2 3 Technical Tuesday Cloche | Ballet Webb

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Technical Tuesday Cloche


Technical Tuesday Cloche

A cloche is a fun step. It permits such freedom of movement, especially when it is done with a grand battement. It allows the legs to fly!

Cloche is usually introduced to a student dancer in a dégagé. This trains the leg to follow a perfectly straight path, front and back, with no deviation at all to the side. This is more difficult than you might think. If the hips move slightly out of alignment, it will cause the leg to leave the perfect path.

The best way to think about a cloche is that it is like mowing a lawn. You’d never mow a lawn efficiently by curving around and around – you’d want to carve straight lines in the grass, and then make the next pass cut cleaning along each straight line. It is the same with a cloche.

That way, when it is time to do grand battement cloche, the legs will automatically kick through the straight path. This is also an important preparation for grand jeté en tournant because of the way the legs must scissor past each other in the air. Think about it.

I love ballet! It is so logical.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:

Secret #4n:  
A cloche should follow a straight path – like mowing the lawn.”

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