Rond de Jambe a terre

Pirouettes

Teaching Creative Movement

Ballet class with children ages 3-5 is often called “creative movement” rather than ballet class. Then at age 6 it is sometimes referred to as “pre-ballet”, which is when they are usually ready to stand at the barre and learn the mechanics of alignment and ballet positions. Creative movement can be taught many different ways—none better or more effective than another—so I will just share some of the things I did with this age group (and felt were effective) when I was teaching them dance.

First of all, kids this age don’t have a very long attention span! Two minutes is about as long as you can stretch one activity before moving on to something else. I always felt that a 45 minute class was the absolute longest these kids could handle, unless you are combining it with some tap, too. I’d also say that if you have more than eight children in the class then you should probably have an assistant there to help you out.

I structured my creative movement classes more or less the same way each week. Kids do like repetition and it helps them feel more comfortable if they have a good idea what to expect. We would begin sitting on the floor in a circle, wide enough that when they put their arms out to the sides they wouldn’t touch their neighbor. At the beginning you can have them sit cross legged or with the soles of their feet together or their legs stretched out straight in front of them. Sitting cross legged is easiest for them, and when you want them to focus attention on sitting up straight and using good posture through their backs, necks long, and shoulders down, this is helpful.

Still in the circle we would also sing a lot. There are several songs that some children may already know or can pick up quickly that you can easily add movements to. I liked “Open, Shut Them”. You sing Open, Shut Them, Open, Shut Them, Give a little clap clap clap, Open, Shut Them, Open Shut Them, Put them in your lap lap lap. You can do variations on this using your hands like in prayer position or using your legs to open to a straddle and close legs together straight in front of you. Then you can sing Creep Them, Creep Them, Creep Them, Creep Them Right down to your toes (crawling with fingers down outstretched legs in front and toward their toes) and repeat Creep Them, Creep Them, Creep Them, Creep Them, Right back to your nose.

In the circle you can also work on flexing and pointing the toes and flying like a butterfly using pretty arms with the soles of the feet together. They also enjoyed lying on their bellies with their heads towards the center of the circle, practicing pushing up onto their hands and keeping their necks long (like a cobra in yoga), and lifting their heads and their feet off the ground and flying like Superman.

Practicing little rhythmic patterns is a fun thing to do in the circle as well. You can have them help you make up four count or eight count phrases such as clap hands 2X, clap hands to knees 2X, clap hands to shoulders 2X, and put both hands on your head, hold count 8. You can repeat with only one clap in each position, etc. Adding head movements and even facial expressions is a great way to interact with them and get them working on putting together patterns.

In the center there are many activities you can do with this age group. Props are fun, too, especially if you have colorful scarves they can improvise with at the end of class. I tried to incorporate learning how to hop on one foot, gallop, skip, walk toe to heel across the floor like on a tightrope, and eventually even learning a small polka step on demi pointe and plié (step R, L on demi pointe, step R in plié, repeat LRL across the floor). You can reverse that polka, too, and do down, up, up…down, up, up. It’s amazing what children this age can pick up. When you feel like you’re losing them, go back to imitating an animal to get their attention again. Take light springy steps like a cat, heavy steps like a gorilla, etc.

At the end of class we’d always put a scarf or something down in the center that they could run and jump over one at a time. The idea would be to leap leading with their right leg the first time, and then starting at the other upstage diagonal leap leading with their left leg, but usually you are lucky if they manage to just leap and land on one leg instead of two. It’s a really fun age to teach. I think when I was teaching this level I was too worried about getting enough “technique” into each class. But really, having them move to music and count out rhythms and learn patterns is truly enough. At this stage it’s most important that they enjoy what they are doing.

Maybe other teachers of creative movement have more to add. And I think that never having danced at this age myself, it’s harder for me to say exactly what’s so important about it and what’s not. I don’t think it can make or break a dancer, unless you become too exacting and they tire of it before it’s really time to begin working on technique. Please share your thoughts!

A Special Ballet Teacher

We entered the hall with solemn steps and took our seats. The group mostly comprised the beloved late ballet teacher’s university students. At the front of the room was a table with a photograph of a beautiful young woman. Of course she’d been young once, but it was odd to see a photo of Mrs. Dorsey from her youth. She’d been a dazzling star at the age of fourteen with the Royal Ballet, and through the eulogy we learned she’d managed to pack her whole life into a mere sixty years. This, too, came as a shock.

She walked with a cane which she’d given the name Betsy. Her hair was quite grey and worn pulled back at the nape of her neck. She wore horn-rimmed glasses and unflattering dresses with knee high hose, and taught every class in a pair of terribly old-fashioned lady’s shoes. If it weren’t for her clever combinations of steps we never would have guessed she’d ever been a ballerina. Most of the time she sat in a red leather chair and gave vocal instructions, tapping out the tempo with Betsy and sipping from a cup of hot tea. It was a challenge for me, as I’d never had a teacher who didn’t stand at the barre and demonstrate the exercises with grace and firmly accentuated calf muscles. Having to learn to translate the names of steps and positions of the arms into movement was, I realized later, a great opportunity for me. I began religiously writing down class combinations in dance journals, which I later used when I became a teacher myself. My desperate attempt to grasp the vocabulary in Mrs. Dorsey’s class was a great aid.

I was shy, uncertain about myself and not at all convinced I had what it took to be a ballerina. All I knew was that I loved to dance, and I wanted to do nothing else with such a passion. My father’s dream of going to London to study theater had been dashed by his parents when he was the age I’d been then, and I think he went out of his way to find opportunities for me. Mrs. Dorsey had been the one to write a letter of recommendation for me to attend Butler University as a high school student. I later saw her recommendation and was astonished it had been accepted (the student has ‘adequate’ ability), but I did have to endure an audition and I worked very hard and never gave up, even when I encountered a step I’d never seen before. Perhaps they saw potential, for I was enrolled in the program.

I worked with Mrs. Dorsey for a year and one summer. She’d told my father that the girls’ dressing room could be brutal and she was worried about how I’d stand up to the pressure. No one was cruel to me, ever. I was quiet, arriving for the 2:00 ballet class after having spent the morning at high school, then thirty minutes driving on the interstate to Indianapolis. Many days I also stayed for pointe class, and I was cast in The Nutcracker so had to stay for rehearsals as well.

One day, late in the year, we were doing attitude devant en tournant. It was rare that Mrs. Dorsey taught pointe class, and I think she was surprised by my rapid improvement. I somehow had developed strength and confidence enough to do this particular turning step well. She stopped everyone, got up from her chair, walked over to me and kissed the top of my head. Then, she turned to the rest of the class and said over the top of her glasses in her English accent, “She’s young…you don’t get kisses.”

I will never forget that day. Never before or again did a teacher ever compliment me with a kiss. After having taught ballet for many years myself, it never occurred to me to do the same for any of my students either, so I consider myself quite fortunate to have been given such a gift. This gift was all the self-assurance I needed to get me through the next ten years of my dancing career.

There were several teachers who said I wasn’t built right for ballet; my torso was too long and legs not long enough, or I just didn’t have what it took emotionally to withstand the pressures of a professional life in the field. But never did their words affect me. I had Mrs. Dorsey most days the following summer for a two hour ballet class and an hour of pointe. When we did well, she praised us. When we did not do well, she would only look at us over the top of her glasses and raise her eyebrows. She had lost a tooth that summer and tried very hard not to smile too hugely, but a few times she would lose herself in a happy moment and we’d see the gaping hole at the side of her top gums. It was endearing. I loved her so.

She lived close to campus and on a couple of occasions she asked me to give her a ride home. It was a bit embarrassing for me because I was driving a big, baby blue Ford pickup truck. She had an awful time getting in and out, and I was not well-mannered enough to know to give her a hand. She would smile at me with great affection, regardless, and waved as I drove off. She had told us once that she didn’t have much to do at her home. She would just look at the blank walls and choreograph combinations for our classes in her head.

After a break of a few weeks that summer, we returned to classes in the fall to find Mrs. Dorsey absent. We learned that she was in the hospital and she had cancer. News was that she cheered up all the nurses with her English humor, rather than being the one who was cheered. Only a few weeks later, she passed away.

And here we were, at a memorial service for our dear, sweet, Mrs. Dorsey. Probably an actual funeral had taken place already, or perhaps she was cremated. There was no casket, no trip to a cemetery for us that day. Her son was there and someone who offered words that didn’t come near to catching her essence. We looked upon the framed photograph of a lovely young woman and we each remembered how she’d touched our individual lives. I don’t believe there was a dry eye in the hall. I, for one, didn’t have enough tissues on hand.

For many years after, I would call upon Mrs. Dorsey from the great beyond, asking for her assistance with this audition or that piece of choreography. She never failed me, and I truly do believe that her spirit lives on and she is at my side whenever summoned. Sometimes I wonder how she managed to continue carrying on the tradition of teaching ballet for so many years. I found an article online that said she’d choreographed a Dickens ballet at Butler in 1959. That was 25 years before I arrived there. How many lives she touched can only be imagined. I just know that she had a magical effect on mine.

Somehow my father managed to learn of an estate sale at Mrs. Dorsey’s home near the university. He accompanied me there one day after class. We entered the small, brick home where she’d visualized ballet combinations while staring at her walls, and we walked among her things. It was strange to enter her personal world. Stranger still to find things of little value up for sale. We may not have been the only ones who went there for a sentimental trinket or two. I took home a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a cane, and a plaque with a gold rose attached that reads:

All hearts grow warmer

in the presence of one who

gave freely for the love of giving

a giving that deepens and grows

ever unfolding new sweetness

as the blossoming of a rose.

I still have the plaque on my dresser, though I’ve since lost the glasses and the cane. No doubt it was given to her from one of her many adoring students.

One time I remember being in her class when no accompanist was there to play the piano. There was a record player available and some well-worn records, but she quickly gave up trying to make that work and employed her cane, Betsy, to pound out the rhythm on the floor. I’m sure she was exhausted by the end of an hour and a half of doing that, but she never let on that she was tired and she always had a lovely, peaceful face.

Now that I’m older, with three children of my own, working in the completely unrelated field of computer technology, I look back at Mrs. Dorsey and think about what she had said about the dance world being a cruel place. I did manage to get my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in dance and I did dance professionally for a short period of time. Many years I taught ballet to young people and enjoyed it tremendously. When my back started giving me problems I was unable to teach the way I’d always taught: standing at the barre in my leotard and tights with a long, black skirt and pale pink teaching shoes, demonstrating the steps with the best technical ability I had left. I suppose I could have asked for a demonstrator, someone who would stand in front of the class and show the steps as I wanted them executed, following my verbal lead. But it was too hard for me. Once I could no longer show the steps, I felt my teaching began to suffer. Maybe I should have called on Mrs. Dorsey for assistance then, before it was too late. We moved to a new state where no one knew me as a dancer or a teacher, and my talent seemed to diminish into nothingness. I have my children who give me great happiness, and I’ve worked at the bank now for nine years.

I did try teaching again, about a year ago. My back and my foot both gave me a lot of pain. It’s hard for me to do anything physical now, and I wonder if I’d been born in Russia if they would have filtered me out of the dance system before I’d ever started because my torso was too long, my legs too short. Still, I can’t wish for anything different than the experiences I’ve had and the teachers I’ve studied with or the students I’ve had the opportunity of teaching.

I’ve outgrown my shyness. I asked my father at one point if he would mind too terribly if I quit dancing. I think he was surprised at such a question. He says I made it farther in my career dancing than he ever made it in theater, but I don’t believe he’s right. He made a career of teaching, even if he wasn’t given the opportunities to perform himself at a professional level, and he has touched thousands of lives. I’m sure he would have been a fabulous actor, had he been given the right teachers and experience. Not all wonderful actors or dancers make wonderful teachers, either. I think Mrs. Dorsey’s dancing career was short-lived, although I don’t know this for certain. But I know she had a passion for teaching, as did my father. He never appeared to be disappointed in me, and I hope that she’s not disappointed in me either, for not learning to find passion in teaching from a red leather chair.

Turns Across the Floor

Influencing Lives by Teaching Ballet

Ballet teachers have a unique opportunity to instill self confidence and to encourage creative expression in their ballet students. The task should never be taken lightly, and it’s important for parents of young children to fully investigate the qualifications of their child’s prospective teachers before beginning lessons. There are two sides of this coin: it can be looked at from the teacher’s point of view as well as from the parent’s point of view. This post will focus on the teacher, and how his or her classroom environment can affect the development of a child. In general, all teachers are aware of the influence they may have over impressionable children, but I believe that a ballet teacher’s influence is ever so slightly different than that of a school teacher’s. The ballet class is a place where the child is forced to look upon their bodies in a mirror and scrutinize that reflection. How much emphasis is placed on that image should be relative to the age of the student.

Ideally, children who begin pre-ballet or creative movement at around four years of age will not need to think too much about technique. At this stage, instilling a joy of movement is vital. Teaching musicality and approaches to moving creatively will be the main focus. Simple stretching exercises in the guise of games will be introduced. This is a very special age and quite fun to teach. Having colorful and flowing scarves, various types of musical instruments, and other props in your arsenal helps keep a child of this age engaged. Experimenting without using particular steps, but with movements that are heavy, soft, light, sharp, dull, long, short, or what have you will enable them to express themselves using their bodies in new ways. Later, when more formal technique is introduced, they will be more open to trying new things if they’ve been given a chance to experiment on their own a bit first.

Skipping ahead now to the pre-teen and teenage years, I think it’s especially important for a teacher to understand what is happening developmentally, emotionally, and intellectually to these students. This is a critical age (between 11 and 15) where they are coming into their own selves, learning how they are the same and different from their peers, and beginning to shape who they will be as adults. This is a fascinating article about the growth of the brain in these formative years, and how physical activity can have an effect on that growth.

Socially, we know that adolescents are going through a difficult time at this stage. They are morphing out of the childhood phase and moving into the adult phase, having to navigate their way sometimes alone and sometimes with the help of peers, and sometimes they are lucky enough to have the loving guidance of a teacher helping them along this new territory. I think ballet teachers could easily forget this is happening. I’m not saying that we should relax our standards by any means; I think the fact that there are clear expectations in a ballet class (see my post on ballet etiquette) can be comforting to a pre-teen. Here is a place they can come and know exactly how to behave. I’m just saying that it’s important for teachers to be aware of what these kids are going through developmentally at this stage in their lives.

One way we can effect a positive influence on pre-teens through ballet is by offering plenty of praise when they get things right. At this age students should already understand that getting a correction is not a criticism for them to take personally and feel badly about. They should know that getting a correction means they are worthy of the attention of the teacher and it’s a means to improve their technique. For a teacher, I think once a correction has been given to a student it is of vital importance to note when that student incorporates it and makes the adjustment. It’s a two-part thing here: give a correction, and watch to see (and praise) when the correction has been made in the future by that same student. This sort of confirmation encourages the student to seek corrections, even when not given to them directly, and implement the improvements in their technique because they know that the effort will be noticed.

I’m not really finished with my thoughts on the powerful influence a ballet teacher can have on his or her students, but this is enough for one post. Any other thoughts from other teachers out there? I plan to write more in detail about how we can work with kids at various stages of their training to get the most out of them, avoid burn out, and build their self esteem right along with their technique. Even for those who study ballet for a year and never come back, it can have a positive influence on their lives.

Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes

by Tamara Stanwood, 2009

Degage

Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes

by Tamara Stanwood

Infusing Fun into Ballet Barre Combinations

There are many things that can be considered in order to make barre exercises more interesting and beneficial to your students. In my last post, Anatomy of a Ballet Combination, I did mention that using épaulement (shouldering, meaning arm and head movements) is important to include in combinations at the barre so the dancers don’t look uncomfortable dancing in the center. Since I wrote that post I’ve thought of more things to add that can make your barre combinations really dance!

Change feet. It’s easy to get caught in the en croix crutch. One tendu en croix, one degagé en croix, etc. But en croix gets boring, and the pattern doesn’t make the dancer use their minds as well as their bodies. I love combinations that shift weight and change feet. For example, you could do a tendu combination and have the pattern be front, side, (change leg) – inside leg front, (change leg again) – back. Or you could do front, inside leg back, outside leg side, and inside leg side, and then reverse.

Along these same lines, you can work the outside leg and turn the body ¼ away from the barre to work in éffacé devant, or ¼ into the barre for croisé devant. The same is true for working to the back. You can also change directions entirely, moving the body to face the barre at one point in the combination, perhaps moving through promenade in attitude or arabesque, and finishing on the second side where you’re ready to begin everything on that side.

One of my favorites was always pirouettes at the barre. At first this is tricky because you’re afraid you’re going to hit your knee on the barre, so it may be helpful to begin with the foot on the ankle or calf rather than at the knee at first. Becoming comfortable doing pirouettes at the barre makes doing them in the center infinitely easier. It’s like having a permanent partner right there; one that you know will be there when you come around at the end of the turn. You can add pirouettes to practically any barre exercise, but I think it makes more sense to do this toward the middle to end of barre rather than at the very beginning.

Fouetté turns are commonly done at the barre during rond de jambe en l’air exercises. You can also do pirouettes en dehors or en dedans during degagés, rond de jambe, frappé, or grand battement. Flic flacs are great for adding turns during frappé. And in pointe class, doing turns at the barre really helps build a dancer’s confidence before moving into the center.

One last thought and I’ll close this post. If you’re short on time and want to move from one side of the barre to the next without stopping in between sides, there are tons of ways to make the transition to the other side more fun. You can do tombé pas de bourrée to 5^th position away from the barre and still facing the side you were working on, then detourné ½ turn toward the back leg, and tombé pas de bourrée to 5^th position on the other side to finish at the barre, ready to begin the second side.

And another plug for my new book! Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes.

Anatomy of a Ballet Combination

Did you ever have to diagram sentences when you were in school? I remember doing that, and realizing that every sentence has certain parts that are required and some that just add variety and interest. The same is true of combinations for ballet class. Every class needs to progress through pliés, tendus, degagés, rond de jambe, grand battement, and every combination has parts that should be included or can be added to make it more interesting. We shouldn’t only work on our artistry during rehearsal and performance. Artistry begins in the classroom, and by adding dimension to your combinations you allow your students to experiment and grow. A good rule of thumb for most combinations is to keep it at an even number of phrases, so you’d have two sets of eight, four sets of eight, or eight sets of eight, for example. This simply makes sure you finish a combination at the end of a phrase rather than in the middle.

Just as the progression of exercises at the barre generally alternate between slow and fast tempos to give the muscles a chance to stretch before contracting quickly again, it’s possible to design your combinations in this way, too. I loved taking classes from teachers who knew how to add stretching to a fast degagé combination, or who added some double time rond de jambes in a rond de jambe à terre combination. One simple way of incorporating this into your combinations is to take the steps at a slower pace the first time through, and without changing the tempo of the music, move the steps into double time so they are twice as fast. You can do this also by turning a slower tendu combination into a faster degagé combination, or a faster degagé combination into a slower grand battement combination.

Another thing to remember when constructing your combinations is to use épaulement, or shouldering (head and arms). It’s important to use the arms at the barre so that when dancers move into the center they don’t look stiff and uncomfortable using their arms and head. Each combination can have a goal that contributes to the overall goal of that class. You may decide to devote a whole class on attitude. You can balance in attitude at the barre, practice embôité turns or attitude turns in the center, practice renversé, grand allegro with bent back leg. In a class like this you may do balançoire at the barre in attitude. A good teacher can take a specific movement and make a whole class out of it. Adding a balance to the end of a barre combination is always a good way to finish, because it allows the dancer time to stop and pull everything together for a moment before moving on to the next step or combination.

Here’s a link to my new book of over 200 ballet combinations! Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes

Dance Career Alternatives

Many dancers simply dance, without thought to what might happen if they became injured and unable to continue dancing. It’s important to think about alternatives to a dancing career, not only due to unforeseen circumstances such as injury, but after you retire from dancing at the ripe old age of forty or older (if you’re lucky). One of the best ways you can ensure continued employment in the field you love is to begin teaching dance. Ballet companies usually have a school associated with them, and this is the perfect place to begin training as a teacher. Being a great dancer doesn’t necessarily mean you will be a great teacher, but the best way to learn how to teach is to do it!

There are many wonderful books about teaching ballet. Some of my favorites include these:

Classical Ballet Technique, by Gretchen Ward Warren

This book goes into great detail about the tradition of ballet, the ideal body structure and posture for ballet, methods of teaching, positions of the body and when to introduce steps, and includes notes on classroom etiquette, a pronunciation guide, and glossary of terms.

The Pointe Book: Shoes, Training & Technique Second Edition, by Janice Barringer and Sarah Schlesinger with forward by David Howard

In this book you will find a history of pointe dancing, the foot and pointe shoe making process, the fitting process, caring for shoes, basics of teaching pointe, sample pointe classes, and pointe-related injuries and their remedies.

Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet, by Gail Grant

You will find diagrams for directions of the body and feet. Arabesques, port de bras, and positions of the body are described for the Cecchetti Method, the French School, and the Russian School (Vaganova).

There are many other careers that are dance-related, too. Click here to see a listing. You may end up going back to school to get certification in physical therapy; you may decide to get a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in dance so you could teach at the university level; you may find that you have creative talent in the area of choreography; you might open a dancewear store, like I did. The opportunities are endless, and your expertise will be valued by beginning students and their parents, by audiences, and by school administrators if you wind up teaching, choreographing, or even selling dancewear (and knowing how to fit shoes properly).

Do any readers have ideas to share about alternative careers for dancers? Feel free to leave a comment below!