A world of hurt; or, it’s amazing what the human body can do

Had been planning to go to Lines’ Dance Center’s all-you-can-dance ($5 for 4 1/2 hours!) with Lisa for a few weeks now. Sunday was the big day. Unfortunately, Saturday, I made the poor decision to down a 6 oz. serving of chai at about 4PM (I am extremely caffeine-sensitive), which resulted in me staying up for pretty much the ENTIRE NIGHT. I mentioned it to her as we were headed to Lines on Sunday that I had stayed up all night–oh, was it a hot date? No, I didn’t have a hot date. But my intestines had a hot date with my toilet.

So, on two hours of sleep, I barted over to SF with Lisa and stepped into class.

1. Hip hop. I am not hip, and I do not hop. It was really enjoyable, though, despite the fact that the sight of myself in the mirror attempting to “look cool” was horrifying. Am soooo not a hip hop dancer, but it was super fun!
2. Modern. Well, supposedly the day was geared towards beginning dancers, but this class was definitely much more a fast, fast, complicated intermediate, replete with slides and falls. It confirmed my hatred of floor work and therefore my firm commitment to ballet.
3. Absolute beginning ballet. Not quite a real ballet class–no barres etc. Fine.
4. Break! We actually munched on our sandwiches and bran muffins and chocolate in the conference room…it was kind of neat to try and imagine what kind of amazing, famous choreographers and dancers may have once graced that room…
5. Musical theater. Fun!! Easy, not terribly strenuous except for the butt and thigh-murdering warm up routine, but cheesy. Very cute instructor with a beautiful tush.
6. Flamenco cancelled…boo. But instead, a 45 min Chinese folk dancing class, which was really interesting. Not much in the way of explaining the steps…it was very much a follow-the-teacher-monkey-see-monkey-do class, which I suppose is quite right for these sorts of short, sampling type classes. Low impact, except for when I (accidentally) punched myself in the left leg.
7. Jazz. I did maybe half this class, but was finally feeling the effects of no sleep and minimal food. So I sat down with Lisa and stretched for the second half.

After class we had a fabulously starchy dinner at a Chinese restaurant–three different kinds of noodles! Mine had roasted duck skin in it! Decadent and wholly satisfactory. I was flexing my legs under the table and thinking, gee, if I’m sore now, I’m going to be hurting tomorrow.

Today I feel like I have been run over by a garbage truck. Everything hurts. Still, I went to ballet this morning and am planning to go to class Tuesday and Thursday as well. I can’t even imagine how professional dancers do it…they do more than twice the hours we did, at a much much higher level. That, my friends, is why a few of my ballet teachers are still dancing and teaching class in their 80s.

Adult ballet: dancing ballet with a mullet

Getting back to my series of posts on adult ballet…hooray!

In a spurt of it’sgottocomeoffrightnowRIGHTNOW, I went to the local cheap salon last Sunday and got 6-7 inches chopped off of my head, and had bangs added. What I forgot to consider is that now I am consigned to attending ballet class with a mullet, thanks to the layers on the back of my head. I also have about 5-6 small hair clips gathered around the front of my head, in a futile effort to keep the bangs in place. There are little tufts of hair sticking out all over the place.

A few years back, when I was also dealing with a relatively short ‘do, my ballet teacher told me: there is a little curl on the back of your head. By the amount it bounces around at barre, I’ll be able to tell whether you are actually holding your upper body correctly or not. The moral of the story is that short hair/layered hair/bangs don’t make for the best ballet ‘do.

Progress update

I’ve never danced so much in my life. I’m taking a 3-hour intermediate-advanced class Monday through Thursday, which means I’m in class 12 hours a week; on top of that, I’m trying finish off a few class tickets at my old studio before they expire. So this week, this meant that I was in class for a grand total of 16.5 hours. Basically, my life is just my academic work, and dancing. I know this is nowhere near what professional dancers do, but it’s been a definite challenge for me, since I usually average around 4 or 5 hours of class a week.

I get up in the morning, go to ballet class, come home, make lunch, eat, work on my project, then it’s back to class in the afternoon. Come home again, eat dinner, then reading and writing till bedtime.

The results are good, for the most part: a better sense of my center, and I am picking up combinations faster than I ever have. Even unfamiliar steps (sissone doublé, anyone?) are easier to master. I’ve also almost ripped off a toenail, and have been sore in the ol’ gluteus maximus, hamstrings, calves, quads since Tuesday. It was a relief to hear an older dancer tell me that she thought I had danced as a child–a great compliment to someone who started as an adult.

Oddly, I’ve gained a pound this week, despite the dancing, even though I’ve kept my diet steady. It’s unclear to me how this happened.

Going well: small jumps and beats. A fun combination: entrechat trois, entrechat trois, entrechat cinq, pas de bourree, assemble battu, royale. Grand jete entrelace & fouettes. Saut de basque. Flexibility is increasing. About two inches from getting fully into front and back splits.

Needs work: turnout, as always. Pique en dehors (lame duck turns). Sissone double with developpe. Pivote. Spotting with turns in a circle. Fast turning combinations, like: pique turn, pique turn, saut de basque, soutenu turn. I need to work on going faster without losing the spot.

And to remind myself that what I do is not bad at all, a day in the life of the lovely (Asian!) Royal Ballet dancer, Yuhui Choi (linked to from the balletbag’s twitter account):

Time for class!

Adult ballet: recommended reading

When I began ballet, I found it useful and encouraging to know something about what I was getting into.

A few books and sites I found useful:

1. ABT ballet dictionary: a wonderful online dictionary of ballet terms and steps. The first and most daunting thing about ballet is probably the language; it’s in French, and most teachers will use the French terms as opposed to describing the motion (i.e. 4 pliés instead of “bend your knees four times”). Click on a term or step in this dictionary and there are images and videos to make the term clear.

2. Ballet talk for adult ballet students: a great community here for all different levels of ballet students. I used to read this board frequently (never did any posts, though). If you have a burning question about what’s going on in class, this is a great place to ask it. There is also some excellent information in the archives; and a great sticky on adult summer intensives, if you’re so inclined!

3. Joffrey Ballet’s Ballet Fit: a guide geared specifically towards adult ballet students. Cheap, straightforward, with lots of good general advice. There are also some exercises and descriptions of the overal arc of a ballet class, which is useful. Not a substitute for a real class, of course! There is a section on pointe in the back for the especially ambitious. Of all the books I read when starting out, this one was the best in terms of practical application.

4. The Ballet Companion: not specifically created for adult students, but a beautifully illustrated guide with descriptions of positions and ballet history. Also discusses non-ballet dance, such as jazz and modern. An elegant book.

5. Classical Ballet Technique (Recommended by puddle): I don’t own this book, but it looks to be an excellent resource for positions and steps. Over 2600 photographs, featuring dancers from ABT and the Joffrey.

Have more? Put them in the comments and I’ll add them!

High insteps, high arches: ballet feet

Spring break was all that could be hoped for; Lisa and Erik were very gracious hosts, and Berkeley is amazing. I’m in love with the Bay Area all over again, and can’t wait to move there in a few months! Now, there’s that pesky issue of a prospectus…

Meanwhile, I have been meaning to post for a very long time now about ballet feet, and particularly on the question of insteps. As with my hyperextension post, I’m no doctor or any other kind of authority, I’m writing strictly from my own experience, this is no replacement for a knowledgeable teacher or physical trainer, yadda yadda yadda. So! On with it.

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Ballet–classical ballet–is not a kind or generous dance form. That is, to a considerable degree, there is a very stringent and unyielding standard of what is desirable in the body of a dancer, and what is not. Attend any performance by a major company, and even a newcomer to ballet can get a basic sense of this: long and almost always thin. That said, there are ballet companies which take or even feature other kinds of bodies; the Joffrey, for instance, is known for the athleticism of its dancers. Some are downright stocky, and often very very strong, as opposed to the wispier physiques of other ballet companies.

The Joffrey aside (somewhat…their dancers are still very slim!) the prevailing trend in ballet these days is long and thin. Yet the demands that ballet makes of dancers go even beyond this already difficult to realize ideal; it extends to the very shape of the foot, and that extra inch of bone and flesh on the foot can earn a ballerina the envy of her peers. It’s no overstatement, I think, to say that dancers admire and want beautiful feet, even to the point of buying fabric inserts to give feet the desired appearance.

The ideal is, put simply: a strong yet flexible foot with a high arch and a high instep. As with hyperextension, high arches and insteps are all about the lines. When a foot with a high instep and high arch is fully pointed and stretched–oh, so lovely!

The Mechanics

The arch is the curve under the foot, between the heel and forefoot. The instep-perhaps a little counterintuitively–is the bony structure on top of the foot.

behold, Svetlana Zakharova’s ridiculously perfect foot!

For ballet, it is more important to have a high arch; this enables a dancer to get to a high demi-pointe, and if she is dancing en pointe, to get over the box of the shoe. From my experience, the jury’s still out on the functionality of a high instep; according to one teacher I’ve had, it’s purely aesthetic; from another teacher’s perspective, it has something to do with getting over the box as well. I’m not sure about this. But it is true that high arches and high insteps tend to go together, just as low insteps and flat feet tend to go together. My own feet are an odd mix: fairly good arches, minimal insteps; strangely enough, it seems that my left instep is a little higher than my right.

Alas, there is no way to vastly improve arches and insteps. For “banana feet” such as Zakharova’s or Alessandra Ferri’s, one must be born with them. No amount of ballet will ever get flat feet to look like those. However, feet can be gently exercised to improve arches–if only a little bit. Imagine pushing your arches outward in demi-pointe. The popular plie, rolling through the feet into demi-pointe, and then rising in releve is a great way to encourage the arches. For insteps, I suppose that imagining the instep pushing outward as well would help, as would making sure that feet are fully pointed and stretched for tendus and degages. But in general–you either have high insteps, or you don’t. When focusing on arches and pointing one’s feet, be careful to avoid sickling and pushing too hard, straining the ankle.

As I mentioned in my post about hyperextension, dancers with a lot of flexibility may tend to be not as strong as the dancers with lower levels of flexibility. This goes for feet as well. Strong feet tend to be flat, and curvy flexible feet have a tendency towards weakness. Both strength and flexibility are sought-after characteristics, and strength in feet is particularly useful for pointe work. Some young dancers with curved, flexible feet may find it frustrating to build the strength necessary to support themselves en pointe.

Dancer 1 has fairly low insteps; dancers 2 and 3 have high insteps!

A bit of historical perspective (my favorite kind of perspective)

Ballet dancers have not always been held to this standard. In the 19th and early 20th century, bodies and feet were not always pushed to the extremes that are now sought after.

Tamara Karsavina.

Not only did dancers from these days tend to be just a tad more voluptuous, in my opinion, but the expected en pointe look was also quite different. Above, we can see that Tamara Karsavina’s left (standing) foot is en pointe, but she is not quite over the box of her shoe. (The box is the rectangular-ish part of the shoe that encloses the toes and forefoot.) These days, it is expected of ballerinas that they will be able to get over the box of the shoe. A good arch makes this possible, and a high instep enhances the look. For example:

I think this is Zakharova again. Whoever it is, what an amazing line, from tip of her right toes to the bottom of her left!

As the 20th century progressed, dancers bodies became thinner, more streamlined, more elongated, more flexible, faster, and so on.

long, lean, and flexible!

It seems that many young dancers feel a great deal of pressure regarding their bodies, and feet in particular–”good feet” are banana feet, and “bad feet” have low arches and low insteps. They are particularly pressured about this when they are young and their bodies still somewhat malleable. But consider Margot Fonteyn:

Her feet are quite modest. “Bad,” even. Beyond her feet, she raised her arabesques only to a chaste 90 degrees–a far cry from the extensions in the above two photos! Yet my ballet teachers still carry on about how much she made of just a little precipite, or of such seemingly easy arabesques as above. Quality of movement, not quantity or length of extension.

I confess that I have a bit of an obsession with beautiful ballet feet. Sylvie Guillem, anyone? But in class I am always drawn to watching the dancers who are smiling, whose dancing radiates joy. Sometimes they have lovely feet. Sometimes not.
As desirable as high arches and insteps may be, it’s good to bear in mind that 99% of the audience don’t notice them–indeed, if they are in the nosebleed seats, they can’t even see them. High insteps are really a dancer’s obsession, and means very little beyond this particular group. This may be even more exclusively a ballet dancer’s obsession, as I can’t remember meeting a modern, tap, or ballroom dancer bemoaning the skeletal structure of their feet. Ballet can be exacting indeed.

Where the average viewer is concerned, what really counts is the expressive use of the whole body–think Fonteyn! Even one of Suzanne Farrell’s feet was partially crushed on one side due to a childhood accident. In terms of the feet, a pointed, strong, average foot is much more aesthetically pleasing than an unpointed, weak banana foot. And for balletomanes, the sum of the whole is much more important than the quality of the parts–even when it comes to something as basic as the feet in the pointe shoes. So in the end, as with hyperextension, slimness, proportion, line, etc, it is better to see a dancer using and celebrating what she has been blessed with, as opposed to watching a dancer with a perfect body (and perfect feet) going through the motions.

Hyperextension and ballet

I’ve noticed that this blog is getting a lot of hits from people looking for information about hyperextension and ballet, or hyperextended legs. While I’m not at all an expert (this is a very poor substitute for a teacher or physical therapist), here’s a little bit of information on it that I’ve gleaned from class and other sources. Because much of this is based on personal experience and observation, much of it could be wrong. Just a disclaimer.

Hyperextension and line

As I wrote in my older post, hyperextension–and hyperextended legs, in particular–is key to giving ballet its distinctive “look.” The aesthetics of a dancer’s body are all about lines. Even ballet training itself is very much about geometry and structure. Think of how methodical barre is, and how fixed positions are–croisé devant, en face, effacé devant, ecarté devant, derriere, and so on. So when a teacher, critic, or balletomane exclaims that a dancer has a “beautiful line,” they are referring to the lines that radiate from the center of the chest through the arms and legs (and the rest of the body as well, although it is most obvious in the arms and legs…best expressed by an arabesque!). They may also be referring to the outline of the body more generally, but I think that’s slightly different. I always visualized the curves of the arms and legs as flourishes on stick figures; the stick lines supply precision and structure, while the curves are beautiful.

For example:

The slight tilt of her head shows how deviations from the straight and exact line of the body can be very lovely.

Part of the charm of a tutu, of course, is that it enhances and frames these lines (a long floofy skirt, of course, would tend to hide a dancer’s line a little bit more). The tutu above serves in part as a horizontal line, to contrast with the dancer’s vertical ones.

When a dancer is said to have a “beautiful line,” she has an ideal balance of these various curvy, straight elements. Part of this also has to do with body proportions, height and weight as well, but that’s another post. I suppose one could imagine the “line” as solely straight or curvy, as you prefer, but I imagine the line as both.

It looks like an S. Or in my imagination, an S with an invisible vertical line through it: $.

Hyperextension in the legs (but also the arms) is therefore a key element of the curvier side of the equation, to endow the legs with that much-desired “S” shape.

Summer ‘08 update 1

1. First, a super offensive commercial from Pampers:

White (wo)man’s burden: to take care of all the little colored babies of the world. I love the moms and babies in “ethnic” garb. Especially the toddler in the poncho that runs up to embrace the white woman. Vomitastic.

2. Language intensive is going well. Flash cards are lifesaving, though I have yet to implement the post-it strategy.

3. I have moved up to the intermediate/advanced ballet class. I am sucking again, which seems to happen every time I move up a level in dance class. I stand in the back of the studio during grand and petit allegro and mark the steps rather than dancing them. I am getting lots of corrections, however, which is useful. Occasionally embarrassing, but ballet is a singularly masochistic activity wherein being corrected and critiqued is desirable. Critiques may be harsh or friendly, but the worst thing is not being noticed at all…an especially brutal correction is at least proof that you’re worth a glance. No wonder professional ballerinas have so many emotional issues.

Also in ballet, I have achieved a long-desired goal this week: I can finally rest my forehead on my knee while stretching croisé devant at barre. It’s a sign that I’m one step closer to being able to do splits in 3 directions. However, I have also noticed that since I’ve been working on flexibility, my pelvis will give a little painless pop when I’m getting up from sitting for a long time. This occasionally happens when I stretch, as well, and then I can push the stretch a little further once the pop happens. Odd, but actually nice.

4. I’ve decided that I will move up to SF or Berkeley in late 2009, dissertation committee willing.

La la la Human Steps and Ultima Vez

Thanks to Lisa (and Erik, for being out of town), I had the wonderful fortune to see two dance ensembles recently: La La La Human Steps and Ultima Vez. It was a joy to go with Lisa and Ying, who both love dance.

First, some thoughts on Human Steps: the show itself attempted the deconstruction of certain classical ballets, including The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle (I think). Naturally, narrative is eviscerated. What is singular about Human Steps is the precision and speed of their steps; they take the smoothness of classical ballet and quicken the movement: there are no lingering pliés, and every pirouette is more of a taut snap than a luxurious rotation. What might be construed as a “modern” style, however, seems to me an actually fairly conservative (and appreciative) interpretation of classical ballet.

hyperextension, and notes on ballet

***More detailed information in this more recent post!!!***

My ballet teacher told me yesterday that I have hyperextended legs, which makes it difficult for me to close my feet in fifth position.

See how their legs bend back at the knee? This is good and bad. It’s good in that hyperextension is considered aesthetically pleasing in that it elongates the line of the leg, and like having beautifully arched insteps (which I sadly do not also possess), it’s part of what gives ballet dancers that ballet “look.” It’s hard to find a professional ballerina who is not hyperextended. However, it also means that it’s much easier for me to injure my joints because they’re naturally extra-stretchy.

It’s good to know also because it explains why it’s so damn difficult for me to keep my feet in fifth position. And I thought it was leg chub this whole time.

Must be more diligent about warmups now. A girl snapped her achilles in class the week before last. You could hear the loud pop! and then a heavy thud as she crashed to the ground. Once you snap your achilles, that means surgery and 8-9 months of no dancing. And no walking without crutches, for that matter.

Overall, though, I am very pleased with my progress so far. Most people at the studio now assume that I had danced intensively as a child or teenager. But the greatest pleasure I’ve been getting out of ballet lately is the fact that it’s not academia. In reflecting on my what–3rd full year? in ballet, I realize what a relief it’s been as a stress reliever. Dancing is a wholly separate system of thought; it uses completely unfamiliar parts of the ole noggin. I can focus solely on breathing, movement, muscles, and music; there’s none of the achey immobile processing that rules most of my day.

It usually takes 3 hours for me to get to ballet, dance, and go home. I enjoy every second of the process, from the moment I climb onto the bus to my teacher’s corrections (“do it again”) to climbing off the bus a few hours later. Next term, I hope to up classes to 4 a week, with pointe preparation classes.

I realize that I will never be “good enough” at ballet. To some degree, I will always suck. But it’s a refreshing reality check, because I don’t have to worry about perfection, as I do in my writing and academic work. Since I’ll never be good enough to be a professional, I can really just enjoy the challenge without the massive expectations of my adolescence (which hover now over my graduate studies).

Vive la danse!

Center stage 2!!

As I was standing in the hallway of my ballet studio last night, I glanced at the bulletin board and saw…drumroll…an audition announcement for CENTER STAGE 2!!!

Center Stage was in no way a good film. But it was high camp with pretty pretty ballerinas…who could resist? I spent many a snowy evening at Dartmouth huddled in my room watching dance melodrama with friends. For me, there’s more than a little nostalgia involved in Center Stage. Despite such gems as “I’m the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet Academy! Who the hell are you?! Nobody!”, the movie had heart…even if that heart was sparkly with wee prancing unicorns inside it.

Naturally, the sequel will be awful; but you know you’re going to see it. Resistance is futile.

***update***

I checked the board again and it looks like Peter Gallagher and Ethan Stiefel will be reprising their roles in Center Stage 2. They’re casting for two female characters (one nice, one snob) and one young man. I think it will be pretty similar to the first film; a girl with “heart”, and an uppity chick (Maureen in the first; they’re calling her “Suzanne” in this movie).