Exam Season!

Whoa!

It’s almost end of October. November here we come.

My students are scheduled to do their ballet vocational grades exam by mid November. Phew…a little scary for me since we just start practice around May or June (twice a week class) and concerning that I shall take responsibility for their award ~_~ … so in anyway this time I’ll say less anatomy and technique…

I have difficulty to write =(

Developpes

Hai! I wish you’re doing okay today and welcome to my class where I tell experience not book ! 😉

Wohoo, this day we’re going to talk about Developpes. Oh wait, Before we got there, I think it’s better if we learn a bit the term of Adage first (Uh, look at that, I sounded like a professor haha. Lame *fiuhh* ). Well, anyway, Terminologically adage is pronounced adazh which means slow, slowly, leisurely and with grace.

In Ballet term adage means exercises or movements performed slowly with ease, grace and fluidity, highlighting the dancer’s line and balance. Term of Adage is also a description of slow exercises series performed in Center, after Pirrouette section and before Allegro section. Usually adage exercises contained of  Developpes , Fouette of adage, Grands or Demi Grands Ronds de Jambe, and Penchee (aha you hear Developpes now! 😉 )

Okay here we go, in simple way Developpes means to unfold. Developpes in ballet term means an unfolding action of the leg. Basically,  we have Developpes devant (unfolding leg to front side of the body),  Developpes derriere (unfolding leg to the back of the body), Developpes a la seconde (unfolding leg to the side of the body) and Developpes passe ( front or back leg is unfolded opposite the start position).  Meanwhile according to the direction we have  Developpes ecarte (unfolding leg towards downstage or upstage corner) . Other than those basic developpes names you should ask a ballet master since I ain’t one 🙂 .

That’s all about terminology we need (which still i got from Dictionary of Classical Ballet by Rhonda Ryman).

Practically this is how I do a developpes a la seconde.  (note: the picture is not me nor mine ):

1.  Place my leg in 3rd or 5th position (this is normal practice start position, but when we do a dancing piece I bet we can start from any position 😉 ).
   

   neat 5th position

2. Drag my working leg to a petite retire position through ball (that way I can feel my  plantar and dorsal muscles in my supporting leg is “grabbing” the floor securely, and my working leg will show an articulated footwork, which will looked delicate and fluid 🙂 ) ,
   

   drag it through the ball, to petite retire

3. After that I should continue drag my leg to a retire position exactly through my tibia bone(that way I can feel my leg is fully lengthened upward ). As I do this I must retain my upper body and my center in order to stay balanced ( it is quite challenging to maintain your center and your balance if you don’t get training for abdominal and back muscles).
   

   nice retire 🙂

4. Now that the leg is folded in retire position,this is the time to execute a developpes (unfolding action of the leg) . As we unfold the leg, we might need to be aware of our pelvis and our knee placement. The pelvis of supporting leg shouldn’t be dropped and tucked down as we maintain the turn out, meanwhile the pelvis of working leg shouldn’t be raised as we unfold the leg to the position of Attitude a la seconde  ( It’s quite challenging to keep the pelvis square) . Also, The working knee should stay firm at the same quality of turn out.
   
   Attitude a la seconde
5. Finally a completion of developpes movement 😀 . Keep it nice, slow yet balanced, ease and fluid, and gracefully done like listening to an adagio music or should i say adazh😉

   

   Pretty Developpes a La Seconde

Okayyyyy hopefully we all can do such a lovely developpes and gorgeous adage 😀

See you later! 🙂

Plantar and Dorsal Muscles

Okay, I am not a doctor so I don’t really know how to talk about these muscles.  I just know a bit because I experienced injury in my Achilles (which makes me so damn aware of any ballet movement and how should the muscles do it properly) and I once was first year student for Physiotherapist (but i bail out 😦 ) .

So, here we go again… as you can see in the picture, we have so many muscles in our foot. I’m having difficulty to explain things here so I just gonna go with muscle list and its function:

Dorsal Muscles

1. Abductor Hallucis is major muscle that enable us to  “Flex” our toes
2. Extensor Digitorum Brevis , Flexor Hallucis Longus, Flexor Digitorum Longus , Tibialis Posterior, Fibularis Longus, are the muscles that enable us to do “Pointe”
3. Extensor Hallucis Brevis, Flexor Digitorum Brevis, Lumbricales Pedis, Dorsal Interossei and Plantar Interossei are the muscles that enable us to do  “ball”
4. Quadratus Plantae helps us no to do sickle

Plantar Muscles

Now that we know the muscles and muscles location I hope we can feel the muscle each time we do Flex, Point, Ball and be aware of  sickle foot.  Sorry I can only go this far. To practice each muscles in order  to cultivate its strength you may have to go to doctors or physiotherapists next door 😉

See you! 🙂

First Day of Holiday!

Woo hooooo Holidayyyy!!!! 😀

I llloovvee holiday!!…until the last two years I might have not really loved holiday since I always have enormous spirit to teach, and to teach, and to teach my students 😉 . But this time is totally different! I’ll tell you why:

1. Until the last two years my students did not have this heavy school activities and they were so freaking energized in ballet class. But now…everyone looked different 😦 . They do still have passion in dance, it’s just… their face can’t hide the fatigue, and that makes me feel bad if i ‘push’ them to practice the way i did.

2. I’m pregnant. First trimester; nausea rampant! 😦

So this yeat i rreeaallyyy need holiday!, I hope my students too 😉

Have a gooooodd longg holidayyy!! 😀

Plie and Grand Plie

Hahaha-Hai!

It’s still 24 Aug 2011, Yet I reaaallyy want to see how my blog’s look like if it has posts on it 😉 .  Errr…  Since  I don’t know what else to write, I’m going to start with this category : “Vocabulary”. (Whew … by establishing this category I suddenly burdened to – consistently- write posts of ballet movements names and explain how it’s being executed  . I will try though 🙂

So, This day I am going to write about the most basic and most important movement in ballet or maybe in any dance field.  It is called “Plie” . In Classical Ballet Dictionary (by Rhonda Ryman) says that Plie is ; To Bend ; bending action; bending of the knees.

Plie

This is how we do Plie; Knees are opened, heels stay on floor, feel the back spine lengthened upward as you go down, and never tuck your buttock wrongly, cause it won’t give any perfect line and won’t be effective in strengthening your thigh and abdominal muscles.

 

Grand Plie

After Plie usually we continue moving with a movement called “Grand Plie”, which in the same dictionary Grand Plie means ; A full bend of the knees over toes, with the legs turned out and the heels coming off the floor, except in 2nd and 4th open positions.

Technically its effect is the same as Plie, also, it helps you stretch the Achilles tendon. So be free to feel each muscles work as you do it (you can see how the girl in picture keep her upper body stays up and centered while she goes down), and oh please don’t ever bothered by the height of heels as they come off the floor cause it’s simply just come off the floor as you bend deeper and deeper. The height of heel is not essential and artificial (I got to tell this cause most kids have tendency to do it ‘artificially’ the first time they do grand plie).

Achilles tendon

So, basically Plie (and/ or Grand Plie) is one of stretching movement that help you warm up and stretch the Achilles tendon and other muscles attached in your leg , and also strengthening your core, abdominal and thigh muscles. This is why I say it is the most important movement, cause being strong and treat your body right is all you need to be on stage 😉 .

 

That’s a wrap, and See you ! 😀

 

P.S: I tried to find pictures with the most correct body placement in doing the Plie and Grand Plie ,  so i thank you for every person who happen to own the pictures and link addressed 🙂

Hello Class 2011

Actually 2011 is the year i start this blog,  it’s time when i finally wanted to write about ballet or dance! :-).  Meanwhile Class  is not literally a square wooded-room with barre and mirrors,  It’s not also a bunch of girls in skin-a-like-stockings and  leotards being yelled by their teacher – you might know what I’m saying here :-p

So, Anyway I might write a bit or much of  my ballet class for old time sake, and anything that might you feel that you’re in a fun class! (I really don’t know what else i should write *_*)

Back to the line, so, Welcome and Enjoy! 🙂