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.
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