Plié. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

No, not the literal translation, you probably know that. No, I mean do you know, really know how to plié?

Probably not.

Most dancers, even some professionals, simply relax their leg muscles, bend their knees, and catch themselves at the bottom of their demi plié. This is a waste of time. Not only does it not develop any leg strength, it makes your landings from jumps lousy.

Here's how to really do plié.

Stand in first position, heels together, legs straight (never stand on hyperextended legs). Pull up on your quads, lifting the kneecaps, actively straightening your legs. If you don't see your leg muscles- especially the vastus lateralis, the outside quad- (in the mirror, don't look down), they're not working. Now, keeping the feeling of actively straightening your legs, start your plié. You must keep pulling up as you flex your legs, not just bend them. Resist bending your legs. Pressing your heels into the floor, continue to your demi, then to your grande, keeping the heels close to the floor. On the way back up, you must push as if there is a ton of weight pressing you down. Of course, this is done slowly, feeling the muscles working all the time.

Once you have returned to a straight leg position, if you have done it right, you will say what one of my young men said, when I taught them how to do it correctly in men's class.

"That's exhausting!"

Yup. It's also the best way to build strength.

See you in class.

Testing vs Competitions

I'll choose competitions over testing, every time.

Yes, I know about RAD and I think Cecchetti also does testing, but I think, no, I know competitions (not the sequin crap), are more beneficial for many reasons, but this one, in particular:

Testing does not prepare you for what you'll do as a professional.

But, Jerry, what if I don't want to be a professional?

If you're in my class, I'm training you as if you want to be a professional.

As a pro, you're not going to dance in front of judges/adjudicators, in a studio, who will say, "Do such and such combination", and give you a certificate. You're going to be dancing in front of an audience. Testing does not prepare you for that. Oh, the highest level of testing might, but all the tests before that don't.

Competitions, on the other hand, do prepare you for what you'll be doing as a pro, dancing on stage in front of an audience.

But, testing gives you short term goals, and a codified, structured way to learn to dance.

I'll say this, again, testing doesn't prepare you for what you'll do as a professional.

It prepares you to take tests.

If you like that, great, go for it, but you'll still have to dance on stage, in front of an audience. There isn't a company worth the name that will hire you if you have only taken tests and never performed.

Why are you dancing? To take tests, or to perform?

Like I said, I'll take competitions over testing, every time.

See you in class.

Ballet and your butt

I go around in class poking glute muscles. If they are not being used, I'll say something like, "No mushy buns!" When I see a dancer with a big butt, (mostly female), who is not using their glute muscles, their butt, I know exactly what's going on in their head. They're thinking, "I don't want my butt to get any bigger, so I'd better not use those muscles, because that'll make them grow like a bodybuilder."

Wrong.

If you use them, properly, they will not get bigger, because you are not using weights like a bodybuilder. Okay, don't believe me. Then your butt will stay big, and mushy, and you won't have the requisite strength in your hips to properly hold your turnout.

Dancers who don't use their butts properly can't hold their turnout, can't lift their leg in arabesque, can't keep their weight forward, and can't even maintain a neutral pelvis.

Turnout from the inside of the thigh? Nope, that's not what those muscles do.

Lift your leg in arabesque from underneath? Nope, the muscle on top does the work.

Etc., etc., etc.

Your butt muscles are extremely powerful. Your grand allegro jumps are powered more by extension of the leg than by your plié. Don't believe me? Watch the big jumpers. They don't use as much plié as you think. (Petit allegro is different).

If you still don't get it, look at professional dancers. No mushy buns there.

Use your butt, or you simply won't dance well.

See you in class.

Online Coaching

I have started a new Facebook page offering online/Skype/FaceTime coaching. Using any mobile device, I can now coach dancers' classical variations around the world via Skype, FaceTime or video analysis. Go to Facebook and search "Professional Ballet Coaching, By Skype/FaceTime/Video Analysis". Fees are negotiable, but are usually $50-60/hr for Skype/FaceTime, and $20/variation for video analysis.

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.