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Plié
I’ve heard somewhere that the beginning is a very good place to start. So let’s start with the alpha and omega of all dance movements – the plié. Plié means “Bent, bending. A bending of the knee or...
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Vertically Challenged: Improving Your Jumps
What’s the secret recipe that will improve your jumping skills? For the most part the secret to jumping is not so secret, it is the same hard work that goes into most everything in dance: proper...
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Defining and Dissecting a Piqué Turn
What is a Piqué Turn? Generally when a dancer is asked to perform a piqué turn in class, he/she understands that it is likely they are being asked to perform a traveling turn that begins with a step...
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En Dehors, Out the Door
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Frequently misspelled and endlessly confused, let’s go over these important dance directions! There are typically two situations for which en dehors and en dedans are...
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All In The Family: Battement
This post was originally published in May 2008. Photo by PBoGs I’m sure that students reading this blog have used or heard the term battement before. If grand battement immediately comes to mind, I’m...
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What You Can Do To Improve Tendu (and why it is crucial)
Image by Bichuas (E. Carton) via Flickr It seems like such a small thing, really, that little second-place movement done at barre or in center. But, no matter what type of concert dance technique you...
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Contemporary Dance Technique: The Spinal Roll-Down
Rolling down the spine is typically one of the first movements you do in a contemporary dance class. Dancers like this move. It “chases away the crunchiness.” Anything that comes before even a plié in...
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Contemporary Dance Technique: Spiral Roll
There are hundreds of ways to “fall” (i.e. get to the floor) in modern or contemporary dance techniques and choreography. One of the most basic and frequently performed, however, is a controlled spiral...
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