As I’ve written about recently, many of us won’t be able to make it to ballet classes over the holidays. I’ve made plans to stretch and do a few at home DVDs a few times a week, even though I know it won’t be the same as going to the classes I normally go to throughout the week. But it’ll have to do, especially as I visit friends this week and head to relatives houses in the middle of no where next week.
December 18, 2012
Beginner Ballet Tips: Improving Your Turnout
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In my ballet class, we’ve recently been working on improving our turnout, and I’m always looking for new stretches and exercises to help improve my turnout (in addition to working on stretching out my splits). Turnout in ballet refers to the outward rotation of the feet and hips. One of my favorites is the frog stretch. Even though it looks a bit ridiculous, it stretches really well. NextDance.com describes the frog stretch as
This is the popular stretch where you lay on your stomach with your knees bent, legs turned out, and feet pressed together. This stretches your inner thighs, which will help enable better turnout, especially in pliè.
December 17, 2012
Beginner Ballet Tips: Advice on Tendus
tendu (Photo credit: jahansell)
No matter what level you are in ballet, tendus are exercises that are essential in practice in any ballet class. DanceAdvantage.net has an excellent article on why tendus truly are important, which says:
It is through tendu that dancers become conscious of directing and eventually expelling energy through a stretched (or pointed) foot. It is also where strength is developed in the foot for taking off and landing with cushion in jumps. Without tendu (and its partner tendu jeté or dégagé) there would be no assemblé or grand jeté or entrechat quatre. Movements would lack the finish of a pointed foot and jumps would land awfully hard. But that’s not all that would be missing from classical or contemporary dance technique without tendu (Nichelle from Dance Advantage).Continue Reading
December 13, 2012
Some Quick Updates, Ballerina Profiles, and Barre Giveaway
First of all, now that my long semester of hell is finally over, I plan on putting some quality time into this project. As of 9 am this morning, I only have one more semester to go before I graduate.
In order to make this project better, I’ve put together another survey to try and get an idea of what most people want to see more of. I’ve already gotten a few responses, but if you haven’t filled it out yet, it will take you about 15 seconds and it would mean a lot to me. The survey is here.
As you may have noticed, the Resources page is up with a few of my favorite blog posts and entries you’ve sent in. Check out the page and feel free to send me more suggestions. I’ll be updating this section of the blog with more non-blog resources in the near future.
As usual, I’m always looking for more adult ballerinas to profile, so if I haven’t run one on you yet, check out the Contribute page and send me your e-mail address so I can feature you on the site. If you’d like to write your own post like Scott did in Advice for Men in Ballet, that’d be awesome too. Feel free to suggest any ballet instructors or professionals for interviews as well.
Lastly, the giveaway of the Real Food Barres ends tomorrow. I’m going to try to get in contact with everyone who may have not entered for each of their entries correctly (you need a new comment for each new entry, i.e. if you tweeted to enter you need a comment with a flavor AND a comment saying you tweeted).
English: . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
December 10, 2012
New Ballet Resources Page
English: A performance of The Nutcracker ballet, 1981 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Over the holidays, I’m going to be putting together a page with all the great posts my fellow ballet bloggers have already written about. I’ve already got several in mind, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to submit the posts they have written or posts they’ve read by others that they think are great. I think this will be a really useful way for beginners to find all sorts of information about ballet quickly and easily.
So you can either leave the post in a comment, fill out the form below, or shoot me an e-mail at Adultballerinaproject@gmail.com.
Also, don’t forget to enter the giveaway here, and remember, for each of your entries to count, you must post a separate comment for each! (And you can enter, say, for liking the page, if you had already previously liked it before the contest began).
