Back to ballet - my rehabilitation experience

Today, I had my 3rd ballet lesson after a 10 week hiatus following my horrible ankle sprain this New Year. I'd forgotten how gratifying it was to end the week by working those muscles and stretching those limbs, and am so glad to be back at the barre.

There's some catching up to be done. My turns, which were never good, have gotten even worse on both sides; the ankle is still a bit iffy too and I don't quite dare to turn on it yet. My balancing is also slightly off and I think my core has gotten even weaker.

Apart from those, however, I have to admit that I'm pleasantly surprised by my current form. My back is actually more supple and stronger than it's ever been - my back bends are deeper and I'm holding my best ever attitude balance on demi-pointe. I think my developpes from fondue are as high as, if not slightly higher, than they used to be - which is also fantastic given that I've been away from the barre for so long.

I think I owe my form entirely to the yoga and exercises I did during my rehabilitation period. After the initial few weeks, I started doing some yoga and stretching exercises for at least 30min twice or three times a week, as well as simple barre work to maintain the muscle memory. I mainly practised the RAD Grade 8 barre work - purely because it wasn't difficult and I was familiar with it, which made it easier to focus on working the injured ankle while keeping the good ankle fit.

For yoga itself, I mainly did the two sun salutations - I think they were key to strengthening my back. I also did some half-moon poses, as well as full locust, and bow poses. The balancing stick pose was especially fun (and challenging) to do  as well. I fully admit that my yoga practice was very haphazard - I would probably benefit more from a class in terms of preventing injury and having a more holistic yoga experience, but I liked being able to do poses that targeted key areas as a dancer.

Once I was warm, I went on to stretching exercises - including side splits while lying on my back and penches with palms on the floor for support. I'm quite keen to keep up this yoga-stretching combination in between classes as they seem to have worked great so far, and hopefully motivate myself to throw in some thera-band exercises to push me further too!

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (aka The Trocks)

I'm meant to be sending in some job applications, but today has been really bleh so I'll blog about The Trocks instead.

I saw The Trocks perform quite a few years back^, but when I noticed how cheap the tickets were selling for stall seats in Belfast, I could'nt not watch them again. For the price I paid for stalls here, I would have only gotten seats in – at best – Circle 2 back home.

I love the cover photo of The Trocks' programme, as it conveys everything about the company in this one picture of one of the founders and current ballet master - grace, elegance, poise, and underarm hair. Yes, The Trocks are an all male ballet troupe, don't really hide their masculinity, have awesome makeup skills, are hilarious and great fun to watch, and in certain respects are just as elegant as female ballerinas*.

While it was such an experience watching The Trocks from up close – the tickets are absolutely worth it as their facial expressions are key to the comic effect – the highlights for me were the open rehearsal before the show and the post-performance Q&A session. All that I will share below is what I learnt from those two extras.

The Trocks are on tour a lot, and their practices and rehearsals are all done while on the road. Before each show, they spend some time doing class (going through allegros, turns, etc), then run through some of the dances that will be performed that night, as well as some of those that will be performed at the next venue. For example, we were treated to a rough cut (but still very good!) of the famous Don Quixote pas de deux, which I've never seen them do before. It was fun trying to remember the faces of all the dancers and the positions they took during rehearsal and then trying to recognise them in the evening with all their makeup on.

I learnt that professional male dancers only take about a day to get used to dancing in pointe shoes – a shockingly short time given the difficulty that I face in my futile attempts at anything – because their feet and muscles are already very well developed and used to the movements.

I realised that a good number of their dancers are from Spain and Italy, although they're a New York-based company.

I was impressed by the knowledge that all the dancers are expected to know the steps to all the parts, as the roles are rotated among the dancers (except for the Dying Swan). This means that there is no competition among the dancers to score the title roles.

I was treated to the surreal sight of half the troupe of professional dancers (that's 8 of them) doing as many fouette turns as they could (the target the teacher set was at least 16), followed by the next half, then the first half, and then the second half again. I can't remember if they went for the pirouettes a third time, but oh. my. goodness. I couldn't breathe from the excitement of how special and once-in-a-lifetime that was.

Also, I found out that there isn't really any trick to making the feathers of the Dying Swan fall on cue – if their Artistic Director is to be believed – except stuffing lots of loose feathers between the many layers of tulle in the tutu. I was also informed – to my shock, horror and utmost admiration – that their ballet teacher, who was en pointe for the entire duration of the Dying Swan piece, has been doing this for more than 20 years and continues to do it today at the grand age of 52.

(O_O)

Indeed.

*      *      *      *      *      *

^: I can't for the life of me remember whether that was back in Singapore, or a long time ago when I was on exchange in London.

*: I'll share what their artistic director said in response to a question posed to him about the difference between men dancing en pointe and women dancing en pointe. He said that it's like tennis; while Steffi Graf had finesse, Andre Agassi had lots of strength.

On Ballet and Perfection

We had a farewell party for one of the bosses today, and the discussions reminded me of some thoughts which came to mind a while ago.

One of them is that although I'm more fascinated by Latin ballroom and salsa than I am by classical ballroom, the truth of the matter is that I'll probably be a better dancer of classical ballroom due to my ballet background.

While I'd long harboured the secret hope that I'll one day learn and get fairly good at the more sexy Latin dances and jazz, I think the summer masterclass in contemp/jazz had rid me of all delusions.

Things really are different when you're seeing a professional in action and trying to mimic the moves he does. Someone once said to me, using ballet as an example, that she doesn't know how to appreciate ballet as she has no background and doesn't know what it means or what it takes to execute the moves. And I totally agree. It seems like the more I learn the more I'm able to appreciate ballet greatness as well as identify what could be improved upon by the dancers on stage.

Also, it occurred to me that ballet leaves no room for anything that's not perfection. While Latin ballroom has competitions for dancers based on their standard (e.g. amateur competitions vs semi-pro ones), competitions in ballet are by age categories. That is of no consolation to learners of ballet though, as there are 13 year olds who can outdance those far older than them with their numerous fouettes en pointe.

While I may have reached major grade and only, on paper, have four grades left to pass, this means nothing when passing exams is just the tip of the iceberg. And really, without strong pointe technique, minimally 120 degree arabesques and at least 16 fouettes (and perfect triple pirouettes), you're nothing in the ballet world.

A long way to go in the strive towards inching closer to perfection.  

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This Weekend

It’s so obvious that I have little incentive or reason to keep up a blog.

For a recipe to make ice cream sauces such as sea salt honey caramel and red wine chocolate sauce, see here.

Yesterday, I learnt that pu-er tea is best drunk from a bowl or a flat receptacle, rather than a tiny chinese tea cup. Also, due to its acidity, it would be better to drink it after lunch to prevent flatulence. Pu-er tea is also very good for weight-loss when combined with regular exercise.

Yuzu tea with seafood senbei

Today, I received the results for my RAD Grade 8 Exam. I missed getting a higher grade by just 4 percentage points (or 3 actual points), so that’s the bummer. Otherwise I’m okay with my grades, given that I knew I didn’t perform my best on the exam day itself. However, I’m not sure why my teacher thinks that my grades are good “for a first-timer” (which I’m actually not, since I took Grades 3 and 4 as a kid) – why should first-timers do any worse than more experienced girls in an exam?

Oh well.

Giselle–Act I Peasant Variation

My teacher has taken a renewed interest in using the music for the peasant variation in Giselle, which I happen to really like as well.

Here’s a crazy performance of this variation, with the fastest footwork I’ve ever seen – she seems to be flying across the stage!

Here’s another variation with jumps in the second theme instead of pointe work. It makes me sad, cos we did jumps in class to this music and they’re so difficult to just do the simplest of entrechats, much less what you see on stage.

Again – why is ballet so difficult?!

Why is ballet so difficult?

I was asking myself this question last night, after watching the (poorly recorded) DVD recording of my ballet school’s recital, and it’s on my mind again after today’s ballet class.

It occurred to me that people can spend tens of years on ballet but still struggle with the moves, as evident from friends and the rest of us in my ballet class. One minimum criterion is to lift and sustain one’s leg at 90 degrees in any direction – ballerinas must attain at least 160 – 170 degrees – and that requires tremendous amount of core, back and leg strength, as well as balance.

Yet, for some other types of dance, one could enter competitions or perform on stage with just a couple of years of practise.

In contrast, I don’t think any ballet dancer will look passably nice without at least reaching  Grade 8 in ballet – and let’s not even talk about dancing en pointe. Competitions are out of the question for adult ballet dancers too, as these are judged by age group.

A bunch of us are practising for our RAD Grade 8 exam at the moment, we are putting lots of work into just executing the steps, and much greater effort will be required to perform the dances with the grace, style and impression of effortless-ness required. All the balance, control, lifting up from the waist, timing, musicality…

How did ballet evolve into such a difficult style of dance?