The ballet community has really excelled itself through this crisis. There have been so many really sensible posts and the community has been so uplifting, which is something that most of us crave at the moment. We are used to being upbeat people with bodies that love movement and the freedom that it working (or trying to), in harmony with music and our ballet friends, it makes the soul sore. Immunologists and virologists are about the people that could have foreseen the situation that we are now in. How quickly we have moved from people that enjoy experiences around our cities to staying at home and making those experiences online to try and protect ourselves and our public services. The ballet community demonstrated great resilience as the virus took hold and were swift to see the potential of providing for those stuck at home, who might suffer from isolation or find it difficult to get outside at all. We praise those that are still having to leave the relative safety of their own homes to care for us and to make sure that we have necessities such as food etc. but having something to lift our spirits or just get the blood pumping around the body is necessary to alleviate at least some of the worst aspects of isolation and fear. Many of us participate in a community-based exercise as we can see the value in not only moving our body and the multifarious health benefits but sharing our triumphs and pains and our knowledge of what we have experienced, with a group of like-minded people. This community has leapt into action, at a time when many feel helpless, as key workers pick themselves up, again and again, we look to what we can do? I cannot imagine what professional dancers are going through as they need to be of supreme fitness and their bodies are driven to their peak. Although this situation is new for most, though understand there are many in society who cannot do the things that we do and enjoy freedoms that we, at most times, take for granted. I hope that I do not ever take for granted, again, these freedoms to enjoy and take part in something that gives me a quickening of the pulse and a gut-wrenching opening of senses to beauty and emotion. We will inevitably go through waves of emotion, though what most dancers will have on their side, will be those times when they have had enforced rest due to injury and they will have to go back to that place of resilience, whilst likely having a body that doesn’t really know what is going on but I hope that they do enjoy this time of peace and rest that they do not get much of when you’re trying to fit a forty year career into twenty.
I mentioned to a friend that I was more likely to die of exhaustion from trying to go outside for my allotted daily exercise walk and all the ballet classes whilst keeping the house clean enough to perform surgery and get up to speed, and in quick haste, get to grips with home working! Online classes have helped me keep some sort of the social aspect to ballet by seeing many different dancers and teachers and seeing how they do their ballet and picking up on tips and discussing it and sharing our experiences through Whatsapp. An unexpected pleasure has been that one of my favourite teachers, moved out of Belfast so that I couldn’t manage to continue with classes but because he has now moved online, I can, just need to find a time to fit them in and my trusty partner, the ironing board! I joked with a ballet friend the other day that I had found my new calling, online ballet class tester! I have been working from home, knees crushed up at a make-shift desk, computer propped up by books but I am very thankful to have a job that offers the opportunity to work from home. But working in cramped, makeshift conditions with little contact outside of my family, online ballet classes have been so valuable. With theatres being closed and dancers having much less to do than normal, apart from their own fitness in readiness to come back to the stage, whenever it is safe to do so, so they have turned to their audiences and supporters to make sure that we are connected and as fit as possible. There is very much temptation to sit on the sofa and open our cupboards up, without much regard to what this might do to our health, long term, so online classes and getting off our bums, is vitally important and all the arguments about why we dance in the first place, are even more important and consistent, in these times. When the lockdown started, the tension was immense and most of the population did not know how to deal with this situation, so I think in the early days, I had to get rid of a lot of energy, normally used up with running for buses and up and down flights of stairs at work and was trying to do nearly every class on offer. Though now that we are more savvy, we realise that we cannot do everything, we cannot learn new languages and instruments and write our novels whilst working and caring for family and friends and do every ballet class, so like normal times, the advice is to go easy on yourselves, you cannot physically do them all. My other tip, if at all possible, if teaching ballet is a person’s primary means of income, please set up some way to pay them for it, even if you pay less than you normally would pay as it is your front room or kitchen, after all. I also discovered by chance the other day that an ironing board makes quite an effective ballet barre and then when you have it out, you could tell bored children that it is a home-schooling exercise and that you will teach them the miraculous knowledge that heat over their favourite pair of jeans will leave them lovely and smooth!
There are a mix of delivery for classes, some are purely on Instagram which has a one-hour window for live broadcast and holds the broadcast for a further hour. I find this approach slightly more problematic as you have to watch on your phone. However, beggars can hardly be choosers and will take all that this adult ballet dancer can get. I don’t know what the reasoning is for using the various social media platforms, I suppose it is what the teacher is used to and has access to without having to set up other accounts and it allows for live and direct access. There is nothing like having direct and live access to some of the best dancers in the world such as Tamara Rojo @rojotamara, Olivia Cowley @olivia.cowley, Tiler Peck @tilerpeck, Yasmine Naghdi @yasmine_naghdi amongst many, many others. Most dancers seem to hang out and share information on Instagram and it is really easy to follow them and pick up on what they are doing. Also, as Instagram videos remain for a short time, they work for this current period of readjustment but don’t necessarily want to have free content out there on the internet that might hinder their ability to get dancers into their studios and are made for a very specific set of circumstances.
At Everybody Ballet @everybodyballet, you can do a ballet class each week with Royal Ballet’s Principal Character Artist, Bennett Gartside @benngartside. Bennett’s classes are designed for the adult dancer and are good to follow along to if you have a bit of ballet knowledge or none at all. He talks you through each exercise and will give tips as he goes along. These classes normally take place every Wednesday at 1pm, follow along on ‘Everbody Ballet’ on Instagram. I also have a running list in my head of my favourite ballet dancer’s kitchens. Benn’s kitchen gets very hot as he tells us, I also find it very rare that I ever sweat at home, usually have to put on lots of layers, until I started taking ballet classes in my front room! Tamara also has a lovely kitchen, very large, very tidy. Tamara Rojo, Artistic Director of English National Ballet, probably hadn’t intended to do daily public ballet barre but just as social isolation was kicking off, she took daily class on Youtube with a few dancers, well spread out and now has transferred daily class to her kitchen. Classes take place live at 11am GMT each day and then are available on Youtube for catch-up afterwards. It is not often that you get to share class with someone of her stature, a Principal of the Royal Ballet for many years, currently leading English National Ballet to a position of eminence that it has not enjoyed for some time. Sometimes you just have to enjoy and admire the dancer, for themselves, it is not the same as seeing a performance on stage but hopefully it will deepen our appreciation of the work and how fabulous the dancer’s body is, the flexibility and the strength. One of the things that I miss, apart from the space and freedom of the dance studio, but the back and forth that you have with other ballet dancers and the exchange in a common interest and corrections from teachers. Though, some dancers have made the connection that being in lockdown is like what they go through when injured, though being (hopefully), well and fit. The bonus with following dancers, they have developed a psychology, designed for this through challenging times such as injury, so can help us to get through this lay-off. There are dancer teachers that are particularly strong at this aspect of self-care. I have been enjoying, ‘Lazy Dancer Tips’ for a number of years now as Alessia was one of the pioneers of online ballet class, teaching from a small space, using a chair as a barre. Be warned, though, if you go to ‘Lazy Dancer Tips’, expecting a gentle class or anything that looks like an easy shortcut to becoming a ballet dancer, you will soon be disabused of this as Alessia whips through a class or whatever exercise you choose, there are many to choose from, you will collapse onto your sofa afterwards.
The other notables and pioneers of the online ballet classes Claudia Dean @claudiadeanworld and Kathryn Morgan @kathryn_morgan. I have been using their online content for some years and are really part of learning about my entire body and its relationship to ballet. Both ladies have been doing this for quite some time that they are very comfortable in front of the camera and leading classes in this way. Their approaches are quite different though, Claudia’s focus is the pre-professional or young dancer, though her videos are still accessible to anyone as her tips and areas to work on are clear. How very young and fabulous her students are, though, frightens me. I take out of Claudia’s what I can but don’t beat myself up if I do not have my Thera-band out every day so that my extensions can reach the sky but her little adjustments or hidden muscles like the VMOs or Lats or doing the flamingo, work really well. Kathryn Morgan’s videos are very holistic. Most people will probably know Kathryn’s story of having to give up her ballet career with New York City Ballet with health issues and then recently and unexpectedly, managed to work ferociously hard to get herself back into a major company. Kathryn will also show you around her life and help with issues such as body-image, it really is worthwhile checking out her videos on these issues. Alessia of ‘Lazy Dancer’ fame @lazydancertips, is also very good on the psychology of dance, her messages on Instagram at the moment are positive but not silly or full of fluff. While we are at ballet accounts that create positivity, even in the midst of difficulties, Cloud and Victory @cloudandvictory always deserve a special mention. Min is just the best and is like another emergency service, at this time, to lift our spirits with fun and puppies, she is also trying to keep track of all the online classes and update us and I think her new task will be to track Roberto’s facial hair, make a difference from his abs, though I suspect they will always receive special attention. If you want to give your spirits an uplift, I also suggest that you follow Steven McRae @stevenmcrae_, the McRaes will keep us all entertained through this thing, I have taken to calling it, ‘At home with the McRaes’.
Throughout most of this, New York City’ Principal Dancer, Tiler Peck, was one of the first to put her skills to good use and do a class in her kitchen and has kept going every day. I have yet to sample one of her classes because of the time difference, I think it might be in the middle of the working day, in the UK. Isabella Boylston @isabellaboylston has also been a great presence on Social Media, she offers Repertory videos on YouTube which I am fully intending to check out, when I get a few free moments as most dancers I know, just love doing repertory. On Friday evening, she did a great interview with Francesca Hayward @frankiegoestohayward who is in lockdown with her flat-mate, Cesar Corrales @cesarcorralles925 and they have access to a Yoga Studio in their building, so that is handy. A young dancer who has grown up with Social Media and is very easy with the medium is Maria Khoreva @marachok and offers free and interesting content all the time and is now also offering free classes. Even Xander Parrish @_xander was finding it tough going, following one of her strengthening videos, so beware! Then the ballet clothing and equipment companies, Bloch EU, Move Dancewear have dancers such as Claire Calvert and Alexander Campbell, together in their home and Bethany Kingsley-Garner of the Scottish Ballet, on their feeds. Olivia Cowley did a lovely class, whilst of course, six months pregnant and showed off her beautiful feet and turnout, Francesca Hayward has done pointe classes. Talking of sheer beauty, I would never have thought to watch Andrey Klemm, Bolshoi-trained dancer, with Paris Opera Ballet Etoile, Ammandine Albisson but it offered this in an article that I read. I’m not sure how easy it is to follow along but if you want to know why ballet is the beautiful art-form and the reason why it was invented in Paris, watch Ammandine dance, oh to be that good. Maybe I will even get up and try it.
Ernst Meisner is used to teaching dancers at Dutch National Ballet, Junior School and I find his classes very helpful and at a level that is generally easy enough to follow along, though he does one side only and as my memory banks are a little fuller than a Junior Company dancer, I find myself having to rewind, so that I can follow him for both sides. The highlight of this offering is the live pianist, Rex Lobo, it is a fantastic accompaniment, making this one of my favourite online offerings as it is easy to follow along to and do in the small spaces that a lot of us are confined to. The Youth American Grand Prix are offering teaching from the likes of the Director of the Princesse Grace Academie, so you can pretend that you are of a standard to win the Prix de Lausanne!
The best news I have had though, is that my Belfast teachers have started to offer online classes via Zoom and YouTube. We had a laugh yesterday about the potential security issues of Zoom and random people turning up, sure, it is a ballet class, they might learn something about how tough it is. It can be tough for ballet teachers where teaching is their primary means of income and have no secure income stream from a second job, especially when your ballet company is new as with The Company, Belfast, which has been up and running for less than a year. The Company, Belfast, is owned by Neil Towers and I was so disappointed when I could no longer take classes with him, due to distance and time clash. Neil works a lot on technique, which I definitely need and teaches all ages, from very small children, through to those in their 40s and 50s and has infinite amounts of patience, definitely required. So I took a break from my home office and the ironing board came out, though I have to admit, I turned my camera and sound off, maybe if I feel more confident, I will leave the camera on next week as the teacher can look and offer advice and tips and help on the exercises. Though, I am still getting a lot of the exercises wrong and not fully concentrating during the explanation, so I need to work on that aspect as well. It is a different way or working and there is a difference between the online exercise video and an online class, it is easy to get lost and you can’t rewind or might, later, if the teacher posts on a media that you can keep. One of the lessons I am learning, is to be prepared in advance, have your water bottle near by and anything else that you might need. It is definitely a very new experience to be profusely sweating in my own home, I am usually layering up with warm clothing. It is good to have the blood pumping. We have to be very careful in these times, keep hands and carriers of germs and viruses away from your airways but getting the blood pumping round your body is completely essential if we are going to come out of this and into a happier, healthier and ironically, more connected communities.
Our Second Chance Ballet Director @secondchanceballetbelfast, CheeShong Soon is offering two Zoom classes a week, Wednesday and Friday nights, so that is my ballet furlough sorted out and can evenly space my classes, through the week and work on technique, in between if I am not watching the professionals. Another blessing of this situation, is that many who had moved to different places, have reconnected with Second Chance Ballet through these online classes, so this is now ballet class without walls or geography, we have had someone from another part of the UK, France, Greece and the US. There is only so much cleaning that one person can stick and might not be going too far for a while, except around the immediate neighbourhood. I know that some are using this time as an excuse to become even less healthy and are sitting on their sofas even more, without the punctuation of getting up to get to work and this could be an even worse disaster waiting for us. Some scientists, in their research, have found that a sedentary life is about as bad as cigarette smoking. I was just exchanging messages with Scottish Ballet Principal, Andrew Peasgood @andrewpeasgood on how positive the ballet community has been, the whole way through this difficult time, as he posted some gorgeous pictures of flowers in the park. The world that we know has been shaken and there will still be a lot of difficulties to go through and to learn the true tragedies of this time, but as the ballet community has always done and many, many other communities affected by the frailties of humanity, we find that togetherness and looking after each other is paramount and there will be real heroes borne out of this time. At least two of our dancers are working in the NHS and one was only meant to be in this country for medical study and that is only a small example of the selfless acts of this time. The rest of us might feel at times, a sense of purposelessness but the power of encouragement and just to let people know that you are thinking of them, can be a real boost. So, the ballet community continue being fabulous, uplifting people’s spirits with their grace and beauty and isn’t it just great to see a sense of humour also, witness Beatrix Stix-Brunell @bstix_brunell on Instagram, I’m sure her family love it really! or Ivan Vasiliev and Maria Vinogradova, re-enacting classic ballet around their home. Small spaces have become our studios and classes are helping us survive, not just for this time but hopefully for a happier, healthier future. Though, when you are having some down-time, there is also loads of ballet to watch, nearly every major ballet company is releasing full-length ballet via their various channels. Most of the online content can be found by following companies and dancers on Instagram. Follow your favourite dancers and companies on Instagram for daily updates and understand that we have little control over the situation that the world is facing at the moment, so take as many positives out of it as possible, we hope that when we are able to congregate together again and receive contact from a range of people, we will have had time to think about our contacts with the world and maybe will be changed for the better? Great advice that I read today, is please don’t think that you have to try and totally transform yourself during this period and as well as enjoying the access to free ballet classes and performances from across the world, please do not think that you have to do every class, maybe particularly work on something that you need to work on or stick with a teacher that you know suits you and has proven results in the past. There will be time in the future when, as humanity we can mourn for those that have sacrificed for the many and then we will dance for them and use the emotional memories to create art and artistry for the coming generations to understand our times.
Hold the presses, just discoverd a Maria Khoreva Youtube tutorial where she is teaching different variations. The one I saw was the Pas de Trois from Swan Lake, taking us through it in English and Russian, simultaneously. What an extraordinary young lady. And The Ballet Twins, Ballet At Home has just popped up and it was a lovely class without jumps, though, don’t worry, they are twins who look very much like each other, you do not have problems with your vision. I must end this before I see any more. I’m off now for class (note picture above of where and how ballet class is currently taking place), and an English National Ballet ‘Watch Party’ for a viewing of ‘Lest We Forget’, a poignant reminder of the things that we should be thankful for. In the UK, a hero of this time has been a gentleman who as part of his rehabilitation for a hip replacement, decided to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday and raise money for the National Health Service for which we are all so thankful and also all the other heroes who perhaps don’t always get the credit.
friendsofballetni 