Comments on: Encouraging Boys to Dance

By: Nichelle (admin)

Nichelle (admin) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:15:21 +0000

Thanks Henrik! I’m so glad you stopped by. You’ve made some great additions and I appreciate everything you are doing for men in ballet over at Tights and Tiaras!

By: Henrik

Henrik — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:59:58 +0000

Great article, with much good advices! I specially believe in your point number 7! Partnering can be so much! off-balance-supports and supported jumps are easy to do with even young children, and gives the boy/man a feeling of being “in control”. I know I enjoy the feeling that this lift or pose would not be possible without my help – the feeling of two dancers working together gives the boy (or partner) self-confidence and joy!

Also, I think I’ve never met a male dancer that don’t like to jump! Battu’s and echappés are easy jumps that can be developed into quite challenging and good looking jumps, for class and stage alike. And it’s teachable to boys that doesn’t necessarily have much knowledge of ballet technique.

As for music, everything with a little spark in it is satisfying for men! Try a masurka for easy jump cominations, or a grande allegro with some “schwung” to it!

Finally, make easy variations on known pieces! I remeber my reacher showing me the male variation from 2.act Giselle, before I ever had seen the ballet. He taught me the variation, rendering the more difficult stuff into things I could manage, and it worked out great! The boys may need a little higher technical level to do this, but you don’t have to wait until they are Ethan Stiefels to learn the swan prince or Basil from Don Q!

If you present ballet for boys in a good and challenging way before they “learn” that it’s femaleish and “uncool”, it will be much easier for them to react to people saying it is sassy to dance (it will happen, eventually) – because they KNOW it’s not!

Thanks for a great blog!
H

By: Good Resource for Boys and Dance « My Son Can Dance

Good Resource for Boys and Dance « My Son Can Dance — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:17:47 +0000

[...] find a link in that blog post to an earlier one she wrote called “Encouraging Boys to Dance.” Here’s the link to that one as well: [...]

By: Let’s Hear it for the Boys! « Dance Advantage

Let’s Hear it for the Boys! « Dance Advantage — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:16:23 +0000

[...] while back I did a post entitled Encouraging Boys to Dance. It had a good response and I was even asked to submit an edited version for the PTA (National [...]

By: danceadvantage

danceadvantage — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:10:55 +0000

Another good draw – enhancing performance and preventing injury in sports. Thanks, Dianne!

By: Dianne

Dianne — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:01:57 +0000

Excellent article! One thing I’d like to see is ballet technique classes for sports – pro football players study turnout for injury prevention – but why not study it earlier? I’ve never seen a ballet studio offer this. Tennis players also study ballet for developing footwork.

By: danceadvantage

danceadvantage — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:18:42 +0000

Thank you very much. I’m glad that you appreciated the post and took the time to say so. Congratulations to your son for weathering an often girl-centric environment! I’m sure you had much to do with getting him through the tough times. I hope you will continue to visit the blog.

By: P. Parsons

P. Parsons — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:13:23 +0000

Thank-you for this. Well said. I wish that some of the teachers my son had early on in his dance training had been more aware of these issues. Ballet teachers often wonder where the boys are but if they looked around at their environment, they’d have soem fo the answers. My son is now a dancer with a national ballet company but some of these consideratison would have made his life easier when he was eight years old! I’m glad to have stumbled on your blog.