Water Ballet Exercises

1) Side to the pool edge: Hooking one arm on the edge of the pool. Use a blue float board under your arm for cushion. Stabilize with the outside arm by pushing on the edge of the pool with the flat of the hand. Stabilize the inside leg on the edge of the pool using your core muscles.

Keeping the top of the foot of the inside leg touching the wall. Explore slow motion battements, and developé to the front, to the diagonal, to the back.

Feel the underside of the leg as it moves through the water. Feel the muscles necessary to engage the downward push of the leg.

Do: Battement front, passé, developé back, close first. Reverse. Repeat 10 times. (5 minutes)

2) Back to the pool edge: Hooking the arms on the edge of the pool, battement front and diagonal side. Again, keep the supporting leg grounded to the side of the pool. (5 minutes)

Do: Battements, 8 front, 8 diagonal side, right and left. Developé side, 8 each side. Enveloppé: battement out, passé, close.

3) In the center of the pool, (with a float belt if necessary): play with port de bras. From 1st to 2nd back and forth many times. Feel the different muscles necessary to bring the arms in and out. Feel the smooth quality of the movement of the arms. Feel how pushing through the water creates a controlled, fluid feeling in the arms. Remember this feeling and bring it into your classwork. (5 minutes)

Beats: Floating in the center of the pool, beat the legs back and forth in 5th position. Feel how the inner thighs work against the water to close the legs.

4) Traveling on your back: (feel free to use the lanes) Position one: arms in 5th en bas, legs both in passé. Position two: arms to second , both legs extend out to side. Position three: arms push down to feet, legs push to sou sou. (5 minutes)


Extra credit #1

Jump off the diving board in passé, or sou sou. Arms in 5th en haute.

Extra, Extra, Extra credit #2

Recreate the video below.

Water Ballet on Friday

Hey Everyone,

Just a reminder that water ballet is going to happen on Friday. We will discuss what we are going to do in the pool on Wednesday. Yes, Marina, you will need a bathing suit. No, it's not mandatory if you can't swim. Check in again soon to get a description of the exercises.

Louis

More Contemporary Masters

Recently at Meany Hall, Compania Nacional de Danza from Madrid with choreography by Nacho Duato. For those of you that saw this performance, what did you think?



No ballet course would be complete without some Balanchine. From the New York City Ballet, here is excerpt from Stars and Stripes: What are your impressions?

And yet another view of ballet and ballet companies, here is the Joffrey Ballet in modern dance choreographer Alwin Nikolais' Tensile Involvement. Ballet companies have been doing more and more modern work along side their classical works. What do you feel about this kind of work?

Modern Ballet

To help with our challenging petit jete, look up sissonne fermee and ballonnee.

http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/


Just so we don't get too stuck in classical ideas about ballet, here's a video featuring one of the most famous contemporary ballet choreographers, William Forsythe.



Here's Sylvie Guillem in a Forsythe ballet called "In the Middle"



What are your impressions of this kind of ballet?

Water Ballet

Dancers!

I've tenatively scheduled our trip to the pool for water ballet on Friday, March 7. We will work on our water ballet exercises in the studio before we go. I am proposing we go as a group, but you can go on your own if you wish. Please leave me a comment if you are good to go. Please email me directly if you have a concern at lgervais@u.washington.edu. Should be lots of fun!

But first! Do all students have access to the IMA with their student ID cards?

Louis

Bad Girls

How did it feel to be a bad girl?



Although, I hear ballet girls learn fast.

Emotion and Performance

Rudolf Nureyev and Dame Margot Fontaine were a famous ballet partnership. Margot was quite a bit older than Rudolf. Her legs never went very high, but it was their emotional connection to one another that translated into great performances.

It's important to remember that we study ballet or any performance art in order to bring an inner experience forward through our dancing. Emotions and images are carried through the body into space. Remember to connect to your emotional state whenever possible.

Can you feel a sense of connection between Rudolf and Margot? How was your experience in class on Wednesday as we worked to connect different emotions and elements to our dancing?