Kirov Academy of DC demonstrates Vaganova The Lilac Fairy’s soft command with her sweeping hands, for example, is very different from the Finger Fairy’s sharply pointed index fingers and clenched fists or the Songbird Fairy’s fluttering, energized fingers.īallet Chicago trains in the Balanchine method Branitski suggests the fairy variations from The Sleeping Beauty prologue. Learning variations is a great way to help students understand how integral the hands and fingers are in expressing storyline and emotion. “The arms, including fingers and wrists, are the language of ballet,” says Lirena Branitski, school principal of Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Dance Institute. Lift the arms halfway and then turn the palms to face forward. Have dancers imagine that their arms are wings. “While the arm needs to be held, the hand shouldn’t take that same energy,” he says. “That’s when you end up with a broken line between arm and hand.” These students need to think of their wrists and hands as separate from the rest of their port de bras. The Solution: “It’s common to have excess tension in the wrist,” explains Duell. The Problem: Hands flop and break at the wrist, creating short, disjointed lines. It should happen with the arms and hands, too,” she says.
“You control your feet and point your toes to make nice lines. This position will relax naturally over time, so the thumb is not against the palm. Branitski has younger levels gently touch the thumb to the third finger. “The hand position is not tight, and the fingers should continue the line of the wrist,” she says. The Solution: Lirena Branitski, school principal of Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Dance Institute who teaches the Vaganova method, encourages students to feel life in their hands. The Problem: Limp hands dangle from the wrist with fingers that have little energy or shape. Duell stresses the importance of having students practice basic révérence port de bras in front of a mirror, which Balanchine made him do 100 times a day for a month. George Balanchine compared the hands to flowers: The petals are part of a whole, yet each one is visible. “Each finger has its own level, so the hand is beautiful and proportionate,” he says. Daniel Duell, artistic director of Ballet Chicago, says the hand should continue the curve of the arm. The Solution: Claw hands tend to reflect tension and struggle. The Problem: Hands are tense, with fingers splayed. “It gives their hands shape and changes the quality of their port de bras,” he says. This keeps them aware of the issue at all times. To bring attention to the problem, he makes students hold ballpoint pens in class. “Sometimes young students are only focused on what’s happening from the waist down,” he says. The Solution: Conover says mitten hands stem from a lack of awareness. The Problem: Fingers are straight and stuck together, with little or no curve from the wrist to the palm. Below, three ballet experts identify common hand position problems and ways to remedy them. It’s about muscle memory,” says Warren Conover, assistant dean at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. “The teacher has to physically have their hands on the students’ arms and wrists, so they feel the right shape.
Training dancers to finish their lines demands constant attention. They signal tension, lack of energy or poor attention to detail. But bad hands in ballet are like red warning flags. Hands are an expressive part of the body that help a dancer convey emotion and complete breathtaking lines. Instead of having long arms from shoulders to fingertips, giant claws break her line and distract from her strong dancing. She has a natural presence and can jump and turn, but something prevents her from looking polished-her hands.
You have a student with nice facility and solid technique. Just to Hear You (feat.Boston Ballet in variations from “The Sleeping Beauty” prologue Where previous Hand Habits records could be fairly insular affairs, Fun House feels ebullient, lush, a fully-realized conversation.ģ. The push/pull of styles, paired with songs that move deftly between the present and past, give the record a wildly diverse, hall of mirrors quality that befits its name. Emboldened by going into therapy and coaxed by Ashworth to push the songs into unexpected new shapes, the resulting music is more acutely personal and stylistically adventurous than anything you’ve heard from Hand Habits before. Hand Habits, the project of Los Angeles-based musician Meg Duffy (they/them), is back with their new album Fun House - the most ambitious Hand Habits album to date. Produced by Sasami Ashworth (SASAMI) and engineered by Kyle Thomas (King Tuff), the record was not intended as a reaction to the pandemic, but it was very much the result of taking a difficult, if much-needed, moment of pause. Limited Edition of 400 (Limit 2 per customer)