Fun Friday Stretch Away
Ahhhhhh. Those lovely
développés!
They are the heart and soul of ballet. Those beautiful, lyrical movements where
the human body defies all expectation – at least that’s what we hope to
accomplish.
Développés also assist in developing (pun intended) our turn-out
and extension and as such are extremely useful as well as beautiful. But to
fully extend this usefulness (pun intended again), we need to think about how
we perform our développés.
The best way to think about a développé is that it is a slow, even, unfolding of the leg. No
snapping, jerking or slamming is permitted. The energy continues outward, even
when the leg has reached its full height – no dropping of the leg is allowed,
and the leg is brought back to earth using the same slow-motion movement used when it went up. As we all know, there is no crashing in ballet.
To help with this unfolding of the leg, feel as though the thighs are stretching, or pulling away
from each other. This prevents focusing only on the working leg and allows
the supporting leg to do its job of, well, supporting
the dancer.
From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:
Secret #11d:
“In any développé, feel the thighs stretching away from each other.”
Link of the Day:
Quote
of the Day:
“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t
pull down the shade.”
-
Tom Peters
Help expand the knowledge base!
Leave a comment about any instructions, ideas,
or images that worked best for you!
No comments:
Post a Comment