2 3 Fun Friday Pick It Up | Ballet Webb

Friday, August 7, 2015

Fun Friday Pick It Up


Fun Friday Pick It Up

It’s Friday! And time for another image using a prop. Today it is the ever popular and readily available towel. I’ve blogged about towels before, and they are an every-ready source for lots of ideas, as well as their intended utilitarian usage.

When a dancer rises to pointe or demi-pointe in passé, or any other position that involves standing on one leg, the body weight must arrange itself in a balanced manner around the body’s central axis – the center “fireman’s pole”.  I’ve blogged before about how this arrangement is different in each position, but for passé and similar positions, the following image works well.

Drop or place a towel on the floor (flat and open), and then pick it up by lifting it in the center. Notice how all the folds instantly arrange themselves around the towel’s invisible central pole. This is what needs to happen in a relevé before a pirouette, for example. The body weight must shift to arrange itself around the dancer’s central axis.

So on this Fun Friday, do a passé and imagine yourself as a towel being lifted off the floor.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:
Secret #20k:  

“Pick up a dropped towel in the center to show how the weight of the body should fall around a central axis.”

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