Auditions: Cutting Dancers at Barre is Stupid

A former student has been given a full scholarship to the RAD Geneé competition. She'll be flown from LA to Sydney, Australia, everything paid for, because she is a brilliant dancer. Out of thousands of eligible dancers from around the world, she'll be one of a small handful to receive a full scholarship that runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, but if you are one of those jerks who cuts people at barre, you'd tell her huh-bye after pliés. She has hip issues that make her grand pliés look awful, but everything else is fantastic. Beautiful legs and feet, spectacular jump, 5-6 pirouettes, strong as an ox, wonderful port du bras. 

Anyone who runs an audition, charges dancers for it (which I think is heinous), and cuts people at barre, is a fool. I know many dancers whose barre work is okay, not from lack of hard work or talent, but who can dance beautifully. I also know dancers who look astounding at barre, but can't move if you put a gun to their heads.

Yeah, yeah, I know, you're only cutting dancers because you need the room in the center. I don't care. They paid you. If you cut them, refund their money. Better yet, give them every chance to impress you. It's only your loss if you cut someone because they're not flat turned out, but can jump like an Olympian, or do nine pirouettes.

Don't be a snob.

See you soon in class (which I will let you complete).

Efficient Training

I started studying ballet the week I graduated from high school. Four years and ten months later, I was dancing for The Joffrey. I was not gifted in any way. I worked hard, and I found the most efficient ways to train. I did not adhere to one style or syllabus or curriculum; I found flaws in all of them. I picked the stuff that made sense to me, and that worked.

There are a lot of teachers/dancers who believe that one syllabus or curriculum is right and will teach you everything you need to know.

No.

Most syllabi teach you how to do specific steps. That's wrong. There are so many steps, classes would have to be hours long, and you'd have to remember way too much. There are actually very few specific things you really have to learn. It is far more important to train the body to function as a classical dancer, than to learn a specific step.

For example, there are only two shapes for your arm in classical ballet. Two. That's it. We're talking strict classical ballet, here, not Romantic, not choreography, just ballet. You have the curved shape, and the "straight" shape. The curved shape is virtually the same for fifth en bas, first, second, fifth en haut, etc. The "straight" shape (very slight bend at the elbow) is the same for any arabesque or elongee.

That's it. Two shapes.

Another example is relevé. We used to train on quarter pointe, with the heel just off the floor for turns. That's disappeared. Now, your foot is either flat on the floor, or full relevé, or en pointe. Three positions. Done.

See what I'm getting at?

Stanley Williams gave the simplest classes. Frustratingly simple, before we realized he was a genius. We didn't have complex grand allegro, which really pissed us off. He told us, "Boys, just do these exercises and everything will work." We didn't believe him. We didn't realize that by training the body to be a classical dancer, you'd be able to do any step you wanted. Sure we did exercises in all the required positions, but we didn't learn every individual step. We trained our muscles to hold our turnout, to point our feet, to use our core. We still didn't believe him.

Until one day.

After class, we were milling about the studio, frustrated that we hadn't been working on the big bravura steps we all wanted to do. I went to do a double saut de basque. We hadn't even done singles in class.

It worked.

I stopped, turned and saw everyone in the room was looking at me. I pointed to a friend. "You try it." It worked for him, too. We went around the room. Everyone could do doubles.

We realized Stanley was a genius.

He hadn't taught us to do double saut de basque.

He had taught us to be dancers.

If the syllabus or curriculum is teaching you to do individual steps, and not teaching you to be a dancer, it's wrong.

Stanley never said, "This is the Royal Danish syllabus." He just taught us ballet.

That's the way I teach.

See you in class.

First Year on Pointe

There are basically two schools of thought for pointe shoe choice for first year pointe students. 1) They're young and still developing strength, so their shoes should be strong/hard to support them. 2) They're young and still developing strength, so their shoes shouldn't be too strong/hard, so they can work their feet and get stronger. 

Take a wild guess which one I believe in. If you've been reading this blog, you know.

A lot of girls are put on pointe waaaaaay before they should be. If they need strong/hard shoes to hold them up, they're not strong enough to be on pointe. Sure, pointe work will strengthen the feet and legs. Duh. However, you have to be strong first, otherwise you won't benefit from pointe work.

Holding a student back so they get stronger before putting them on pointe is a good idea. Period. Giving them shoes that are no more than crutches is not.

See you in pointe class... when you're ready.

Appropriate technique

At a performance the other night, one of the ballet dads (I love that we have "ballet dads" and "soccer moms") asked me if I could look at a dancer and know what type of training they had. I said, yes, usually. This is good and bad. It's good if they are using what I am going to call "appropriate technique". It's bad if the first thing I notice is their specific training.

Every ballet should be danced appropriately. If you're watching, say, "Sleeping Beauty", every dancer should be dancing with proper classical placement, style that looks like it should be there. If you're sitting there thinking, "That guy trained at the Royal, that girl is obviously from the Maryiinsky, etc." you are no longer watching the ballet or following the story. Those dancers are dancing the ballet wrong. Not that everyone should look the same, but there should be some kind of uniformity, especially from the corps.

If you're watching a Neo-classical piece, like "Four Temperaments", everyone should look like a Neo-classical dancer, otherwise they are dancing it wrong. To put it drastically, it would be like watching Fosse danced like Martha Graham.

Technique should be transparent. You really shouldn't be able to tell where someone has trained. Even though I trained in the Vaganova style and Neo-classic, I danced for The Joffrey, where we prided ourselves as having no specific style. We had a uniform appearance in placement, and one of our trademarks was being extremely well rehearsed, but we were just ballet dancers. We had to be able to adapt ourselves to everything from Tudor to Pilobolus, so if we were stuck in one style, that would not have been possible. You had to dance Tharp differently than DeMille and in some of those pieces, you couldn't even look like a ballet dancer. In "Rodeo" you couldn't even stand turned out!

But, Jerry, you're talking about character pieces or jazzy stuff. Yes, but the differences between "Swan Lake" and "Don Quixote" really are as drastic as between "Rodeo" and "Deuce Coupe II". They have to be. Fouettés in "Nutcracker" are different from fouttés in "Flames of Paris".

Some teachers of specific styles think their style is appropriate for every ballet. Nope. This is one of the reasons I don't adhere to any one syllabus. If your "Giselle" instantly makes me think you trained at SAB, you're doing it wrong. If you're going to honor Mr. B., then you have to honor Marius Petipa, too.

See you in class.

Ballet Has Evolved

Yes, it has. Training methods have improved, shoes have improved, and the good old days weren't all that good.

Oh, sure, there were great dancers, but I know many women whose feet were destroyed by the limited variety and technology of pointe shoes. I remember using an X-Acto knife to cut out the soles of my soft shoes because they were too stiff. I remember Capezio tights that were so inflexible, you could pull a muscle putting them on, and good luck making a quick change with sweaty legs. And don't get me started on a makeup from Satan known as Texas Dirt.

Thank God and the Australian ballet for split-soled shoes that didn't need to be broken in. Thank Eliza Minden for the Gaynor-Minden pointe shoe. I don't know who to thank for finally realizing that a center seam in tights and unitards makes no sense for either sex, but bless you, whoever you are! Oh, and thanks for unitards, too! And new fabrics! And colors! Have you seen some of those gorgeous lace-accented leotards?

Training methods have changed. Thinking that everyone should be trained the way you were trained pretty much slaps George Balanchine right in the face. You do know that he developed a whole new style of ballet, yes? Well, that can happen again. Thinking that advancement of the art stopped with Mr. B. is an insult to him. I tell my students that I think the way I teach- which is constantly evolving- is good, but they might find an even better way.

The good old days are fine to learn from, but you can't be stuck there. You can't look at training methods that produce wonderful dancers, and pooh-pooh them because you don't understand them. Learn, for heaven's sake! I heard of a high school teacher who told his students, "You're born, you learn, then you die."

Think about that.

I'll see you in class.

Artistic Technique

Ballet technique has improved over the years. Lines are cleaner, legs are higher, more pirouettes, more technical jumps, etc. Many people say there is no artistry, anymore, that technique is too much the goal. This has been the argument for many years. Pavlova was told, "Leave the acrobatics to the others." If you watch films from that time, you wonder what they were talking about. There will always be people saying the old days were better, the dancers were better, blah, blah... blah. I'll be the first to say the old Russians had more passion than many dancers today, but I'll also be the first to say that the dancers today are technically better. Should we go back to the old days? Hell, no. A certain choreographer did a full length ballet for a certain major ballet company in the style of when it was first done, 1890, and it was a piece of garbage. The dancers were wasted. Ballet has evolved.

But, Jerry, don't we need artistry? Of course. I demand that from my students, but that artistry has to be part and parcel of the technique, not something separate. It's like gymnastics. I love watching gymnastics. I'm amazed at what those gymnasts can do. However, it almost makes me laugh, when they do their "dance elements" then go to the corner, drop all pretense at artistry, and do a tumbling pass. That's when technique and artistry are separate things.

In ballet, you have to make your pirouette artistic. You have to make your jump artistic. You have to make the technique artistic. That comes from telling a story. If you just do the mechanics of a step, to me that's boring. I call it "technique face". Dance, dance, dance, oh, I have to do a pirouette! It's the gymnast starting a tumbling run. There isn't a moment in ballet when you're not telling the story. There isn't a note of music that isn't part of the story. There isn't a single step that isn't part of the story.

And every story is different.

There are many ballerinas who are absolutely exquisite. Stunning legs and feet, superb technique. They do "Giselle" like "Don Q". No. In "Don Q" you can put your leg by your ear and it's fine. You do that in "Giselle" and you get a face full of tulle. That's when the technique is separate from the artistry. That's when the dancer is more concerned with her extension, than what it means. Sure the developés in "Giselle" today are higher than they were in the 19th century, but they're not so high that the costume covers your head, and they never will be, unless you're doing some avant garde version.

It's the teacher's job to make sure the student learns technique combined with artistry. When I work with a dancer on a variation, for example, the first thing I ask is, "Who is this person?" Then, "Why are they doing these steps, in this costume, to this music, at this point in the ballet?" They have to know why they are doing something, not just how.

What's really surprising, is that when a child starts ballet young, they are actually taught artistry first. You don't teach a three year old technique. You teach them to skip through fields. You teach them to pick flowers, or chase butterflies. That's art. Somewhere along the line, that's forgotten and lost. That's when the art disappears and the technique becomes the goal. 

The creativity of children playing is very artistic. When they play, they create entire worlds. Never lose that. It is truly the essence of art. Of course, you must develop technique to be a dancer, but every bit of technique must have artistry in it. You don't just lift an arm into first arabesque, you reach out, point at something, look over your hand across the lake, or the ballroom. You don't just do a tendu, you are Cinderella polishing the floor, which must shine or your stepsisters will tell on you. You don't just jump, you are leaping because your joy lifts you from the floor. 

Artistry and technique must and can go hand in hand. We're not going to go backward to lower legs, fewer pirouettes, etc. We must imbue every step with meaning, with a story, with art. That's our job as dancers and artists.

See you in class.

Fouettés, yes, Virginia, there is a right way.

I know, I know, different syllabi teach fouettés different ways, but you know me, I think I'm right and some people are wrong.

I believe ballet is about beauty. One of these blogs is about that. I believe steps should  be done in the most beautiful way possible. For fouettés, and grande pirouettes, you should present the most beautiful position to the audience. For me, that's on pointe, or relevé, leg and arms a la seconde. That's a beautiful position. Stretched. Lifted. Feet pointed.

I love Russian training and style, but the traditional Russian fouetté, taking the leg directly to second in plié, en face, just isn't pretty to me. I teach spot-plié-relevé, where as soon as your spot comes around, you start to open the leg in front of you- to the corner- you open the trailing arm into second, then you swing the leg and leading arm to second as you relevé. (I'm assuming you're doing your fouettés en face. If you do them in any other direction, the process is still the same). Then you just bring your arms into first as the leg comes into retiré. This is the prettiest, to me.

It's also the most efficient. If you're on relevé in second, your movement into the pirouette position is simpler than if you have to relevé and bring your arms into first and bring the leg into retiré. Viengsay Valdez, the brilliant Cuban ballerina, has the most perfect fouetté technique I've seen. It's clean, efficient, seemingly effortless, but also powerful, athletic and beautiful.

Sure, I tell my students that they have to find the way that works for them and, if they're doing solid fouettés different than I like, I'm not going to change them. If what they're doing isn't working, however, I'll teach them my way.

Because it's beautiful.

See you in class.

Shin Splints

I have been very lucky. The only time I had really bad shin pain was when I took a student to the finals of the YAGP in New York and walked more in the first day than I had in months (nobody walks in LA). My anterior calf muscles were so sore, I couldn't sleep on my stomach because of the pressure on my shins, and I couldn't sleep on my back because the sheets hurt. Side sleeping wasn't much better.

Most dancers have had shin splints at some time. Mostly they're caused by hard landing from jumps, but it's not just the shock of a heavy or hard landing. Shin splints are inflammation of the connective muscle tissue surrounding the tibia. The major repetitive stress for dancers is jumping, but there is a more insidious cause that is part and parcel of jumping, but can aggravate the condition, even if you stop jumping.

If you roll in on your arches, it puts great stress on the same muscle tissue that bad landings affect. If you roll just taking barre, or center without jumping, your shin pain will stick around and could even get worse. I was always very careful about my placement; I never rolled in. I know, that sounds impossible, but I didn't get shin splints dancing, and in 18 years, I never had a knee injury.

Your landings should be soft and quiet, and well placed. For example, if in your garden variety grand jetés, your front leg isn't directly in front of you, when you land, not only will your heel hit the floor hard (your foot isn't really underneath the center of your body) but you'll roll in, compounding the felony. You'll be lucky if all you get are shin splints.

At the barre, you must be extremely diligent about not rolling in, for many reasons, not the least of which is to prevent shin splints and knee injuries. When jumping, you must maintain your placement/turnout in the air, just like at the barre, so that when you land, you won't roll in. If you are like many dancers, when you relevé, you lose a little turnout, mostly because you relax your glutes. Then when you put your heels down, you re-engage your glutes, but the damage is done, and you're twisting your feet back into position. This action is a lot worse if the same thing, or more, happens when you jump. In the air, you lose your turnout, then you try to fix it when you land, when you should be concentrating on going through your feet, and boom, shin splints and/or knee injuries. They are caused by twisting, tibial torsion if you want to get technical, as much as by hard landings.

So, maintain proper placement (which could be the answer to most problems), and you will have a far better chance of avoiding shin splints and other unpleasant things.

We'll get to treatment options, next time.

See you in class.

Yes, now available as an ebook!

The Competition is now available in ebook form! http://thebp.site/73879

Ebooks

Yes, I am working on an ebook version. Shipping costs around the world are quite high!

More self promotion

My ballet novel, "The Competition", about two rival dancers about to perform the same variation from a forgotten ballet at a prestigious competition, is on sale now, at thebookpatch.com

Here is a direct link, or you can use the "buy it now" button on the blog site.

http://thebp.site/73879

Proper distance from the barre

Stand with your arms in second, lower your barre arm and your hand should rest lightly on the barre. Your elbow should be dropped, don't grip the barre, blah, blah... blah.

When you are doing your pliés, you set yourself up so that you are the proper distance from the barre. Some syllabi tell you to not move your barre foot (the one closest to the barre) when you change to second position or fourth or fifth. I understand the logic of this: You want to be solid on that foot/leg. However, if you don't move that foot when you change position, you will no longer be the proper distance from the barre. If you start in first, you'll be too far away in second, and too close in fourth and fifth. 

That simply does not make any sense to me. The way dancers hold onto the barre is a huge issue. If you grip the barre, you put your balance into your hand, not on your feet, where it should be. If you're not the proper distance, it will affect that. Your hand should be free to move on the barre as you adjust your weight during an exercise. If you're not the proper distance, well, I hope you get the picture.

I tell my students that they may move both feet when changing position in pliés. I explain why, then tell them that some teachers don't want them to do that, so in their classes, they must do what those teachers want. I was initially taught not to move my barre foot, but it almost instantly occurred to me that this didn't make sense, since I was also told to stand the proper distance from the barre. I do my best not to teach contradictory things. (See my post on syllabi that contradict themselves, and why I don't slavishly adhere to only one syllabus).

So, maintain the proper distance to the barre, and I'll see you in class.

Encouragement

The owner of a ballet school once told me that I shouldn't encourage students to pursue careers as professional dancers.

Read that sentence again.

Okay, yes, very few dancers will become professionals. Duh, really? I started ballet the week I graduated from high school (17 years old). Four years and ten months later I was dancing for the Joffrey. I was not gifted in any way, I was just determined and I worked hard. I have 10 year olds in some of my classes. They have a seven year head start on me. Why the heck would I not encourage them? Telling them they can't do it, would be insulting to them and the height of arrogance from me.

Doubt and lack of encouragement have killed more dreams than lack of talent.

Any good teacher wants their students to be their best. A sense of accomplishment is good for kids. Telling a kid they can't do it, is insane. How the heck do you know what they can and can't do in a few years, with hard work? We hear about handicapped people climbing Mount Everest, and you're telling me I shouldn't encourage a child to be a dancer?

Look at it from a purely business standpoint. You run a ballet studio. You teach ballet. You need students. If you don't get students, you go out of business. How do you get students? How do you get parents to choose your studio over others? By providing good training. How do you prove you provide good training? If you can say, "We trained dancers who are now with ABT, or Joffrey, or Lines, or we regularly send dancers to prestigious summer programs, or we sent dancers to the Royal Ballet School and the Princess Grace in Monaco, or we had a Grand Prix winner at the YAGP", there's your proof.

Successful students mean success for a school. If you don't understand that, you have no business running a ballet school, or any business for that matter.

You must encourage your students. They must dream big. That can only help your school. Will they all make it? No, but your encouragement will help them in every walk of life.

See you in class.

Nobody's Perfect.

Vaganova. Cecchetti. RAD. Balanchine. Now ABT, too.

No single syllabus has everything right.

Go ahead, yell and scream, and rant and rave, it's no use you need a shave! (Obscure Bugs Bunny reference).

I can poke holes in all of them.

If you slavishly adhere to a single syllabus, you doom ballet to stagnation. Balanchine didn't stick to Vaganova, he "invented" a whole new style. RAD supposedly chose the best of all the syllabi. ABT decided to create their own.

I started with Vaganova. I love a lot of the Russian training, but the forcing turnout thing is ridiculous. I have a theory about Russian training, whether it is ballet, gymnastics or hockey: If you can survive it, you'll be quite strong. If not, kiss your knees goodbye. I was lucky enough to have very strong quads when I started ballet- from being a hockey player, hmm...- and I never had a knee injury in all my 18 years as a dancer. So, no forcing turnout, and I prefer the Balanchine tendu placement, on the center line of the body. (I also studied at SAB).

I don't like the way Balanchine wanted tendu done, by lifting the arch, and tensing the toes. Here's where I can prove Neo-classical technique contradicts itself. Mr. B. liked his ladies to roll up and down en pointe. Doing his tendus does not translate into that. In fact, doing tendus "wrong", as far as he went, does far more to train you to roll up and down than his technique does. I also don't like the straight back leg for pirouettes. Too stylized. Just as you wouldn't dance "Four Temperaments" like a Petipa dancer, you couldn't dance "Giselle" like a Balanchine dancer; neither would look right. When Gelsey Kirkland wanted to dance the classics, she spent a year learning the proper technique.

(I also don't like Neo-classical port du bras- it can get very messy- or opening the hip for arabesque. That twists your spine and does nothing to stretch out your hip flexors.)

Simple movements must prepare you for the more complex stuff. The Neo-classical tendu doesn't prepare you for relevé, and neither does the RAD simple brisé prepare you for the more complex brisés voleé. The RAD brisé is a linear movement, a brush to the side. The RAD voleé is a rond de jamb. The simple one has no relation to the complex. You can do simple brisés till you're blue in the face, and they won't do you a bit of good as far as voleé goes. To learn that, you have to start from scratch.

The simple Russian brisé is a brush through first to the front, or back, from fifth position. The Russian voleé is also a brush through first. The only difference is you land on one leg (in coupé) instead of two. The simple helps the complex.

I started ballet when I was 17. I had to find the most efficient methods to train myself, to make the transition from ice hockey to classical ballet as fast as possible. 4 years and 10 months after I started, I was dancing for The Joffrey. I picked and chose what made sense and what worked. I think I did pretty well. I was not gifted, just analytical.

So, even if you are in a strict whatever-style school, you have to explore other syllabi. Some things may just not work for you. For example, I tried the RAD voleé and felt like a rag doll flailing about in a hurricane. The Russian simple brisé prepared me so well that the first time I tried voleé that way, it just worked.

Keep growing, keep ballet growing, and I'll see you in class.

The YAGP

One of my younger students, who is thinking about doing the YAGP next year, asked me, "Is it really like the movie, 'First Position'?" I said, yes, pretty much, except for this: The movie used the dramatic hook of making the competition very important for a dancer's career. That's only partly true. If you get a job, or a scholarship, great! If you don't, if you don't do well, or if you do horribly, no one remembers. It's a win/win situation. The only dancers people/judges remember are the ones who do well. If you're in an audition later on, and you're doing great, they're not going to say, "Yes, you look good, today, but three years ago, in the YAGP, you missed those Italian fouettés so we don't want you." Even if you don't place well, you may get something. One of my students got a partial scholarship to the Bolshoi School in New York, because they saw potential. Franco De Vita of ABT said he looks for what dancers will be, not what they are. Dmitri Kulev, in the documentary, was consoling a dancer, saying, "It's a live performance, things happen." So, if you want to do the YAGP, know that it's not the day that matters, it's the work.

See you in class.