2 3 Fun Friday Fouettés | Ballet Webb

Friday, February 27, 2015

Fun Friday Fouettés


Fun Friday Fouettés

Ah, the allure of thirty-two fouettés! That sequential turn that is so often featured at the end of an exciting pas de deux, or at the end of a dancer’s solo. Beautifully executed fouettés are almost guaranteed to elicit applause from the audience. All dancers want to achieve them, and often “put the cart before the horse”.

A single fouetté turn is a complex series of movements that involves passé, développé devant, demi -rond de jambe to à la seconde (unless opening directly to à la seconde), a relevé into retiré, turn and spot, then repeat. And because fouettés cannot be done very slowly, each individual element must be perfected before a dancer attempts to put them together into a series of fouettés. Like a recipe, unless all the ingredients are fresh and flavorful, the resulting dish will be a disappointment, to say the least. Although I have seen many dancers that can spin around many times, often the positions are fuzzy, and the fouettés fail to look good.  No fuzzy fouettés are allowed!

But the most important, and most often overlooked element is the relevé. Unless a dancer can relevé on one foot effectively thirty-two times, thirty-two beautiful fouettés will not be achieved.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:

Secret #14q:  
Before you can do thirty-two fouettés, you must be able to relevé on one foot thirty-two times.”

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“There is no glory in practice, but without practice there is no glory.” 
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