2 3 Wonderful Wednesday Wrists | Ballet Webb

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Wonderful Wednesday Wrists


Wonderful Wednesday Wrists

The wrists are often overlooked, and yet they are critically important for a dancer’s line and flow of movement. They are never locked into position. Instead, they must be relaxed enough to move fluidly as the arms move through various port de bras patterns.  Imagine that the wrists are always breathing.

The wrists are changeable: that is, sometimes they are only very very slightly curved (as in an extended arm position like arabesque); sometimes they curve or break (slightly) downward (as in a port de bras moving from à la seconde to fifth en bas); sometimes they curve to maintain and follow the line of the arm (as in fifth en haut).

The important point is this: the wrists are never locked, and they are only perfectly straight for a few brief seconds when moving into one of the aforementioned curved positions.

All this being said, the wrists should never be allowed to form an extremely curved (broken) wrist position. The curve of the wrist is always subtle, but always there.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:

Secret #6z:  
The wrists are relaxed and never locked.

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““How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.”
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

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