A christmas ballet class #01: Warm-up – Oh come all ye faithful
As it’s christmas, I’m handing out carols for class, one a day, until Christmas day. Free for you to use in class, but don’t go selling them on street corners…
Liveness, Hawaiian arm exercises, and a bit of sensory history
Scrolling through The Art of Dancing (1919) on Forgotten Books, I came across a quaint-sounding exercise, Basic Hawaiian Arm and Italian Body Exercises Combined To Promote Arm and Body Grace.…
Yet another source for the Nutcracker party scene tune
It’s become something of a hobby, finding sources for the tunes in Tchaikovsky’s score for The Nutcracker. I thought I’d had all the surprises there were to be had when…
“Britain’s greatest living composer”
Sir John Tavener, according to Ian Youngs in an article on the BBC website, is regarded as ‘one of Britain’s greatest living composers’. I mean no disrespect to Sir John…
Hurray for Len Goodman’s “Dancing Feet”
I only ended up watching Len Goodman’s Dancing Feet because I’d been stood up, so instead of seeing Life of Pi in 3D in what would have been my first…
Playing for ballet class tips #25: respect the ritual
Class has a ritual, liturgical quality to it, particularly in a company. It is daily, it happens at a particular time, with such religious regard for punctuality that a teacher…