MY WAYS OF DANCING

Bar stretches have been very helpful to me and I still find myself performing the sequence after class at home. Starting the stretch, the feet must be in first position and heels together with toes apart. We then Pas de deux to get the leg up to the bar standing nice and square, hips square, then with two Développé and then we stretch so that our nose goes towards the lifted knee. We then come right up and maintain breathing in and out as we stretch then we pile. The knee then should go over the toes and we turn and do a side stretch with hips squared, shoulder squared, and we do a lateral stretch. We then stretch to the sides, with two demi-plié again to the right leg that's on the bar turned out and the toes are pointed and stretching away from the bar, and the leg comes back to passé.

To perform a perfect degage, we start in first position with the preparation of our arms. Degage comes slightly off the floor with the leg extended beautifully and stretched with well pointed foot, then to the side, the arm must follow and to the back with a Arrière and then we repeat the same step to the side which again follows the routine of on quad meaning front foot on side to the side; then to finish off the step, we must conclude with the preparation of arms with a pile.

Rand de jambre en rear: means on the floor. To perform this step, we start in our first position with the preparation of the arms and we point the foot on the floor from front to the side to the back. With about quarters moves of the point foot, we stop on each point. The step is then continued without stopping and doing half of rand de jambre and we lift slightly in the air with the foot brushed to a point la ere and we finish in first and the arm comes down with a plié and that’s how to perform rand de jambre.

Passé developpe is another interesting step that I found easy in a way to perform but not all the time, because I sometimes tend to shift to my standing leg, which is something to avoid. To start, we stand with the heels together and toes turned out, the hips should be nice and equal, making sure one hip is not higher than the other. After executing the passé, take the leg up slowly and be careful keeping the hip square, then stretch the leg out in a developpe position, which means to develop. After finishing to front, do the side with the knees straightened and the leg comes down. We then passé to the back slowly with passé developpe into a nice la ere position and back to the side position passé developpe and we finish in first position.

When we started our Grande Battma, we started with smiles on our faces and we end them doing the same. Starting from our first position with heels together toes turned out, we do the preparation movement for the arms and we extend our right leg straightforward and up in the air with two eight counts and the leg is straight. The foot points as soon we lift off the floor, we do the same to the side keeping the shoulders and hips nice and squared, making sure the left foot supporting stays in a turned out position and we finish to the side. With the front, side, backside, the arms come down demi plié.

In conclusion, more steps have been learned in class, but the above steps are some of my favorite steps in ballet class; and I hope to continue dancing after this session.

Pirouette

             Is a turn or series of multiple spins around on one leg done on pointe or on demi-point. We can either turn outwards, which is called en dehours, or inwards, which is called en dedans. It sounds cool, but it’s a frustrating step for me right now as a perfectionist. My daily concern is my inability to follow through with certain steps in class, but I know I am getting there with daily practice after class. I think that I do alright when we're going slow, but once things speed up or when we're supposed to do several moves in succession, it all falls apart for me. Stretching every day and practicing after class to improve has certainly gotten me somewhere in class. If there is one thing I have taken notice of about my body, is my self-discipline of working extra hard after class to prepare myself for next day. To be honest, pirouette are fun to do for ordinary non dancers, but for ballet students most especially beginners like me, we tend to over think the step to prepare us to do the turn; just as my professor will always tell me with her sweet encouraging voice “That’s it Zainab, you're getting it.”  I know I do get it perfectly sometimes, and sometimes its funny to look at.

            As a good dancer outside of class, with my high level of consistency of wanting to get things right, I know with more practice, I can be a good ballerina if I overlook how other people perceive me; which was part of my daily struggle when I started dancing as a black student here at Loyola. I over looked certain things that I have experienced and I told myself if one dance professor I once participated in her class doesn’t appreciate me as a dancer who is better than some of her dance students just because of my skin-tone, most especially for the fact that I am an African student learning modern dance outside my culture, then she must have been blind to see the potential and the gift of having a dedicated dancer in her class.

             For some weeks in class, we started our Sauté step, which are small jumps on two legs, landing on both legs. After weeks of learning pirouettes, which we are still learning to perfect, hearing a new step was awesome to my ears. It was fun to jump up high and land for most students, but it wasn’t fun for me; because I understand every step in ballet is a preparation for another step with technicalities. Sauté as they sound can be breath taking, but when some major steps are added; it goes from fun to dizziness. But my best part of dancing everyday in class is getting to learn new steps from my professor and learning new learned lessons from her as a professional dancer that Ballet dancing is known for gracefulness and elegance, and as ballerinas we tend to glide across the stage almost effortlessly; which makes watching ballet videos in class a strive of wanting more to appear tall and light when dancing. 

Pirouette

 A turn or series of multiple spins around on one leg done on pointe or on demi-point. We can either turn outwards, which is called en dehours, or inwards, which is called en dedans. It sounds cool, but it’s a frustrating step for me right now as a perfectionist. My daily concern is my inability to follow through with certain steps in class, but I know I am getting there with daily practice after class. I think that I do alright when we're going slow, but once things speed up or when we're supposed to do several moves in succession, it all falls apart for me. Stretching every day and practicing after class to improve has certainly gotten me somewhere in class. If there is one thing I have taken notice of about my body, is my self-discipline of working extra hard after class to prepare myself for next day. To be honest, pirouette are fun to do for ordinary non dancers, but for ballet students most especially beginners like me, we tend to over think the step to prepare us to do the turn; just as my professor will always tell me with her sweet encouraging voice “That’s it Zainab, you're getting it.”  I know I do get it perfectly sometimes, and sometimes its funny to look at.

As a good dancer outside of class, with my high level of consistency of wanting to get things right, I know with more practice, I can be a good ballerina if I overlook how other people perceive me; which was part of my daily struggle when I started dancing as a black student here at Loyola. I over looked certain things that I have experienced and I told myself if one dance professor I once participated in her class doesn’t appreciate me as a dancer who is better than some of her  dance students just because of my skin-tone, most especially for the fact that I am an African student learning modern dance outside my culture, then she must have been blind to see the potential and the gift of having a dedicated dancer in her class.

For some weeks in class, we started our Sauté step, which are small jumps on two legs, landing on both legs. After weeks of learning pirouettes, which we are still learning to perfect, hearing a new step was awesome to my ears. It was fun to jump up high and land for most students, but it wasn’t fun for me; because I understand every step in ballet is a preparation for another step with technicalities. Sauté as they sound can be breath taking, but when some major steps are added; it goes from fun to dizziness. But my best part of dancing everyday in class is getting to learn new steps from my professor and learning new learned lessons from her as a professional dancer that Ballet dancing is known for gracefulness and elegance, and as ballerinas we tend to glide across the stage almost effortlessly; which makes watching of ballet videos in class a strive of wanting more to appear tall and light when dancing. 

Demi-plié

Demi-plié in second position

As my professor Ms. Amy will put it “do not push your tush out when doing a Demi-plié in any position.” According to her, we should always transfer our weight to the left leg most especially when we are in a releve or performing any movement that requires one working leg. So in a Demi-plié in second position, I was told to always transfer my weight to the left leg, then slide the right foot with a tandu sideways along the floor. Relating this motion back to my professor, this move prepares the right heel to lift up, until the right foot is fully extended and pointed with the right knee straight and pulled up. With this move, the right foot should remain turned out while the other foot is doing the movement; meaning the right heel must stay in a forward and in first position. While the foot is still pointed, we bring our right arm up middle through the fifth position, and open it up to second position.

Other Demi-plié positions that we worked on in class also includes Demi-plié in first position, in which we stand at the barre in first position with our foot turn out to point we are comfortable with; then we slowly bend our knees as far as possible, while keeping our heels on the ground directly over the middle of the feet. While we decline, our lower right arm from the wrist to the elbow, we move it outward and slightly up, no higher than the level far of the hips. We then unbend the knees and moving back up to the starting position with the arms back down to its starting position as well.

            The last position talked about in class is Demi-plié in fifth position. We didn’t really go over fourth position, but in order to perform fifth position, we go from fourth position to fifth position by pointing our right foot turned out as far as we can, then we close our right foot directly in front of the left foot, and gently touching the toe to the heel. We then raise our right arm through the middle of fifth position, and open it out to second; which completes our fifth position. 

BELOW LINKS SHOWS SOME OF THE DIFFERENT POSITIONS.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhCSu97Ky3UO1Pgis33mXKtClX0JYuEp5PL5m6b6Ppx4svufcpHDFRQT2nWAbNrLVcmMUN2erPzQflfWtOFl-JhZXOwZX4BE1ZTZ6LxIi4s77WQSPm4AGr7FkLgLNXkFH9UbpzYI0CjA/s1600/0123+plie.jpg

http://www.123rf.com/photo_4720139_young-female-ballet-dancer-showing-various-classic-positions-on-a-white-background--demi-plie-in-5th.html

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8akl8SCekP-iUV5j1c96DxBaXHTBBPIB8T9NbEDt7ihe5uqPGdI8qZpwQ4frm7OV4NvSDvFIjOpeHZ0zfPcbXqkSqBh0YNLD5soAFMpJiLxvuaYxTnMQGJiiiU2L74NvJIze4UawzuFM/s1600/plie.jpg

THE NATURE OF DANCE

          Dance isn’t just the food to the soul, a mirror to reflect our movements back at us, the chemistry between two shadows, but dance is a pure natural native mother to nature itself. Looking at nature and the history behind it, we will find vast amount of indications and interpretations that explanations what govern every techniques used by dancers. Many historians, philosophers, and psychologist have given different in-depth to the meaning and definition of nature; which explains J.S Mill, a good philosopher who stands against walls to defend what he stands for on different topics indicating how nature applies to us and how it can be applied to the real world with clear examples. He defines nature as the simplest, acceptation, and collective name for all facts, actual, possible or a name for the mode partly known to us and partly unknown; in which all things take place. Mill also states that the nature of things means its entire capacity of exhibiting phenomena; which vary in different circumstance described in general forms of words called laws of things called nature. Doris Humphrey a great pioneer to all dancers and a great scholar herself understood the nature of dance, which is so evident in her choreography and how dancers can relate their bodily movements to nature itself.                                                                                      My journey at Loyola as a dance student has being a learned journey of great experience and transformation. Without any previous knowledge in any dance composition or known theory, I have since seen myself transform from a premature dancer into a beautiful and different dancer entirely; each day I put on my ballet shoe, I understand what my body is telling me to do at every movement attempted in class without any hardship by making use of my breath as emphasized by the instructor, which according to Doris Humphrey, breath rhythm is very helpful when it becomes an importance component of self-concept to any dancer that exhibit the usefulness of it.                                                                                                                                                 The fall and recovery which is very important in all movements performed in class, has been emphasized a lot all through my dance history here at Loyola; but by learning and reading the importance of it, I understand why the topic comes up a whole lot in class to help prevent some major injuries that students encounter when proper placements and movements are not obeyed. Doris’s use of gravity shows what I can do as a dancer in terms of balance, which I make use of when pulling up in releve to prepare me for a jump or when performing a pirouette, which is important even though we just started learning the basics of a pirouette.