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Final Ballet Class of the Year. Going to miss dancing, but looking forward to sleeping in.

Posted by Candice on December 7, 2009 at 11:18 pm

The daily posts don’t have to be Christmas themed do they?

Today was my last ballet class of the year. It’s been a good year and in some ways I feel like I’ve progressed a lot, but in others I feel like I am getting a little too old to be doing this! I’m starting to really understand some of the subtleties of ballet movement yet my body is having a hard time reflecting them all. I chaulk some of this up to getting older, some of it to being mentally and physically unprepared for class at 8:30 in the morning and some of it up to how I’m constantly undoing all the physical progress I make by slumping over at my school work and cooking for hours of the day. However, building on some of the things I learned last year, I’m also learning not to make excuses for my dancing. It’s quite freeing.

Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. This post is about one of the things that helps you get through ballet class before sane people are out of bed - the live musicians. My experience with the musicians here at York has been incredible. There are only a handful (maybe 3) piano players and so you get to know them throughout the year. They each have their own style but they all improvise and keep the class exciting by incorporating tunes of popular songs, classical repertoire, and their own creations.

I am amazed at how talented they must be to work in the ballet class environment and how much they really do contribute to the class. They are able to pick up tempos and time signatures just from the teacher’s brief demonstration of the exercise and they know how to phrase and structure the music to get the most out of the dancers. When things are looking “heavy” in a jump they might change from a waltz to a mazurka and suddenly everyone is able to hover! A whole new type of communication happens. They musican “says” a lot to the dancers without ever talking.

I know not all ballet class musicians are like this and that I am spoiled here! However, I’m enjoying it while I can and have learned so much about the music/dance connection in this past year and a half.

Oh, and to incorporate the holiday theme. Our musician this morning was in quite a good mood and finally indulged us in some Christmas songs during barre. Fondu to a jazzy rendition of Silver Bells made my extensions the best they had been all semester! He also played the last few bars of We Wish You a Merry Christmas for reverence (bow at the end of class) which made it seem like he was telling all of us dancers “I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” before we left the room!

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