thursday, November 12, 2015

Ballet Class


“Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.” –Alexander Pushkin

                Like I talked about in a previous blog, ballet is the base and foundation of dance. Ballet classes are very calm and focused but take a lot of work physically and mentally.

                It is expected of you in ballet class that you treat your teacher with the highest amount of respect. At the start you are supposed to greet your teacher and at the end you are supposed to go up and personally thank them. Not only do you need to welcome and thank them you also must be very focused and attentive the whole time.

                In ballet class it is required that you wear a leotard, tights, and your hair in a bun, with the proper ballet shoes or pointe shoes. Some may think it’s silly that it is such a strict dress code but there is a reason for it. The form fitting leotard and tights allow yourself and the teacher to be able to see your alignment and pick up on little flaws. Pointing out the flaws in your alignment help you fix them faster and this will translate into all of your other styles and improve things you didn’t even know were wrong. Also it helps for injury prevention.

                In professional ballet schools the highest level students generally already know their class’s combinations before it starts; and the combinations and exercises change every day. Also in professional schools along with colleges there is often and accompanist who will play the music to go along with the combinations on a piano. There are many different time signatures for different combinations so the accompanist has to be very attentive to make sure they don’t play something that doesn’t fit with the combination. In average studio ballet classes the music is played from a cd or iPod but the music still has to be selected carefully to make sure the phrasing of the music fits with the phrasing of the combination. In average studios they also learn their combinations for the class while they are in the class. For more advanced classes it’s usually learned verbally and the dancers have to translate it into their body.

                Many young mediocre dancers or even a lot of audiences don’t realize how intricate ballet is especially combinations. The dancers don’t just have to worry about feet positions but also arm positions and head positions and they have make sure they are also relaxed and only engaging the necessary muscles for that specific move. Ballet is a lot more structured and difficult than most realize.

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