"Jumping" steps in ballet, and indeed most dancing refers to how we launch ourselves into the air and land with our two feet!
Soubresaut: taking off from two feet to landing on two feet.
Temps levé & Jeté: taking off from one foot to landing on one foot (hopping & leaping).
Sissone: taking off from two feet to landing on one foot.
Assemblé: Taking off from one foot to landing on two feet.
For myself and many of my friends, dance is an integral part of our lives. Offering you (as a reader) the opportunity to imagine dance in your life as a regular practice, is partly the impetus of writing this blog for me. As I continue to look at what is available online to learn how to dance, there are many wonderful resources that are created by amazing dancers and teachers with sophisticated videos of classes, graphic analyses, and detailed explanations. Yet learning to "dance" is always going to be more effective, and more fun, when you find yourself in a studio with a knowledgable teacher who is invested in helping you!
Teaching ballet in the 21st century is rooted as much in tradition as it is in a rapidly growing understanding of human anatomy, skeletal alignment, muscular engagement, and the physics of how the body moves in space. The relatively small lexicon of ballet steps defines a time honored tradition of helping us train our bodies to achieve the skills that define ballet and many other dance forms we enjoy doing and watching. Yet as my "definitions" of the above basic "ballet jumps" illustrates, learning to execute those steps teaches us simple principles about jumping with two feet.
As the Taylor School expands its class offerings at their additional new studios, Taylor Dance West, in midtown Manhattan, NYC, I am proud to be working alongside Fabrice Herrault. I first met Fabrice when I hired him to teach ballet to the competitors in the New York International Ballet Competition (NYIBC) in 2009. I was the director of NYIBC at that time, and I think it came as a surprise to New York audiences that knew me as a Paul Taylor modern dancer for 15 years.
Philip Gardner, who authors Oberon's Grove online, has an interview with me from 2009, that you can still read here: https://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2009/06/interview-richard-chensee.html
Together, Fabrice and I are offering our decades of combined experience in ballet and contemporary dance to dancers through our open classes in NYC. I am continuing to offer Adult Beginner Ballet on Tuesday evenings, and Advanced Modern on Saturday afternoons. Fabrice is teaching an open Advanced Ballet class on Saturday mornings, and together we are offering semi-private solo/duet coaching for young dancers interested in honing their dancing with more individualized attention.
This is a new and exciting chapter for me to be offeering open classes on a regular basis to dancers and anyone interested in incorporating ballet or modern dance in their weekly routines in NYC!
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