Last night I was teaching at Center Stage, working with my top tier munchkins. My brother Jonny is 11, and he has grown up in the studio dancing with a group of students who are, to say the least, very advanced for their age. This is the 3rd year in a row that I have been teaching their Ballet and Jazz classes, and these kids have that edge. They just want to get better, and it’s always a pleasure to work with students who have the drive and understanding of what it means to progress in dance.
This year I stepped up the level of their classes a lot. The past couple of years there have been a few different levels mixed in the class, and to play it safe my choreography generally reflected the weaker dancers. I didn’t want to risk having a number look bad in a show, so I made the dances somewhat easier than what the more advanced students could actually handle. This year, the first day of class I gave them “a talk.” Dance teachers, I know you know what this means.
We’ve extended the barre in ballet class to include everything from plies, to frappes, to ronde de jambe en l’aire. Really, their execution of technique has just sky rocketed. Every week we discuss the meaning of pulling the heel forward, and now when they are doing their fondu coupes, I don’t see anymore sickles! (or as anatomists might call it, a supination of the foot).
Supination is ultimately an inversion of the foot, so when a foot is supinated, the sole is rotated medially. This puts strain on the outer muscle of our foreleg, and in dance can both cause cause cramping in the sole and also look very ugly.
This is a supination, see the angle?
Pronation is what we are going for in ballet. When the foot is pronated it is everted so that the sole of the foot is turned laterally and it is fully stretched. Think of it as an extension of the foreleg, as opposed to a branch that sticks off.
Pronation. Doesn’t that look better?
Anyway, that’s my lesson in anatomy for the day. I really want to go back to school for physical therapy, because this stuff just fascinates me. I loved anatomy in high school. All of the terms and just connecting the whole body in a physical sense really aids in awareness of the self, especially as a dancer. And also, I love working with people’s bodies. When I’m teaching these classes that I’ve been talking about, I am literally kneeling on the floor next to their feet and legs, and moving and rotating for them to help them to FEEL the difference between certain technical aspects of dance. Usually once they really feel it, they smile and look at me, as if to say, “I’ve never felt anything like that before!”. I love it!
Choreography is moving along quite smoothly so far, getting ready for this year’s recital in June. This year our theme is “In the News.” My mother and I designed the show to be categorized like sections of the newspaper, so all of our songs fit in to these sections. My classes are spread throughout the show in sections such as “Health and Fitness”, “Classifieds”, “Sports”, “Weather”, and “Current Events.”
Newspapers have been a big part of life, but have slowly grown to dissuade me from reading them. In college I majored in Journalism, and I chose this major even before I was involved in The Student Underground. Then after college I just kind of lost the drive to be writing for a newspaper. I do like reading them sometimes, but I guess it’s all part of my attempt to escape what some call reality and create my own a little bit more. I like writing though, and that’s why I have this blog.
I do appreciate good articles though, and especially would never diss the New York Times for 3 reasons.
1. Ari pays for a weekend subscription of the Times, and I must admit, I like it sometimes.
2. Art might disown me.
3. Sometimes friends get talked about in the NYT, like today!