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

What 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 ad [...]

A Jeté That’s Truly Grand

A 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 is [...]

Talking Technique

There 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 – What Is Turnout?

This will be a continuing series. Certainly, it would be impossible to write about everything you ever wanted to know about turnout in one, two, or maybe even twenty posts. But, welcome to Part I!
Contents:

Introduction
What is Turnout?
Recognizing Proper/Improper Turnout
Nature vs. Nurture

Want to learn some techniques for improving your turnout? Read Part II

If you study [...]

Vertically Challenged: Improving Your Jumps

Jumping 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 [...]

Classic Confusion

A 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 [...]

Sickling and Rolling In

The terms sickling and rolling in are often used in dance classes to define issues with ankle alignment. However, I have found that many students do not have a clear understanding of the actions of the ankle and foot and, therefore, do not know how to correct these issues when asked. I hope this [...]

Battement

I’m sure that students reading this blog have used or heard the term battement before. If grand battement immediately comes to mind, I’m not surprised, as the word battement is commonly dropped from the name of other familiar terms.
A mother, father, brothers, grandparents, uncles, all share a family name. In a similar way battement [...]

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