The Incredi-belles

When you watch professional ballerinas on stage, especially when you're little, it is easy to get the impression that they can really fly. 

Then you start going to class yourself and realise that it just ain't that easy! There's all this technique stuff you've got to be able to do first - and don't even get me started on how much pointe shoes hurt - those ethereal beings up there in their pretty costumes don't let you see that bit  (that's sort of the point). 

This can sometimes result in a bit of an anticlimax, when you get into the studio and spend more time moving like an elephant in need of a hip-replacement than a fairy landing on a tree as @MlleGinger would prefer. 

However, at dance station there is a solution for everything. Yes part of the solution is to work hard, keep coming to class, and listen to your corrections blah blah blah ..... but there is also Glimmer Girl! 

Who is this mythical mistress I speak of you ask? 

I cannot reveal her secret identify because ... well then it wouldn't be a secret any more would it?!?!? 

What I can tell you about her though is that her sparkly pants  leave magic dust in the air that, like Tinkerbell's fairy dust, makes it possible to FLY! The proof of this was when on Thursday night we were all allegro-ing like the pros (ish) and gliding seamlessly from one end of the studio to the next (ish). 

So if you see anyone flying past you who looks like the person in the photo below on the left, make sure you quickly think happy ballet thoughts and guarantee the ENB will be calling you within the next half an hour. 

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning ....

So it turns out that Dory the fish was very wise, although she may have advised us to 'just keep swimming" in the pursuit of Nemo, her logic can be extrapolated and applied to ballet where we must keep spinning in the pursuit of the perfect pirouette. 

Even if I'm not convinced that this exists. 

This was certainly the case on Thursday with the return of the pirouette song: "Try Again" by Aliyah - always good for motivation! 

It might be something that at first seems like an insurmountable task, but with @MlleGinger on your side, it somehow becomes possible to do a complete 360 degree turn and not fall flat on your face (at least not every single time) 

It is, however, best to do this before you've attempted a grande battement exercise at the barre. This is because this exercise carries a particularly high risk of ballet-bullying by the Ginger one. This is a kind of necessary evil where your legs get put back in their place after slacking. The results of this are twofold:

1. An exponential increase in technique 
2. An exponential decrease in being able to stand, much less pirouette. 

You have been warned! 

Darling it's better, down where it's wetter ...

.... take it from me, sometimes when you are free-styling it helps to have a story to inspire your moves. 

In general this is really good advice and it can lead to some of the most inspired free-styles. However, the problem is that at Dance Station, we have a tendency to take this concept a little bit too literally. This doesn't just apply in waacking or hip hop either (although 'thrift shopping' inspiration apparently equates to walking around the studio with a shopping trolley), but also Jazz apparently.   

The problems that this can cause were illustrated on Sunday when we were supposed to be free styling during the introduction to Rihanna and decided that the most appropriate way to represent the music was to pretend to be under the Sea and move around as Seaweed and crabs ..... as you do ... much to the despair of @KleioBows. 

If you've never free-styled like seaweed before, it involves a lot of swaying, and walking like a crab is exactly that, with an apparently obligatory french accent ..... I don't know why that's just the rules!!! 

Learning to Walk

So according to a number of  notable child development sources, the average age to learn to walk for humans is between 11 and 18 months. 

The documenters of development have clearly never been to ballet basics at Dance Station. 

If they had their average would be extremely skewed. This is because whilst it may be relatively easy to stamp down the high street in your trainers, or even stride confidently in heels (if you're an advanced walker that is), as soon as this needs to be done:

1. In time to the music (even if this music is a fabulous new playlist) 
2. With arm movements that are not akin to those of a chimpanzee
3. With pointed and turned out feet at all times

It becomes an apparently insurmountable task.

Indeed we seem to have a talent for turning even a simple adage into something far more farcical although I must give credit where it's due - none of us ended up on the floor (something that proves we are improving exponentially) and, I do believe I can explain our seemingly regressive behaviour:

Subliminal messaging can have a large impact on the human psyche (just look at Chandler and the smoking tape - if you don't know what I'm on about SHAME ON YOU) and so I believe that seeing as  Alicia Keys was earlier in class leading us to believe we were 'on fire' we forgot how to walk in our understandable haste to run away from the flames lapping at our heels. 

Thus, all we need to do is change our soundtrack to include Katrina and the Waves instead and we will be good to go. 

And if this still fails we can always take some of that potion that turns you into Mice in 'The Witches' and that will, in the world of Angelina Ballerina at least, solve all our problems. 

But I haven't revised!!!!

Thursday night was the last set of classes of 2012, and in ballet that could only mean one thing ....... VOCAB QUIZ!!!!!

This is where the two for one nature of Thursday night ballet is put to the test and we all compete for the coveted "ballet vocab champion" title. 

Cue accelerating pulse rates, sweaty palms and numerous cases of serious exam nerves - I'm not kidding, rescue remedy was definitely being swigged by some like it was the elixir of life! I may have survived finals but this was on a whole other level - especially due to a distinct lack of revision.

Last minute cramming definitely did not help the situation either with @MlleGinger doing a heads-shoulders-knees-and-toes inspired description of the grand battement exercise and certain members of the class giving certain other members erroneous answers. Thus when it reached the last twenty minutes of class and it was time to begin the quiz, emotions were definitely running high. 

The standard was very high (clearly we've improved from last year or people were cheating hmmm) but there reached a very tense tie between @Trixiecantswim and @DelphiRose97 who both got 19/20 (and they call me the geek - talk about the kettle calling the pot black).  Obviously their costa study sesh paid off. 

Thus they had to have an all-out spelling battle, with @DelphiRose97 eventually stealing the title back from @TrixiCantCwim (the winner last year) by correctly spelling: rond de jambe en dehors. It must be due to her extreme youth (younger = less wisdom = more space available for remembering french). 

Ah well now we've got a whole year to prepare for the next one. 

Answers:
1. Plié =  Bend on two legs
2. Fondu: Bend on one leg (to melt)
3. Tendu: To Stretch
4. Glissé: To glide the leg along the floor just coming off slightly at the end
5. Port de bras: Carriage of the arms
6. Rond de Jambe: Round of the leg
7. En Dehors: Away from the body
8. Derrier: To the rear 
9. En l'air: In the air 
10. Sauté: A jump in first position that stays in first position
11. Changemont: A jump in third position in which the feet swap
12. De côté: To the side
13. Premier:  First 
14. deuxième: Second
15. Demi Bras: Flower Arms 
16. Allegro: A jumping exercise 
17. Cloche: As a bell (swinging the between front and back)
18. Bras Bar: Arms Low
19. Petit: Small 
20. Devant: In front 

Leap Reindeer Leap!

To get an accurate understanding of what @MlleGinger was trying to create in ballet on Thursday night, one must use the imagination to transport oneself so as not to see a dance studio situated in suburban Richmond but an open plane in the North Pole filled with leaping Reindeer and Tinselled-Tutu wearing sugar plum fairies.  In this place of Christmas tranquility the only noises are delicate tinkling laughs, as light as the whipped-cream topping hot chocolate on a cold christmas morn, and the soft sounds of snowflakes landing on an already snow-covered ground. 

Isn't it a beautiful picture? 

Shame we smashed it really. 

From start to finish we were in a particularly giddy mood on Thursday. It may have been the Christmas soundtrack giving us all an extra bounce to our balancé who knows! But what really tipped us over the edge was attempting to jeté across the room whilst adding in a little bit of extra 'spice' in the form of reindeer 'antler' arm movements. 

The problem is that Reindeers are very graceful when they leap - (they have to be, if they were all jerky all the presents would fall out of Santa's sleigh!) - and we're, well, not. 

Suffice to say the left side left us all in a collapsed heap on the floor. So whilst Beyonce may say to the left, to the left, I'm, for once, going to have to contradict her and say stick to the right, to the right. It's for health and safety purposes. 

I need a pneumonic device

This is really getting ridiculous, we've (for the most part) left school and other forms of higher education so why is the word revision still in my vocabulary? 

Because of the Christmas ballet quiz of course. 

It's coming. Thanks to @MlleGinger. 

Every year in the last Thursday ballet before Christmas we have a ballet vocab quiz. You'd be forgiven for thinking this was just a bit of fun, but you'd be wrong. This is serious business. You get to hold the title for AN ENTIRE YEAR. As a certain Miss @trixiecantswim won't let us forget. Gracious winning is not a skill we practice at Dance Station - milking any bragging rights for all their worth is actively encouraged. 

Hence on Thursday night we found ourselves trying very hard to remember all the terminology we've learnt over the last year. The problem is that, apparently, when you try and recall the name for something you simultaneously become almost incapable of executing it correctly. So whilst two minutes ago you were able to *perfectly* demonstrate second position with your arms, as soon you start trying to think of it as deuxième, everything goes pear-shaped (in some cases literally). 

So after all this stress, when we were given the task of creating our own allegro with very little restrictions placed on the creative process, can you really blame us for getting a little carried away? All we needed were a couple of pyrotechnics and I'm pretty certain the producers of the nextbigthings' next tour would be calling us up to do the choreography. I wouldn't risk not believing me either, because otherwise we won't spend any of our earnings on christmas presents for you. 

*at least in your head* 

Under-Done and Off Da Horse

Reading that you may think that I've finally lost it. That all that dancing has done it, that I've banged my head one too many times in a failed attempt at a freeze and that my marbles have been well and truly lost.

This may be a justifiable conclusion to draw in some circumstances, but not in this one. No, in this case I am in fact talking about intermediate ballet.

Yes you read that correctly. Ballet.

So I’m not talking about badly baked bread or dismounting a quadraped, but rather the different directions of a Rond de Jambe (or a pirouette for that matter). Namely en dedans and en dehors. 

Thursday night ballet basics is two for one, French and Ballet, but on Tuesdays, the horror of evil ballet teacher flashbacks (honestly what child wants their teacher to stand on their feet or carry water buckets on their wrists!!!) combined with the necessity of remembering about 300 million things at once whilst standing on one leg,  means that articulating the French can be a bit much. This is not to say that we don’t try, simply that we prefer to rely on the descriptions provided by @trixiecantswim to take the stress away from the situation. And thus en dehors becomes off da horse. Simple. The fact that this doesn’t make the moves any easier to execute is beside the point. 

What it does do, is make sweating at the barre a little more lighthearted, and so when we come to leave the comfort of its confines and prance about in the centre, the jovialness of the mood makes us a little lighter and so we jump a little higher, à la ‘I love to laugh’ Mary-Poppins stylee.  Good job the ceiling is made of tiles really. 

Let's Go for a Run

But why? you might ask! Well because we're in ballet of course! 

When you watch people run, aside from feeling sorry for the poor so-and-sos, I generally don't think it looks that difficult - at least from a purely mechanical point of view. I mean you see toddlers doing it all the time so it must be easy right? 

WRONG! It is in fact a lot harder and a lot more entertaining than you'd think. Well at least it is when you're running in circles on your demi-pointe whilst holding everything up (aka trying not to shake from laughing) and not using your arms. Ballerinas make it look weightless and as easy as breathing on stage - we made it look more like the ministry of funny walks especially when @MlleGinger is chasing you and adding a certain amount of urgency to the situation. 

Whilst this was fun, I have, after a lot of careful consideration (involving all sorts of complex statistical analysis) come to the conclusion that Phoebe had the right idea all along - so can we please do it like this next week:

Werking up an appetite

As we enter the third week in November, hit the six weeks until Christmas mark, and start slipping and sliding on the pavement as we walk along (we'll that might be just me but you know) we can justifiably claim that it is most definitely winter. That might mean a multitude of different things, but one thing it traditionally encompasses is Sunday Roast - yummy! These are best when you can really indulge in the stodge in a guilt-free manner - one way of doing this is to get yourself in class for the Sunday Marathon. 

Starting with Jazz at 12.30 we go conditioning crazy, especially as we engage in a fight to the finish in the weekly 'Plank' competition (read that correctly please @trixiecantswim) - trust me those Olympians of the summer ain't got nothing on us - we're aiming for 3 months by Christmas so we can feel momentary goddess before the festive food feast begins. If this doesn't kill us we work on technique and then throw ourselves into a routine.

 For the last couple of weeks we've been expunging all the weekly stresses by whiling out to Emeli Sande's 'Read All About It.' It's a perfect routine for self-expression, and also for making seemingly simple moves look completely ridiculous - seriously sometimes I don't know how @Kleiobows doesn't just lose faith completely! One move which basically consists of lifting your heels off the ground was especially guilty of this by somehow instead of looking effortless and relaxed looking more like whack-a-mole!!! Never mind by the end of class we'd managed something reasonable aesthetically pleasing (see video below), only to have all the gentleness reversed by segueing into hip hop. 

Here we got angry (or at least pretended - turns out Richmond peeps are not that aggressive - who knew!!) embodying Busta Rhymes and heading out to (metaphorically) break the necks of all who had annoyed us during the week. Although the floor section may have left my legs looking like they belonged to a 9-year-old boy it was totally worth it, as the routine was looking pretty hype by the end of class. As we normally do more groove-based routines, it was good to be challenged to pick up more intricate choreography and pull it off (to a certain degree at least). 

All of this is rounded off by a nice bit of calorie burning zumba action where we shake, shimmy and time warp (yes really) into LBD shape. 

If you're not convinced yet, I'm pretty certain that our stamina is so good after all this working out that if the end of the world really does come on the 21st of Dec we could outrun it. 

p.s. none of us are falling out of some of the turns in this jazz routine, not one bit ;)

I whip my hair back and forth

So on Saturday we had a treat! One of our extended family, Lee B (@LeeB_official) from BBC's 'So You Think You Can Dance' was down to teach a contemporary workshop and so the leggings were out in force. Rocking out to a great soundtrack we started with a warm-up, full of the infamous split push-ups (or awkward crouch push-ups in some instances), working our way up to exercises from the corner and then onto the routine.

Considering at least 85% of those in attendance were complete contemporary novices, the fact that we didn't have any major casualties during the corner exercises was a major cause for celebration. In fact as we got the hang of them a bit more and the level of resistance of our musculoskeletal systems went from a level necessary for resisting the dinner invitation from your strange next-door-neighbours to that necessary for resisting a second slice of chocolate cake (i.e. virtually non-existent resistance), we came to really embrace them and were (at least trying very hard) to whizz across the floor. 

Thus we were well and truly in the mood by the time we got onto the routine, especially when we found out that it was to Ellie Golding's "anything could happen" which is a serious TUNE. With lots of  whiplash-inducing and tribal action it was a brilliant opportunity to completely immerse yourself and LIVE in the music - something that is always enjoyable regardless of the style. And so by really throwing ourselves at it, encouraged by Lee's unfaltering enthusiasm and compliments, we all got a fantastic sense of release, freedom and of course fun (even if the exact execution of all the moves reflected this!). 

Overall, although contemporary can sometimes seem exclusive - especially for those who haven't studied technical styles of dance for years - we found, thanks to Lee, something new to embrace and add to our style bibliography. You can guarantee we'll have him back in the New Year. 

Weebles wobble but they don't fall over ....

.... shame this can't be said about humans 

Balance is something that all humans possess right? .... WRONG! This is an assumption that we test every Thursday night in ballet, and admittedly our methods may not be 'scientific' in the strictest sense, but regardless every week they prove it to be false. Indeed it seems to be fairly clear that balance is not something that homo sapiens inherently possess. 

In most scenarios, this fact that some of us could clearly benefit from a reversing evolutionary process and the redevelopment of a tail for added stability, this would not be an overly dramatic problem ... but in ballet it can prove life threatening. In fact it can render the obstacles posed in class akin to those faced in the video-game world in which a young observer of class was utterly engrossed. 

However, what is great, is that whilst in many ballet classes a lack of natural balance may be something frowned upon, with us it just presents a greater challenge for @MlleGinger to overcome ... and not one that she shies away from, correcting postures with military precision (and sometimes with a hint of military violence!), turns and waltz steps no longer appear beyond our capabilities ..... or if they are, the generally jovial atmosphere means that it doesn't really matter - you'll still get increased balance, coordination and posture regardless of you mastering the actual steps and these are attributes that will never go amiss in your everyday life. 

Don't believe me? Come to class next week, walk an inch taller the next day and make a study of how differently people respond to you. 

We could have danced all night ....

... well we could have done if it wasn't sooo loud!! 

There are many wonderful things about tap dancing including the fact that it is a lot of fun and it improves your rhythm. There are also a million advantages to our swanky studio floor but my goodness when the two are combined it doesn't half make a cacophony! Seriously, we have decided to invent and patent tap mufflers - who cares if they completely defeat the object of tap, they will save our ears for sure.

Of course I'm only kidding, really we love the noise. There is just something about tap, and the way that you try and compliment the music with your own beats that really makes you feel like you're living in the music and when this is to an awesome jazzy version of 'I could have danced all night' then this is a massive win! Whilst getting those shuffle beats in fast enough proved more challenging than anticipated (apparently all of us need to send our ankles on a relaxing retreat as quite frankly at the moment they are all way too uptight!) pretty soon we were all living as if we had really just spent the evening twirling around with Professor Higgins, and coming back to the great things about tap - it doesn't matter that we're maybe not as light on our feet as Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle because we can just argue that the style necessitates it!  Check the video below to see what I'm talking about! 

Does anybody feel like a Russian magician?

When one walks into a ballet class, one expects to see multitudes of bun-heads in black leotards and pink tights politely practicing their pirouettes with nobody speaking in tones other than the dulcet ….. but at DS we do things a little differently and Thursday night was no exception! We spent the evening doing magic tricks to put the pizazz in port-de-bras and pretending to be Russian with the intension of injecting the dynamism in developé all aided, not by a spoonful of sugar but a measure of merriment, and a large one at that. What do you reckon we'll be doing next week - leaping like leprechauns? I guess you'll just have to come to class and find out for now you can just enjoy our motivational pirouette song: