Placement: your spacious poise and turnout are related
Alessandra Ferri shows alignment and muscular connection
One of the concepts that appears in our class is visualizing the circular pathways in the pelvis to elevate the crests of the hips up, and the belt loops going back without clenching the large muscles of the upper buttocks in the process. Instead we try to get the deepest turnout and pelvic floor muscles involved, as well as the deepest layer of the abdominal wall, the transversus.
This still image of Alessandra Ferri illustrates this principle (among others we work on). The unadorned nude costume will allow you to see how she aligns her bones to maximize efficiency and grow taller. She "puts the circle on the pelvis" and opens her first space: reaching the tail down and dropping the kidney area back. Her second space is open as well. You can see in the tone on the back of her leg that the hamstring anchors the sitz bone (look at the back of the standing leg where the muscle is contracted), and all the while the thigh bone is reaching away from the crest of the pelvis. Also notice how the muscles at the greater trochanter of the femur (look where thigh meets buttock) is wrapping under her seat, as though she were "sending a pinky ball forward" between the legs.
Maybe the most beautiful technical element to notice in this photo is the exquisite vertical stack from finger to toe. The carpals (incidentally her arms are in fifth position allongé), ear canals, sitting bones, the transverse arch of the foot, and the tip of the pointe shoe are all placed in a vertical line creating her equilibrium. This poise lends her a quality of ease and readies her to go in any direction without needing additional preparatory movement.
Watch the video
Alessandra Ferri and Massimo Murru.
Ballet "El Murciélago (La Chauve-souris)".
Coreografía - Roland Petit.
Música - Johann Strauss.
Ballet Teatro alla Scala. (2003).
Overlap the knees
Fifth position and closed fourth positions
In fifth position the knee joints align on an anteroposterior axis, one directly in front of the other. See Peter Boal above for an example. This is true for battements in the direction of fourth position as well. Deanna McBrearty shows quatrième devant, Dana Hanson shows quatrième derrière.
In your dancing, work the overlap using both legs and you'll feel the inner-thighs and turnout muscles. Take care to press down into the ground while keeping the crests of the pelvis high in front to prevent sinking or tilting to either side.
The image above is from Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique, page 171.
Dancing En Face
"En face is the purest orientation because the dancer is most fully revealed. It is also the simplest... There is no camouflage, no épaulement, no curve of the neck, no slant of the neck, no slant of the head. Everything shows, making the dancer more vulnerable. And yet she must still look beautiful when she moves."
From Suki Schorer page 170.
Cou-de-pied
Suki Schorer on Cou-de-pied
Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique is an excellent text. Among many topics it covers the finer points of wrapping the foot sur le cou-de-pied.
Please note, absent in these readings are the details of 1. releasing tension in the divot under the lateral malleolus to open space in the ankle joint, and 2. focusing on the wrap at the pinky-toe side of the foot (wrapping the lateral longitudinal arch to feel the muscles work on the underfoot). Reference to making a beveled shape is an overlapping concept. Mr. Balanchine, Stanley Williams, and others--while they became legendary teachers--didn't explicitly talk about anatomy in class the way we do.
Illustration of the pathway of the foot
Vertical placement over the supporting leg
From Motor Learning and Control for Dance, by Krasnow & Wilmerding, page 181.
The squareness principle Finis Jhung teaches will keep the vertical line segment connecting the rectangle and the triangle intersecting those shapes aat 90-degree angles.
Battement Tendu with Jump Mechanics
Have you noticed we don't use demi-pointe when we practice battements?
Check out the second paragraph of the page above for more information.