Maybe you will have better luck. Here, give it a shot:
Showing posts with label french. Show all posts
Showing posts with label french. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2015
Le Roi Danse
I tried, okay? I really tried. I tried to watch Le Roi Danse (the king dances), the French costume drama about Louis XIV and his ballet-arific life. I tried. I gave it a real, honest, loving attempt. But I couldn't even make it half way through. I know! It's all that you could possibly want in a movie! 18th century costumes! Ballet! Royal intrigue! Homo-eroticism! Beautiful music! But I just couldn't. I could. Not.
Maybe you will have better luck. Here, give it a shot:
Maybe you will have better luck. Here, give it a shot:
Friday, August 23, 2013
Pros, Toes, and the F-Bomb
Ballet season will be starting soon, and professionals will be heading back to their studios. So, where are they now? They are taking class with the variously challenged adult ballet students at my studio. What is it like taking class with a real dancer? Well, humbling. I certainly won't be dropping down in to those perfect splits anytime soon, or kicking in to a high and strong faille* with total grace and ease. On the other hand, watching some of our more advanced girls alongside the pro gives you a real appreciation for how far you actually can go as an adult recreational dancer.
I also felt good about doing my fondues on flat rather than demi-pointe because she was doing it as well.
PS: we spent our full hour of pre-pointe last night at the barre. You might think that doing a whole class of relevés would be easier than normal, but you'd be wrong. In fact, I think my feet hurt more than they ever have. Apparently my teacher recently brought home a copy of the Pointe Book and now she's all excited about trying out the exercises it recommends. I can't imagine how the girls on pointe are feeling today, I was on demi-pointe and I feel like a train wreck!
* this word is usually pronounced "fye-ee" in ballet but "file" in most fabric situations. I bet in France they don't say it either way! In fact, I just looked it up! I was right! Check it.
I also felt good about doing my fondues on flat rather than demi-pointe because she was doing it as well.
PS: we spent our full hour of pre-pointe last night at the barre. You might think that doing a whole class of relevés would be easier than normal, but you'd be wrong. In fact, I think my feet hurt more than they ever have. Apparently my teacher recently brought home a copy of the Pointe Book and now she's all excited about trying out the exercises it recommends. I can't imagine how the girls on pointe are feeling today, I was on demi-pointe and I feel like a train wreck!
* this word is usually pronounced "fye-ee" in ballet but "file" in most fabric situations. I bet in France they don't say it either way! In fact, I just looked it up! I was right! Check it.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
a horse is a horse, of course, of course
Pas de cheval: because if it's supposed to make you look like a horse then you KNOW it's gonna be all kinds of elegant and graceful.
Actually, pas de cheval is at least one of those steps that is easy to see how it got it's name. Yeah, okay, horses kinda do that. Have you ever seen prancing ponies? You know, show horses? They sort of do weird little steps like that. And all horses kind of paw the ground, right? Anyway. At least it's better than pas de chat which doesn't quite capture the "cat" feeling to me. Everyone I have demonstrated it to tells me it sorta maybe looks like when you startle a cat and it jumps straight up in the air like "WO! DUDE!" and then quickly goes back to pretending it owns the place.
On the subject, sometimes you find the funniest things when you google the names of ballet steps. For instance: this Yahoo! question and answer. What does pas de cheval mean, guys!? It means you ought to ask in context, because maybe you wanted to know about a song that your boyfriend played you or whatever but I'm guessing not. And if you went to ballet class the next day and told your teacher that it means "I have no horse" then I bet it was pretty amusing for everyone else in class.
Silly rabbit.
Actually, pas de cheval is at least one of those steps that is easy to see how it got it's name. Yeah, okay, horses kinda do that. Have you ever seen prancing ponies? You know, show horses? They sort of do weird little steps like that. And all horses kind of paw the ground, right? Anyway. At least it's better than pas de chat which doesn't quite capture the "cat" feeling to me. Everyone I have demonstrated it to tells me it sorta maybe looks like when you startle a cat and it jumps straight up in the air like "WO! DUDE!" and then quickly goes back to pretending it owns the place.
On the subject, sometimes you find the funniest things when you google the names of ballet steps. For instance: this Yahoo! question and answer. What does pas de cheval mean, guys!? It means you ought to ask in context, because maybe you wanted to know about a song that your boyfriend played you or whatever but I'm guessing not. And if you went to ballet class the next day and told your teacher that it means "I have no horse" then I bet it was pretty amusing for everyone else in class.
Silly rabbit.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Hey, guess who's competent?
That's right! Me! Tonight my teacher was all "hey, Rheumatic Princess, why didn't you sign up for the recital?" And I was like "dude I am shy" and she said aww, that was too bad because I was totally competent.
THAT'S RIGHT, I AM MOTHER F*CKING COMPETENT!
WOO!
In related news I have been able to go in for extra classes on a fairly regular basis lately and I am feeling a lot more confident in the "harder" class. In truth, due to the way the classes are set up to "graduate" students in to the more advanced classes as they reach a level of (dare I say it?) competence, I think that it is quite possible that they are just doing less advanced stuff now. But, anyway, I will TAKE IT. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, girl.
Anyway, we are still learning new and interesting stuff! It's always exciting when something new comes up. Tonight we were doing combinations of bourées with a graceful turn and some fancy swooshing port de bras, and it was darn near dancing, though obviously painfully slow. We hadn't done bourée before, and it's one of those things that the internet assures you will feel like flying across the stage someday when you are wearing slippery satin shoes. What it fails to mention is that OW that is some serious calf exercise. It was stupidly fun and exciting, though, and so I will probably be bourée-ing across my kitchen floor in fuzzy socks for the next few days.
ALSO, are you a person who likes to know where our silly dance terms come from? I am. So that is what the internet is for. And a bourrée, an actual bourée, is a French folk dance. Here are some people rockin' it. I am sure I have witnessed this at a rennaisance faire or something of the sort (yes, yes, I do that, too. It's all about making up excuses to wear pretty dresses) and it has very little to do with bourrée and pas de bourrée as we do them in ballet, but I guess it all had to come from somewhere, right?:
THAT'S RIGHT, I AM MOTHER F*CKING COMPETENT!
WOO!
In related news I have been able to go in for extra classes on a fairly regular basis lately and I am feeling a lot more confident in the "harder" class. In truth, due to the way the classes are set up to "graduate" students in to the more advanced classes as they reach a level of (dare I say it?) competence, I think that it is quite possible that they are just doing less advanced stuff now. But, anyway, I will TAKE IT. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, girl.
Anyway, we are still learning new and interesting stuff! It's always exciting when something new comes up. Tonight we were doing combinations of bourées with a graceful turn and some fancy swooshing port de bras, and it was darn near dancing, though obviously painfully slow. We hadn't done bourée before, and it's one of those things that the internet assures you will feel like flying across the stage someday when you are wearing slippery satin shoes. What it fails to mention is that OW that is some serious calf exercise. It was stupidly fun and exciting, though, and so I will probably be bourée-ing across my kitchen floor in fuzzy socks for the next few days.
ALSO, are you a person who likes to know where our silly dance terms come from? I am. So that is what the internet is for. And a bourrée, an actual bourée, is a French folk dance. Here are some people rockin' it. I am sure I have witnessed this at a rennaisance faire or something of the sort (yes, yes, I do that, too. It's all about making up excuses to wear pretty dresses) and it has very little to do with bourrée and pas de bourrée as we do them in ballet, but I guess it all had to come from somewhere, right?:
It looks fun! I might go so far as to say "hella" fun.
That's right, I just said "hella" like it ain't no thang!
Bam!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Awesome Neighbor is Awesome
You remember my foil ballerinas? A few of them ended up in arabesque, but let's be honest, I am not that creative so most of them were just doing pirouettes like the five year old in me thinks they should. Another bit of back story: I happen to live next to a person who is associated with a professional dance company.
Well, after Thanksgiving I finished putting up the decorations on the ugly faux ficus tree in the foyer and called it good. A few days ago my husband came home and handed me a few ballerinas that had fallen off the tree. I went back out there to reattach them and it looked like someone (perhaps someone's small and rambunctious dog), had smashed in to the tree, knocking it over and tossing most of the decorations off-kilter. It was standing again, but the garland was a little askew, and a few ballerinas were just hangin' on by whatever the ballet equivalent of a wing and a prayer is. As I was putting things to rights I found this:
Well, after Thanksgiving I finished putting up the decorations on the ugly faux ficus tree in the foyer and called it good. A few days ago my husband came home and handed me a few ballerinas that had fallen off the tree. I went back out there to reattach them and it looked like someone (perhaps someone's small and rambunctious dog), had smashed in to the tree, knocking it over and tossing most of the decorations off-kilter. It was standing again, but the garland was a little askew, and a few ballerinas were just hangin' on by whatever the ballet equivalent of a wing and a prayer is. As I was putting things to rights I found this:
GRAND JETÉ! That is just showing off! LOVE. IT.
By the way I finally figured out how to make accented Es on a PC without cutting and pasting:
Hold down the alt key while inputting this code:
0201 = É
0233 = é
0232 = è
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