Inspirational Video of the Week: Love Stories - Choreography by Judith Jamison with Robert Battle

This video is appropriate for all ages and of special interest to students in Advanced Jazz, Modern, Ballet and Contemporary.

I struggled to pick a video to feature this week. I've been watching SO many on YouTube! In the end I went with Love Stories danced by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. They are positively one of my favorite companies to watch, I've seen them many times live and they never disappoint!

This video is only small excerpts from Love Stories. In its entirety it has many individual pieces. I love the colorful/playful nature of this piece. It showcases the dancers' technique without being stuffy. There is one point where the dancers are basically having a dance off and, in the version that I saw, one female dancer booty shakes like you have never seen before! You think that all of her limbs are going to come flying off before she finishes, it's incredible! (And unfortunately not on this video!) Enjoy!

Fixed Points in the Studio

This post concerns my Combination Class, Pre-ballet and Ballet I.

There are eight fixed points in a studio according to the Vaganova Method (of teaching classical ballet). They are used for direction and orientation in the dance space. The mirror/audience side is always numbered "1" and the remaining seven numbers follow consecutively traveling clockwise.

Related Activities:

Combination Class: At the conclusion of a free dance I will call out one of these numbers. The dancers will run and pose by that number. I then make them identify whether they are upstage, downstage or center.

Pre-ballet: In addition to the above activity, while practicing sautés,(small jumps in first position), I have the dancers jump turning clockwise to the SIDES ONLY. They shout the number of the side they are facing when they land. So 3,5,7,1 or 7,5,3,1.

Ballet I: Does the sauté combination above, without counting out loud.

Familiarity with this fixed point system allows them to take verbal direction such as "Run from corner 6 to corner 2" or Travel from upstage to downstage, or from side 5 to side 1. Useful indeed!

Pre-Ballet - January 15-19th, 2007

Last week, in Pre-ballet, we began to use third position of the feet. This position is achieved by turning your legs out from the hip - toes to the sides - and placing one heel in front of the other. This is a gentle preparation for fifth position, a more extreme position where the front heel touches the back toe, and the front toe touches the back heel. But that will come later!

In the center we continued to work on tombé from last week. Described in layman's terms this is a small lunge, the leg bearing weight is bent, and the non weight bearing leg is straight. We also worked on our "rocking step," which prepares them for doing balancé in Ballet I.

Across the floor we worked on Triplets. These are done by doing one tombé front and two quick walks on demi-pointe/half-toe. The rhythm is like a waltz: ONE two-three, ONE two-three. Most of my pre-ballet students have had a little trouble with this, so it would be a good thing to practice at home.

We also learned the Fixed Points of the Room, but I am going to put that in a separate post later this evening.

Vocabulary

Third Position (Feet): See above
Tombé: (tawn-BAY) Falling. This is a movement in which the dancer, with the working leg raised in the air, falls forward, backward or sideways into a fondu (bent leg) on the working leg.
Fixed Points of the Room : See upcoming post!

Inspirational Video of the Week : Sylvie Guillem in Grand Pas Classique

This video would be of interest to all levels of ballet.

Sylvie Guillem started her career at the Paris Opera Ballet. She received the rank of "étoile" or "star", POB's highest rank for a dancer, when she was only 19 years old.

This video is probably about 20 years old, and still amazing today. It is Ms. Guillem's solo from Grand Pas Classique. It is a lovely example of the virtues of her wonderful feet and sky-high extensions. Take special note of the ballonné diagonal. Enjoy!

Morphoses: The Wheeldon Company

Big news in the New York City ballet world! Christopher Wheeldon is starting his own company - leaving a cushy job as resident choreographer for NYCB and gambling to become a major force in a city that has been dominated by NYCB and ABT for the last fifty years! Read the NY Times article for more about this breaking news.

Dancers In

I found a new dance website that looks interesting. There are posts for auditions and forums for dancers/teachers/choreographers of all ages. It's very new, so many of the forums are empty, but every forum has to start somehow! Check it out: Dancers In

Ballet I : Week of January 8, 2007

This post is relevant for all of my Ballet I classes:

This past week we've worked on poses. Poses have different names that tell us where our arms, legs and head are in relation to different corners of the room, or the audience. Here are pictures of the poses that we've learned so far to review:




We've also been learning our arabesques. We know three out of the four outlined in the Vaganova method of ballet.



New words this week:

Fondu (fawn-dew): Sinking down/melting. Lowering of the body by bending the supporting leg.

Balancé (ba-lahn-SAY): Rocking step

Pas de bourrée dessous or Pas de bourrée (pah duh boo-RAY duh-SOO) Step back, side, front.

AT HOME: Start a dance journal. Each week when we learn something new, write down the correct spelling of the French terms that we've learned and your own definition. Your definition should remind you how to do the step. Keeping a dance journal is a great way to practice and remember those French terms from week to week!

Take care,

S.E.C.

Knowing your SPACE : Dance Theory for 3-6 year olds

This post is relevant for students in Creative Dance on Mondays, Pre-ballet on Tuesdays, Creative Dance on Wednesdays, Combination Class on Wednesdays:

Greetings parents! Each month your little dancers learn different dance theory concepts. These are just as important as any steps that they learn in class, if not more so. If they continue dancing, as they get older, these concepts will remain the same and, therefore, be useful to know!

This month we are learning about spatial awareness, or recognizing where you are in the room, or on stage, in relation to the audience. I began by telling every class this story.

Have you ever been on/seen a stage? The floor is flat like this room, right? Well in olden days a long, long time ago stages were tilted, or raked. (I show them my teaching binder to illustrate this) If you were standing down towards the audience, you'd be standing at the lower part of the stage, like a hill. If you were standing far away from the audience, you'd be standing upstage.

We still use the same words today! Even though stages are flat!

If you'd like a little more historical info on raked stages check out the entry at Wikipedia.

Here's what your little dancer's know so far; They know that the space near the audience is downstage, they know that the space far away from the audience is upstage, they know that the space in between the two is center.

FUN AT HOME!: Help your dancers review the terms downstage, center and upstage at home. Pick out some music that they like and ask them if they'd like to do a free dance. In dance class downstage is the front of the room/audience and upstage is the back of the room. Sit downstage as their audience and start the music. They can dance while the music is on. Turn the music off and they should freeze in their spot. Ask them to tell you whether they are upstage, downstage or in the center of the room.

Review of terms:

Upstage: The space furthest from the audience
Downstage: The space closest to the audience
Center: The space in the center of the room
Free Dance: A dance exercise where the young dancers can move however they like within the boundaries of what they are learning that day. There is always a beginning pose, dancing to music and an ending pose.

Have fun and take care,

S.E.C.

Inspirational Video of the Week

Company: SoulEscape Piece: Anna Begins

This video may be of interest to students in Advanced Ballet, Advanced Modern, Advanced Jazz and Junior Company.

There isn't much information online about SoulEscape. I know that they have performed in Texas and that the majority of the choreography is by Justin Giles. I'll be posting many more of their videos! The choreography really speaks to me and my style and I love Mr. Giles' choices of music. There are definitely more SoulEscape videos that I'll be posting to inspire! Enjoy!

Welcome to the NeoBlog!

Hello all, and welcome to the NeoBlog!

I am so excited to welcome you all to this blog and to use it as a tool for communication to those interested in Neo, parents looking to further enrich their child's dance education and to dance students seeking to learn more about their craft.

I will begin to post about lesson plans on Monday along with an inspirational video of the week.

Take care,

S.E.C.