Ballet Buzz

I get no kick on a plane. Flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do.. No, I get a kick out of.. battemants and grand jetés, ballonés and pointe shoes, Balanchine and bourrées! I know there are other addicts out there, but we are not B.A.D. (Ballet Dorks Anonymous). No, we carry our addiction quite proudly, like hearts on our little sleeves. Never mind the dazed glazes of our friends and family, when we recap our classes to the last detail, again and again. Or when we go on and on about the finer points of a McMillan, Ashton or Ratmansky ballet. Or when we dissect the many virtues of Marcelo, Rojo or Hallberg. But thank the heavens and twitter for peer support - I know my non-dancing friends do!

If you don´t dance, you just don´t get it. If you do dance, you can´t do without. It´s a habit that feeds itself. The more you dance, the more you need your classes. Before you know it, you´re cultivating a daily habit. Okay, not daily. Even dedicated and driven dancers need to take a day off. If only to complain about their poor Monday shape the day after.. But your body gets used to it. I loved my Summer Dancathon, taking 5-6 classes per week. Now I´m back to three days a week, which is just not enough! I´m so desperate for more!

My dance-week starts on Monday, and boy do I feel that weekend break! Stiff and hardly any bounce in my body. Tuesday I´m back on my game again, Wednesdays are spent recovering from Tuesdays. Thursdays I´m climbing walls because there is no class (suitable to my schedule and requirements) and Fridays it´s back to advanced class and pointe, but I´m feeling the preceeding two-day break again. I know, I know -  it´s much better than one class or nothing at all, but what can I say? Both body and mind need a regular ballet-fix!

Yesterday´s class gave me such a buzz I´m still riding on its waves. We did a small bit of Balanchine´s choreography - intricate and quick steps and very different from my usual technique class. I´m not sure if it was out of Theme and Variations or some of Mr. B´s other ballets. I asked after class, but I´m sorry to say it did not stick to my memory. Which is funny because I do remember the steps. I gotta say that I absolutely adore Balanchine´s style of movement! And it´s a real privilege to learn (some) of the choreography from Madame, who has also danced in Balanchine´s Serenade (in the photograph above, "seated" right) and Apollo. Once you get your head and feet around the new steps and the speed and the accents, Balanchine is such a joy to dance. Not saying our attempts were any joy to watch though. But I did get a kick out of Madame´s demonstration!

My buzz did not end there. I got some very profound corrections, or lets call them directions instead. You see, I´m always told by my teachers to lengthen my back. I feel that I´ve done all I can, short of growing an extra vertebra. My line is plum, shoulders are mostly down, abs are strong, imaginary someone is pulling the top of my head, and imaginary someone other tugging in opposite direction. Still it is not enough. I can´t do a degagé before my teachers are on my case. Lengthen your back. Longer!  

Again, it goes back to the idea of presenting yourself. I have been standing straight alright, but Madame with her keen eye for the tiniest detail sees that my upper back is holding me, well, back. It´s not so visible as to hit you in the face like a bun gone astray. But it is lacking something. Attitude. Non-apologetic presence. Finally, Madame tells me to lift my upper sternum, and for the first time I think I get it. At least the idea of it. It will take some time to become second nature, but until then I can just fake it. Present myself, instead of holding back. Dear Readers, this is more than relevation, this is a revelation!

I apologize if I´m causing buzz-envy, but it did not end there either. It appears I´ve been jumping my sauts in first all wrong. I´m not sure I do it all the time, but instead of extending my legs in an open première, I´ve been pointing my feet underneath me, with heels almost touching. No idea where I got that from. When Madame pointed this out to me, I was totally baffled (and a little bit embarassed). But: it was the easiest thing to fix. Ever!

Then we did the turning on pointe thing, not piqué turns, not sous tenus, nor chaînés déboulés ( I really have to ask next time). You start from fifth, raise straight onto pointe in fourth, bring back leg in (it stays in the back), turn and open front leg again into fourth, staying up on pointe the whole time. Repeat until you reach end of diagonal. Arms close from 1. arabesque position and open again. The video clip of Lander´s Etudes shows it best, although they cross the back leg to the front (forward to 1:45).


We did this slow, and it was hard. Up, legs together, turn, stay up, open leg, stay up.. Madame, who is not wearing pointe shoes, asked me to demonstrate and darlings, it was not pretty. But I did as I was told, and kept my weight forward and used my shoulder and the inside of my thighs and all the confidence and 'tude I could master. And it worked! By the time we turned to the left, I was having the best time!

Even when there are no short-cuts to technique, ballet remains a short-cut to Happy. Buzzz...

Back to Basics

Beginning of June I returned to basic level ballet class. Not to worry Dear Reader, I have not suffered a sudden injury, nor the onset of ballet-amnesia, and neither have I been scared away from advanced class - quite the opposite! I have never been more comfortable out of my comfort zone. Thrilled in fact. Which means it is time for a new challenge, like taking a regular ballet class in pointe shoes. The timing was coincidentally fitting, as there are no actual pointe classes in summer. And no way could I hang up my shoes for three entire months! Come fall, I´m sure my feet would have punished me for such negligence.. However, our advanced level is too difficult for me to do en pointe, but my teacher okayed it for the basic class. It has been an interesting experience.

Wearing those pointe shoes is like a time-warp back to Akward. Sure, I´m ahead of the rest of the class, but learning to dance on pointe is like learning how to dance all over again! Last time another girl from my pointe group was there too, and after our teacher gave me another painstakingly precise correction, she explained to class that, yes, we are more advanced, but on pointe everything becomes newly challenging again. So true! Especially when we are not doing pointe-specific exercises. Whenever we stand flat, for tendus, degagés or center adagio, I miss feeling the floor under my feet. The first time we did a simple temps lie in center, finishing with arabesque, then plié, then pas de bourré, I was suprised most by the arabesque on flat foot. It´s like standing in a rocking boat! One one foot! Which is kind of odd, that I can balance better up, but I suppose that´s what those clobbers were designed for.. It´s a good exercise, makes you concentrate on proper placement. 

I´m really glad though that our teacher has also incorporated pointe-exercises into the barre, like various soutenus, piqués, sous sous, lots of balances (which I have been doing both rolling and springing up), and even relevés facing the barre. These are not just for our benefit (i.e. us who are pacticing pointe through the summer) but very useful and fun exercises to do on demi-pointe as well. Still I keep getting weird looks, especially when there is someone new. At the barre I´m fairly invisible to the rest, except to whatever poor girl is standing behind me, and getting confused by my modified barre. Hey, it´s a good exercise for keeping your focus!

In the center it´s different. I would prefer to go to the back of the class, but it´s already crowded. Strangely the entire first third of the floor is empty, so I take my spot there and try to lure some other girls to move up as well. I remember how daunting this was the first time around, and it is a bit nerve-racking again. Those pointe shoes sure are a great equalizer; I feel as clumsy as I did, what, 18 years ago.. When we do piqués in the diagonal, my teacher tells me to do just balances, even though we have been praticing piqué turns in our pointe class (or was that with my other teacher?). I decide to give it a go anyway, and one the left I manage to keep up with the other dancers.

It really makes me appreciate basic level ballet again. It is such an important time in your dancing! It is when you build your foundations for everything that is to come, and you want to be a strong house, not some shack with the construction gone all wrong! I sometimes wonder why certain dancers are in such a hurry to leave basic levels behind, even disregarding their teacher´s advice in the process. There is no award in showing up in advanced ballet, not if your basic technique is seriously and sadly lacking. I would like to pull these girls/women aside, and tell them this: why not take the extra time, and hone your skills, build your strengths, do the real work, pay your dues and enjoy the whole journey! It will show in your dancing, and eventually you will be happier for it. Trust me.

Luckily, these few somewhat misguided wannabe-ballerinas are the exception. The basic class I´m taking is full of motivated and smart women who obviously love to dance and want to make the most of it! I thoroughly enjoy being in the same class with them, and hoping to be a good example makes me work even harder. The regulars are also used to my noisy pointe shoes by now - maybe some even like getting a preview of what´s to come.. In any case, if they decide to go en pointe, my teacher requires a minimum of three years of consistent and solid training, which would place them at basic-intermediate level..

And of course they are curious: "So how long have you been dancing before you got to go on pointe?" Me: "17 years." There is laughter, and someone joking that she will be a Grandma before she ever gets that far. Then there is also relief. Me being a teenager´s lifetime worth ahead of them, it kind of takes all peer pressure away. Of course, you do not have to wait as long as I did, but my example goes to show that you can take your own sweet time to get there. In the meantime, be a proud basic level dancer. Appreciate how far you´ve come already and know that you can get much further still!


The following video is not about basic level class, but I want to share it with you because Etudes is a true hommage to classical ballet training, and a dazzling display of brilliant dancing. Here it is danced by the Royal Danish Ballet, one of the finest companies in the world. The choreography is by Harald Lander. The first danseur, Kenneth Greve, is currently Artistic Director of the Finnish National Ballet.