Private Ballet Los Angeles

In order to get a high attitude derriere you need stellar back flexibility and strength, but your foot doesn’t need to reach your head for the position to look beautiful.

1. Upper Body – Keep your chest up and rib cage closed. As you lift your leg, try to maintain the lifted position with your chest. Collapsing forward will disrupt the line of the body.

2. Standing Leg – Maintain your turn out and keep the leg straight unless you are told to do the position in plie.

3. Working Leg – This leg bends behind you at a 90 degree angle or wider depending on your teacher’s preference. If your knee is lower than 90 degrees, do not let your foot rise higher than the knee. If you knee is at 90 degrees, make sure the foot is in line with the knee.

4. Extending to Arabesque – If you are extending into arabesque from the attitude position, you should extend the leg to the level of the knee or higher.

In class you will often be asked to do different types of arabesque: first arabesque, second arabesque, etc. What this means depends on what style of ballet the teacher prefers. Below are descriptions of the four arabesques used in the Vaganova method.

1. First arabesque – Stand efface. If you are facing the left corner, raise the right leg into arabesque. Your right arm extended out toward the audience, and your left arm extended forward in front of you. Look out past your left arm.

2. Second arabesque – Legs are the same as in first. Left arm is extended forward. The right arm is extended to the side in line with the shoulder. Look toward the audience

3. Third arabesque – Stand in croise. If you are facing the left corner, raise the left leg into arabesque. Your right arm extended to the side and slightly behind the shoulder, and your left arm extended forward in front of you. Look out past your left arm.

4. Fourth arabesque – Legs are the same as in third. Right arm is extended to the front and left arm is extended toward the back in line with the right arm. Look toward the audience.

TIP: ANKLE STRENGTH

Whether your goal is to get en pointe, be a turning machine, or just dance, ankle strength is a huge key to improving and preventing injury. Here are a few ways to increase your strength:

 1. RELEVE – Getting in and out of releve and holding it all take a lot of ankle strength. The more you practice, the more you’ll build the muscles. If you really want to work on building this strength, don’t just rise into releve and call it a day. Every time you go up, try to rise higher on the balls of your feet. You’ll be surprised by how much higher you can rise.

2. POINT AND FLEX – Sitting on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you point your feet as far as you can. Be sure you are pointing your feet. Not your toes. In ballet you never want to bend and curl your toes. Then, starting from the toes, flex your foot. Create tension in your foot as if your pushing against something to reach the flexed position. Once you are fully flexed, reverse the movement and return to pointed feet. Do this 10 or more times in each direction. You should feel a burning sensation on the tops of your feet. Be sure to really work through your foot slowly.

3. ADD A THERA BAND – If you want to add some tension and really feel the burn, use a thera band. Wrap each end around your hands for your desired tension. Put the middle of the band across the bottoms of your feet. Sitting on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you do the same exercise as described above.

4. USE A TOWEL – Spread a towel on the floor. Start at one end and using your toes, scrunch the towel until the other end comes to you. Don’t want to use a towel? Another variation is to stand on a carpeted floor. Pick a spot and pull yourself across by scrunching your toes. This shouldn’t be easy or fast. You’re only going to move a little bit at a time. Don’t hop, make sure you’re essentially dragging yourself.

Adagio is as common a part of class as plies.  You either love it or you hate it, but do you know what it is?  Here is some basic information and tips about ballet adagio.

1. DEFINITION – Adagio means “slowly”.  Keep that in mind when performing these movements. They are meant to be slow and breathy.

2. KEEP MOVING – Even though the movement is slow this does not mean you stop when changing positions.  Flow from one position to the next like you’re moving through water.

3. FOCUS ON QUALITY – Don’t worry about the height of your leg.  Adagio is not about the height of the leg.  A beautiful adagio is beautiful because of the quality of movement.  As your flexibility and strength improve so will the height of your leg.  If you try to force your leg up, your hip will hinge up, your standing leg may bend, you might your torso will no longer be square, or a number of other things that will compromise your line. It’s more important to make a beautiful line at whatever level your flexibility will allow, and to maintain a fluidity from movement to movement.

4. BREATHE – This tip continues to show up because it is important to remember when doing any type of balletic movement.  As mentioned before, adagio is a breathy movement, and the best way to make your movement breathy is by using your breath.  Work with your inhale and exhale. For example, when doing a devlope inhale as you bring the leg to posse, then exhale slowly as you extend your leg out.

5. DANCE INSIDE THE MUSIC – Adagio for piano translates the same as it does for ballet.  The pianist or recording of music will be slow.  It’s a normal tendency to get ahead of the music when working at this pace, but fight the urge to hasten your movements.  You will build strength quicker by working slowly.  Sounds counter intuitive, but you’ll see.