What You Mean, What You Say: Get Up On Your Leg

“Get up on your leg”… Teachers have a habit of saying this when students are “sinking” into their supporting leg while balanced on one leg. How can you correct a sinking hip and what are some ways to rephrase this common dance teacher-ism.

What You Can Do To Improve Tendu (and why it is crucial)

Imagine the relatively light/easy press and bend of a paint brush that allows the painter to evenly distribute paint but still glide the brush smoothly. Imagine a layer of velvet or velour beneath your foot and enjoy the feeling of your foot moving through the plush carpet, leaving a trail in the fibers as the foot moves outward and returns. Imagine light or streaming air radiating from the hip and out through the toe, as well as upward and out through the top of the head.

All In The Family: Battement

Battements, as they are practiced at the barre and in centre, are the foundation of many other movements in ballet (jumps and travelling steps such as assemblé, tour jeté, grand jeté, and so many more) and in other dance forms. It is necessary to have a solid grasp on the simplest forms in order to perform the others correctly.

Relearning and Reinforcing Body Integration

Movement is a layered experience. We develop movement patterns and then continue to relearn them as we get older. Babies learn to crawl, developing the spiral and then relearn and master it as they walk and then run.

En Dehors, Out the Door

En dehors and en dedans! Frequently misspelled and endlessly confused, let’s go over these dance directions! A bird’s eye view helps to illustrate the sometimes puzzling terminology.

Introducing the Iliopsoas

The iliopsoas is the only muscle (well, technically group of muscles) that attaches to the spine, pelvis, and femur (or, thigh). The three muscles which make up the iliopsoas are deep, running very near the spine and beneath other major muscle groups. Therefore, awareness of the iliopsoas must come through visualization.

Defining and Dissecting a Piqué Turn

TweetShareWhat is a Piqué Turn? Generally when a dancer is asked to perform a piqué turn in class, he/she understands that it is likely they are being asked to perform a traveling turn that begins with a step onto a straight leg, as demonstrated at the start of this combination (note: this video is an [...]

A Jeté That’s Truly Grand

TweetShareA Grand Jeté is… a type of of leap. The term comes from classical ballet. However, many dance forms utilize or have adapted this movement. The grand jeté is just one of an entire family of movements in which the working leg is “thrown.” In grand jeté the initiating leg is thrown to 90º and [...]

Talking Technique

TweetShareThere are several posts here at Dance Advantage that offer understanding and tips on certain technical elements of dance. So far, I’ve offered a smattering of the basics. More recent posts have received quite a few hits but some older posts have gotten buried along the way. Because I think all of these posts could [...]

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Turnout – Part I

Although we sometime use the word turnout as a noun or a position (i.e. “Your turnout could be better.”), it is more appropriately thought of as an action, a verb. Because outward rotation is not the body’s natural state, the work does not stop once the position or desired degree of rotation has been attained. Instead, outward rotation of the hips requires continual action within the body, even when the rotation is held in a position (like ballet 5th).

Vertically Challenged: Improving Your Jumps

TweetShareJumping is a large part of a dancer’s training and students are constantly searching for the secret recipe that will improve their skills in this area. However, for the most part the secret to jumping is not so secret, it is the same hard work that goes into most everything in dance: proper alignment, solid [...]

Classic Confusion

TweetShareA reader recently posed a question in response to “Tips for College (Part II)” and perhaps “What is Modern Dance?.” She asked, “What is “classical” dance in the west?” The term “classical” in dance can vary in meaning, and just like the term “modern dance,” can be very confusing. Rooted in Europe, ballet would probably [...]

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