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In this reflection of my experience of ballet classes this term, I aim to express how my practice has developed over online learning. I hope to learn from my own reflections by articulating what elements of technique are intuitive to me and what cognitive processes I go through in order to become more proficient in moving.

During my time dancing at home, I noticed that in ballet I felt as if my technique had declined. I was particularly struggling with adage phrases and its core elements such as balance, control, placement and extension. Therefore for part of this assessment I wanted to focus on an adage sequence and how I approach learning the phrase. I joined a short port de bras and adage together and filmed myself practicing it once a day over the course of a few days.

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https://vimeo.com/524334787/8214a98776

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https://vimeo.com/524339923/81b8338cb7

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https://vimeo.com/524341446/1275f52c58

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https://vimeo.com/524347595/619b1989a8
https://vimeo.com/524348436/67406b012f

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https://vimeo.com/524355184/8ef4975190

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https://vimeo.com/524356226/ba11e79e9b

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ENERGY

I think that as I became more familiar with the sequence of movement I quickly became clearer with where I focused my energy for example whether I projected it outwards or I kept it internal. I quickly had an understanding that in order to move efficiently and smoothly sometimes less energy is key. For example moving from the releve passe to the waltz step. However I think if I was to practice this further I could make more distinction between movements that are grounded and movements that have lightness.

MUSICALITY

I noticed quickly that I didn’t feel a connection between myself and the music. In the video on the second day I thought that I was using the phrasing of the music very predictably. For example it would be more effective if I sustained and held the arabesque for longer instead of dropping it on the beat. To combat this, I tried using headphones so I could hear the intricacies of the music clearer. By using the headphones I think that it instilled more deliberate choice on how to use the phrases of the music. I also think that it affected how I used energy, whether I chose to project outwards and exaggerate movement or whether to be precise and keep my energy internal.

PHYSICALITY

Throughout the week I continually reviewed the previous videos and thought about what I could do to improve the following day. I often picked up on technical principles such as placement and alignment. By day 3 and 4 as I began to think more about placement, in doing so I think I lost some of the original indulgent physicality slightly. Focusing on the placement and alignment gave my movement added clarity but took away from the intuitive looseness I had when I first learnt the phrase. As I review the videos, neither quality is worse but I discovered that I should never be compromising on either. It should be an active choice based on what the exercise demands to focus either on physicality or clarity of placement.

Moreover I continually had problems with my extension whilst at home as I was working in a significantly smaller space. It was difficult to feel as if I could extend into my extremities without fear of hitting something. Furthermore simply the feeling of being confined to a smaller area, even if there was enough space physically, made it difficult to extend without thinking. This is a correction that I occasionally receive in class however I believe that being at home has somewhat affected my intuitive physicality.

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In summary, I found that components of my dancing such as looseness and indulging in my own physicality within the sequence were intuitive to me. I think when I learn a phrase of movement these elements are what I think about the most. By reviewing the videos I can see that my musicality began to develop without intervention. However using my headphones to immerse myself further into the music allowed me to picking up subtleties that encouraged me to have more play with the music. Often within ballet, I focus a lot on my technique that I forget about musicality. In future to add interest to ballet sequences I will take the time to review phrases with headphones as I believe it was a method that helped me. I spent more time towards the end of the week focusing on placement and alignment particularly in my arms. I found it difficult to feel an extension through my arm whilst travelling through correct positions such as first and fifth.

I believe that there is significance in reflecting upon your own learning process. For instance identifying elements of a phrase I embody automatically, and understanding what components require more thinking. Being familiar with your own learning process is valuable in the studio but especially in an audition setting where you must learn and perform in a short time frame. Knowing what components I instinctively embody and what things I need to consciously think about will help me to rapidly improve my performance. I intend to continue thinking about how I learn as this reflection helped me to understand my body better and aided my transition back into the studio.

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Ballet provides contemporary dancers with a range of foundational techniques that contribute to a sustainable career. For example frappes provide precision, petit allegro provides agility and adage contributes towards balance and flexibility. However my experience of online classes showed me that not only does ballet teach technical steps, it provides a means to expose and check in with your technique as a whole. In comparison with many of our contemporary classes, technique is more objective within ballet. This objectivity and rigidity of the structure of class is helpful to dissect individual steps, and to expose technical components such as alignment and placement. In my experience this can be more difficult within contemporary as it can be much more broad in its approach to movement.

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As I previously mentioned, I struggled with my extension this term notably in ballet but in contemporary also. The following video shows me struggling to learn a a complex movement from Arran’s contemporary class. I couldn’t work out why this movement was not as smooth as I would’ve liked.

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Working on this adage phrase provided me with a space to scrutinise components of my technique to a level that I believe can be difficult to achieve in contemporary. Moves such as an arabesque are given to many dancers such as myself early in training, I am familiar with how my leg should feel at full extension in arabesque. The act of filming and critiquing my own movement allowed me to identify ways in which I could improve my dancing such as extending my leg and feeling a pull. In analysing and correcting your own technique the positive corrections that you give yourself become habit much faster. In this way I found myself thinking about ballet corrections in other classes. The feeling of extension and lightness I discovered in the adage was essential for efficiency of movement in Arran’s class.

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https://vimeo.com/524399601/a05d7b907f

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This is why I believe ballet to be such a fundamental contribution to a sustainable career in contemporary dance. This process that I underwent is an example of how ballet insights and encourages discipline. Ballet provides the technical and critical tools to be able to teach and correct your own dancing. I have found these skills to be incredibly transferrable to contemporary class and will continue to film myself to learn positive habits faster. I think these skills are incredibly vital in order to continue to learn and expand your own knowledge beyond full time training. Technical and physical capability will sustain your career but what is most valuable is to be able to continue to correct and train yourself in an ever changing dance environment.