Early Revelations, continued..

Note: This is the second instalment of a two-parter. Read the first part here: Late Starts..

I was already obsessed with ballet, taking classes up to six times a week, and loving every moment.. Looking back, I had actually forgotten how not-scared I was about leaving my comfort zones behind! Come to think of it, I probably did not yet have any! Within a couple of years I took the plunge and made the jump to intermediate classes, with the permission of my teacher of course. But it was a whole different ball(et) game.. The dancers in that class were all more or less advanced, mostly adults (18-35+), with a variety of pro-statuses: ballet-pro (with sub-categories of corps/soloist, even principal pros), retired ballet-pro, pre-ballet-pro, possible future pre-ballet-pro, former pre-pro ballet students (who never went pro) plus a colorful assortment of modern/contemporary/jazz dancers, again with a variety of pro-statuses.. Well, you get the picture. I was the late starter without any status, the new kid on the floor, trying hard catch up and stay out of the way at the same time! 

Knowing that I was just barely allowed class-access, I never asked any questions so I would not slow down the flow of the class. Instead I tried to soak up the moves and positions as fast as I could. I took the last free spot at the barre, seeing that the regulars had their fixed places. I practiced in the back row for the longest time, which was a fairly safe place to be.. The exercises we did in the diagonal, however.. Yikes! Jill loved to change directions mid-step, and I was still trying to figure out my left from my right. The weird thing is that because everything was equally difficult, I had no idea of what was outright out of my reach - so I tried to do everything! Though I did fail, frequently and miserably. But I can still taste the adrenalin rush I got out of those classes.

You know those moments, when a perfectly executed pirouette catches you (and everyone else) off guard, or when a quick allegro suddenly feels like a breeze to do? For me that first moment was a balance. We were doing adagio in the center: from 1st, temps lié to seconde, push off into balance with left leg extended high to the side and arms in 5th (couronne). From there, enveloppé left leg to passé and down. It might have continued into pirouette. Anyway, I did the whole sequence in balance, using every bit of the music. I just didn´t think about it. My teacher raised one eyebrow appreciatively and said "nice balance". For me, it was like a stamp of approval. Also, I figured out that I have at least one strength in ballet - balances!

Check out her balances..

Another revelation permanently etched into my memory came in my regular intermediate-beg. class. It was a valse, and something about the music.. I did not know enough to fret about technical purity, but I loved the sequence of the movements - such fluidity - so I just enjoyed myself. After class, my teacher came up to me.. and praised me for my musicality! Needless to say, I was totally floored. My extensions are not at 6 o´clock, my splits let light shine through, and I will never do Kitri´s grand jeté (where the head and back leg almost meet). But, baby, I got me some balance and some rhythm! You can´t go too wrong with that combo..

In Memoriam

I was not sure this would be the post to write about my first ballet teacher, but now that I did.. And before someone else writes about it in the margins of the comment box: Almost four years ago we got news of the worst kind. Jill had died suddenly, in the middle of ballet class. She had just finished teaching her own group and had rushed over to take the professional´s class. Help came quickly, but too late. She literally died mid-dance, and as her rabbi consoled us two days later, Jill had danced straight into Paradise. Her untimely death tore a huge gap into our dancing community - she had been teaching over 25 years! She was a wife, a mother of three, a friend, a mensch, a dancer and a mentor to many. She was my teacher for more than 15 years. I still miss her. I wish I could show her how much I still love the gift she gave me so many years ago..

Late Starts..

I intended this blog to be about "Flexibility and the Adult Ballet Dancer", but that one is still in the making. The opening sentence goes something like this: I am not naturally flexible. However, people can change.. There. A teaser for my next blog. If you have any pre-comments or questions, feel free!

For this blog-post I am still on the memoire-track of my own dance-story (Check out Nichelle's excellent site for different ways to write your own: Dance Advantage.net: Your story.) I started to write this blog mid-dance, so to speak. But there is so much back-story, and so many experiences I carry with me everyday and to every class. It's not baggage, but the back-bone of my dancing and my love for ballet. So I hope I still have your attention..

You probably already know that I was a late starter to ballet, along with everyone else in my beginner's class. We newbies concentrated on learning the basic building blocks: proper placement, clean line, organic movement and musical phrasing. My teacher, Jill, a very elegant dancer, had originally been trained in the Cecchetti method. It is more of a no frills, no flowers  kind of style, very clean. During summer she also took classes in New York, and I suspect that there were plenty of influences from the likes of David Howard (click for video on youtube) et al. I loved the music she used: in addition to the typical classical ballet scores we danced to music from the American Songbook - all arranged for ballet class. She was a soprano singer in her own right and that musicality came clearly through in class. Jill had a real talent for phrasing movement to music, and gave challenging barre exercises, with changing accents and tempi. Never boring.

Her style of teaching was not the most academic classical ballet, and as such it was especially popular with modern and jazz dancers, and us adult recreational ballet dancers. Technique was never forced at the cost of anatomical proper placement, which is a very safe introduction to ballet. The only drawback was that "safe" was "super-safe", still leaving plenty of room for individual abilities. I learned only much later to push myself just that little bit further, and to find my own maximum turn-out, heel-forward, highest extension etc. But there is a time for everything. Learning proper placement and musicality from day one, was the best gift any teacher could have given us!