BALLET WITH WENDY WHELAN

The singular and legendary Wendy Whelan teaches for Dancio! This intermediate ballet class thinks through the architecture of the technique, humor in corrections, and the joy of moving.

Music: Kai Ono

Dancers: Kurtis Grinaldi and Jenny Ku

Category: Ballet

BALLET WITH CRAIG HALL

Craig Hall's class is short and sweet — it’s packed with fantastic exercises and insights. Throughout, Craig’s focus is musicality, which he connects to ideas of physical rubato (momentarily withheld action) and the refinement of an action’s quality. For example, he cautions that the working leg in rond de jambe should not strike out “like a karate kick” but advance as if to tap a balloon. The combination of continuous rhythmic variety and easily visualized kinesthetic analogies gives the class a streaming poetry, reinforced by the musical wit of pianist Robert Boston.

Music: Robert Boston

Dancers: Rachel Hutsell and Aaron Sanz

BALLET WITH LAUREN KING

Lauren King — former soloist at the New York City Ballet — gives a brilliantly structured and mentally challenging class that will spark both your muscles and your mind.

From the first plié exercise at barre to the final sequence of glissade-assemblé-soubresaut (in place of a traditional révérence), combinations are intricately choreographed. They build in rhythmic syncopation, anatomize an action (such as pirouette), ring changes on a basic step, and continually ask the dancer to change weight from leg to leg. King lets no grass grow under anyone's feet. Though she demonstrates nearly everything fully (and beautifully), she hurtles through explanations of how each combo should go.

Music: Robert Boston

Dancers: Beth Miller and Shoshana Rosenfield

BALLET WITH ASHLEY BOUDER

Ashley is a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet who offers a ballet class designed for advanced dancers to both challenge and hone their technique. 

Music: Kai Ono

Dancers: Laine Habory and Roma Mejia

Category: Ballet

BARRE WITH MEGAN LECRONE

This barre is for the advanced dancer or any dancer that wants a full body challenge. It is a warm-up for the day, before a rehearsal, or in preparation for a performance. Taught at a fast pace, it focuses on the articulation and presentation of the legs and feet while keeping the upper body lifted and calm and the core stable.

By approaching the barre with an entire body awareness and a particularly responsive plié to the changes in the pianist’s tempo and rhythm, musicality becomes another important focus in this class.

Megan directly notes some additional thoughts for those taking this class:

“The dancer should use the Épaulment, finding beautiful positions for the neck, cheekbones, and the face in relation to collarbones, back, and the arms (and of course the rest of the body).

You should try to display all the fingers as the individual members they are without creating a floppy aesthetic... this is quite a challenge... And of course, remember to keep the elbows lifted, the arms in front of your torso, and the greatest elongation of the legs, even as you fight for speed and try to remain secure in balances. 

Everything originates from a very crossed fifth, so keeping the inner things and the rotation of the legs engaged is absolutely necessary. 

By the end of the barre the dancer should be aware of their placement, both sides of their body, and feel “on their leg”, so to speak. 

Approach the class with a strong technical purpose. But don’t forget the lyrical and beautiful feeling of dancing to the music from the beginning to the end.

And remember, you are preparing your body to be on display for an audience (if you are a professional dancer) so the way you work should show that you have taken into account presenting yourself in the most strong and beautiful way possible!”

Music: Miro Migliore

Category: Ballet

REVISIT MODULE 1 HERE