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.”
Link of the Day:
Quote
of the Day:
“There is no glory in practice, but
without practice there is no glory.”
-Unknown
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