The classes I'm taking are not beginner classes, despite being listed as "Beginner 2" in the catalog. I know it and I've said it here before. One of the guys who often takes the Intermediate classes but who dropped in tonight because of the US Thanksgiving holiday later this week said it in the dressing room after class this evening.
As I mentioned in the last post, our instructor has decided that we should spend more time doing things that move across the floor. Okay, great. It's more like dancing and less like a balancing exhibition (not that we're doing much less of that). But how did we come to doing renversé in our combinations?
I'd never heard the term before this month, though that in itself doesn't mean anything. Once I'd guessed how to spell it I looked it up. Here is an excerpt from a Pointe Magazine article on the subject:
To help her students tackle renversé, Marcia Dale Weary first gives it in adagio. Take a développé to croisé devant. "Think about the shape of the right foot coming front," she says. "Show off a jewel on your heel." Pivot to effacé, then carry the leg through a high écarté, into an attitude that "circles around you. As the right arm opens, both legs bend and the left arm circles to frame your face."Got that? Me either. How about a blog posting and video from Kathryn Morgan, soloist for the Miami City Ballet, in which she refers to renversé as "a tricky step".
Want it in slow motion? Try this link to a YouTube clip. This one refers to renversé as "intermediate/advanced level". Yeah, that's what I thought.
Then again, here's another YouTube clip of a bunch of kids at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet making it look easy. Always good for my ego.
And renversé is just one step in a longer combination. No wonder I'm laying in bed with ice packs on my legs hoping to keep the random spasms in my quads and calves from turning into full-blown cramps.
On a brighter note, I've now taken two full classes wearing my So Danca slippers. We've done promenades, pirouettes both en dedans and en dehors, and most everything else that has caused trouble with the Capezio Hanamis, and these don't twist on my feet. Unless something changes radically as the suede forefoot pads wear, I think these are winners.
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