Binge ballet?

Perhaps these first decades of the 21st Century should be called the Binge Years.

We binge on television: watching seasons of "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black" back to back (to back to back).

We binge on reading: book challenges on Goodreads ask us to set goals of reading weekends or even days, and we devour entire series like "Harry Potter" and "The Hunger Games" in 24 hours.

We binge on writing: thousands participate in NaNoWriMo, devoted to writing a 50,000 word novel in a single month.

We binge on food and alcohol, of course, and social media. But can we binge on ballet? And even if we can, should we?

I do see people who discover ballet and throw themselves into it, taking three classes a week or more. Or they have been away for a while and decide they want to get back into it with a vengeance - and at the level they left it. Much like people who suddenly decide to take Zumba classes or start running or lifting weights, these dance students love it immediately and want to binge.

But bingeing on ballet doesn't make you better exponentially. Look at ballet as building blocks. You start with plies and tendus and degages and you get those under your belt and you move forward. But you can't do a jete without knowing how to do a degage and a coupe. You can't do a pas de chat if you don't know retire. You can't do much adagio if you can't stand on one leg without holding onto the barre. And you certainly can't do that if you don't take your time, find your core muscles, and practice.

It takes time to learn what the building blocks are. For one thing, they are all in French. And for another, they are not steps and movements we do naturally. They must be learned and if they aren't learned properly, the next steps built upon them will be skewed, like the Tower of Pisa.

The class I will teach this month, my Elementary Ballet Workshop, is a crash course in the sense that I will give people the basic tools for a beginner class. Plies, tendu, degages, and so on. The students won't master these steps as it takes years to truly master ballet but they will have the first layer of their building, the preparation for their structure.

Be patient with ballet. Don't binge. It's a lifelong pursuit, not an end goal. Happy dancing!

Elementary Ballet Workshop Signup is live!

For 3 Fridays in January, I will be teaching an Elementary Ballet workshop at Dance Arts Academy. It is designed for students who have no experience in ballet and would like a short "crash course." We will learn the basics of barre and center.

What: Elementary Ballet workshop
Where: Dance Arts Academy, 731 South La Brea, Los Angeles, CA 90036
When: January 9, 16 & 23, 2015, 6-7PM

Attire: Ballet slippers (thin socks if you don't have them) and leotard and tights (or leggings/shorts and tank top if you are more comfortable)

Cost: $60 for the entire workshop

The class will be limited to 12 students. You can reserve your spot in advance by paying via PayPal below, or through my website (www.leighpurtillballet.com), or in person with me. The class will be held with a minimum of 6 students: if the minimum is not met and you have paid for the class, you will receive a refund.

Upcoming events!

Hello beautiful dancers and happy holidays to you all! A few things of interest for those of you who are local and those who are not.

Coming up in 1 week! I'll be hosting a LIVE online discussion of Misty Copeland's new memoir, "Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina" on Friday, December 19th at 12:30PM PST/3:30PM Eastern. It will happen at Dance Advantage where my review of the memoir will be posted along with some possible topics for discussion.  Here are a few to think about:

Racial diversity in ballet
Economic discrimination in ballet
Teachers: external challenges we face with students
Students: dealing with and overcoming family obstacles
Parents: How far should parents go to encourage their children?
Curves and growth; how do we handle body changes in young dancers?

If you've got more, let me know so we can be sure to include them. I loved Misty's story and can't wait to talk about it with other readers. Book Troupe: put it in your calendar!

Next up: 2 Holiday classes with me!

On Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve mornings, I will be teaching at Vonder Haar Center for the Performing Arts in La Canada, from 10-11:30AM. It will be suitable for beginners through intermediate level dancers and you know I'll have fun music to celebrate the holidays!

So come all ye ballet faithful and dance with me! And for more class schedule info, be sure to check the calendar below or email me about specific classes, if you want to know more.

Coming in January: Elementary Ballet Workshop

For all of you (or 12 of you actually, since this is a limited number workshop) who have wanted to take class with me but have no experience at all, this workshop is for you. For 3 Fridays in January, I will offer a workshop that covers just the basics of ballet barre and center. 

What: Elementary Ballet workshop
Where: Dance Arts Academy, 731 South La Brea, Los Angeles, CA 90036
When: January 9, 16 & 23, 2015, 6-7PM

Attire: Ballet slippers (thin socks if you don't have them) and leotard and tights (or leggings/shorts and tank top if you are more comfortable)

Cost: $60 for the entire workshop
You will need to sign up in advance through PayPal. I will post the link this weekend when signup officially opens. I am limiting the class to 12, with a minimum of 6.

Class 4 of Elementary Ballet Workshop

Our last class!  I was so happy to watch my students "graduate" today. I feel confident that they can attend one of my Basic Ballet classes (or another Basic Ballet class with someone else) and be absolutely fine.  Sure, the next step will be a challenge but they are armed with all they need to get started and feel good.

Here is what we worked on today:

At the barre, with music:
--Plie combinations in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th, including grand plies and port de bras
--Tendu combinations in 1st and 5th, with port de bras and demi-plie
--Degage combination in 5th with port de bras and plie (assemble)
--Rond de jambe combination with a balance and rond en l'air
--Grand battements with plie (assemble)
--Sousous
--Changements and sautes in 1st

In the center, with music:
--Tendu and degage combinations
--Pirouette prep from 4th position

On the diagonal, with music:
--Chassees efface and croise
--Sautes en arabesque and retire

Reverence to finish the class

I'm so excited for them to move on, wherever it may be.  I think I might do another workshop, perhaps an Elementary Ballet II.  We'll see!  Stay tuned!

Class 3 of Elementary Ballet Workshop

Our third week saw even more strides made by my students! The terms for the body positions (croise, efface, en face) gave them pause but otherwise, they retained all of the material we learned the week before. Yay!

Still following along at home?  Here are the new steps we learned in the third class:

--Grand plies in 4th position
--Coupe devant and coupe derriere
--Balancing with the leg in retire, facing the barre en releve
--Rond de jambe en dehors and rond de jambe en dedans
--Changements facing the barre
--Saute arabesque and saute passe, traveling on the diagonal
--Chassees in croise and efface, traveling on the diagonal
--Changements and sautes in 1st position in the center

We also added port de bras to our combinations at the barre.  The only step I left out was sousous at the barre, which will do next week. For our final class, we will do short plie, tendu, degage, rond de jambe, and grands battements combinations at the barre, as well as a short tendu and degage combination in the center.  We will finish with alternating sautes and chassees on the diagonal and a reverence.

Class 2 of Elementary Ballet Workshop

In the second week of the workshop - my "crash course" in ballet designed to give you the ultra basics in steps as well as class progression and typical etiquette - I teasingly pop-quizzed my students from the previous week about the steps they'd learned and then added more. (They passed with flying colors!)

For them, and for you, in case you are interested in any future workshops I may do, the following is the additional material we learned:

--Grand plies in 1st and 2nd positions
--Tendus from 5th position
--Degages from 5th position
--Grand battements from 5th position
--Retire facing the barre, balancing
--Sautes in 1st position facing the barre
--Cambre with arm facing the barre
--Tendus and degages from the 5th in center
--Chassees in efface on the diagonal with arms in first

Next week we will tackle changements at the barre, sautes in the center and on the diagonal, rond de jambes a terre, and a reverence. And then the final week will see us putting together short combinations, like a typical class would. Whoo-hoo!

Class 1 of Elementary Ballet Workshop

The first class of my Elementary Ballet Workshop was fantastic! If you missed it, you can still join us next Saturday, Feb 23rd.  Please send me an email to let me know you'd like to come next weekend.

Here is what we covered:

--Basic positions of the body
--How to stand at the barre, basics of classroom etiquette
--Demi-plie in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th positions
--Tendus in 1st position
--Degages in 1st position
--Releve and eleve in 1st

We also learned a stretch at the barre and practiced tendus and degages in the center of the room to test our balance and weight-shifting.  Finally, we skipped across the floor to practice working on diagonals.

We will go over all of this next Saturday as well and build on it with more work at the barre and center. There are 3 more classes left in the workshop - so much to learn!

Please note: if you would like to review some of these steps, please see my videos on my YouTube channel link in the sidebar.

Getting down to the Ultra Basics

This weekend I start a 4-week workshop that I call a "crash course" in ballet. It's designed for the student who has absolutely no knowledge of ballet or even dance.  I often get students like this in my Basic Ballet classes and while most can follow along and learn by watching and asking good questions, others find it more difficult.  They get frustrated and don't return.  I don't like it when anyone gets frustrated in my classes, no matter what level they are.

Unfortunately, when you have a drop-in class for adults, you can't stop everything for a super newbie and tell them what a tendu is or how to hold their arms in first position.  If the class is large, I put the newbie in a spot where she can watch and I gently correct when I can. If the class is small, I might stop and give corrections to the group at large and point them at the newbie. But otherwise, I have no choice but to keep the class going for my students who attend regularly and expect a certain level of exercise.

So I decided to offer this Elementary Ballet course.  Just 4 hours, 1 hour a week (more than that at a time and people don't retain much). But now I am trying to decide exactly what I think is crucial for a newbie to know in order to jump into my Basic class with more confidence.  That's hard!  I start with demi-plie and then I think, "Well, they should know grand as well."  And I add a retire and then I think, "Hmm, coupe is pretty important too."  At what point do I introduce releve or sousous? Aughhhh! The class needs to be 8 weeks! lol...

I've got the first week nailed down, I believe.  Working in first position mostly, and doing tendu and degage.  But no rond yet and no combinations, just steps and alignment. Although most of the hour will be spent at the barre, I will go to the center.  Those of you who know me know I put everyone in the center, regardless of the class.  Why?  Because dance is movement.  Barre work is for technique but center work is for performance and creative expression.  I don't care if people simply stand or walk or skip across the floor, we have to step away from the barre in every class.

Two of the most important things I plan to impart to the class during this workshop are class progression and class etiquette. Students, particularly adults who think about everything, need to understand there is a reason for everything in a ballet class. They need to know how a barre moves forward and how it applies to the center. As for etiquette, if nothing else, I want students to know about spacing, where to stand in the center, how to move in a group, and when to ask questions. I think fellow teachers will appreciate that lesson!

And the second week, well, I think I will have to wait and see how the first week goes!