5. In order to move quickly through space and change positions of the feet rapidly during an exercise, you will need to carry your weight forward over the balls of the feet. This is extremely unnatural and there is no way of getting around it! Those of us with a slouch, sway-back legs, or a sway back, will find this difficult. Begin, then, back at point 2 – gently arrange the bones of your torso into a more healthy alignment and then bringing your weight forward over the balls of the feet becomes easier.

Most of all, enjoy your class. Ballet can be a bit like cod liver oil, to some, but with a little persistence, it is not hard to nose out some truffles that you can truly enjoy during your class!

Technique Tips for Contemporary

While ballet aims always for lightness, ease and grace, contemporary dance is a style where we are both allowed and encouraged to feel heavy and weighty. Many classes do have moments where classical lines or dynamics are mingled with contemporary dance exercises, but here I’ll focus on those more purely contemporary concepts.

1. Because of the heaviness and weightiness used in many contemporary styles, it is essential to feel ‘connected’ with the floor. Rather than spending the class ‘lifting’ and ‘pulling up’, become familiar with the floor as much as you can – get used to and happy with walking, kneeling, curling up, rolling, stretching, falling, playing, and relating to the floor in as many different ways as you can!

2. There is a connection between posture and the relationship with the floor. Work on feeling comfortable, relaxed and at ease while standing tall with your feet spread wide and relaxed on the floor. Keeping your feet wide and your body relaxed throughout the class enables a greater awareness of the floor and means you can move quickly and safely through space once the floor is your friend; then you need not be afraid of falling or losing your balance and can move with more risk and dynamic.

3. In contemporary, posture is not so much about ‘lifting’ the right muscles; it is a question of aligning the bones in a healthy way so that they support each other. So try working with the image of ‘stacking’ your body from the floor upward, which goes, in brief, like this:

FEET: Placed directly underneath your hipbones with the second toe pointing directly forwards, your feet should spread wide and relaxed on the floor. (Use a mirror. Left to guess, most of us place our feet too wide.)
LEGS: Suspend your knees above and towards the front of the ankles, with the kneecaps tracking forward along the line set by your second toe on each foot. Relax your leg muscles.
PELVIS: Keep the tailbone heavy and pointing downwards; ensure the bottom muscles (glutes) are soft, but - keep a small amount of tone in the belly to stabilise your body.
TORSO: Feel the spine lightly rising up from the bowl-like pelvic bone with the ribcage hanging easily like a birdcage surrounding the spine. Keep the ribs quiet; avoid the error of holding the belly in so tightly that the ribs poke out in reaction.
NECK: Feel the neck rising in an easy natural line; drop the chin a little and feel how doing so releases tension from the back of the neck.
ARMS: Relax the arms and let the fingers hang easily from the wrist.

4. It is really worthwhile making those 6 points into a short mental checklist you can memorise and call upon. It can be added to or edited to suit your own physical structure as long as you adhere to the basic principles of correct alignment.

I call my list “my body’s maintenance men”; the little minute instructions sent running to different parts of the body continually at various times throughout dance class or everyday life. Their job is to adjust and correct small points of alignment that need monitoring; most often with the command, “Relax!” - now doesn’t that sound like the sort of command you want to obey?

Nicola Baartse
BADance, DipDanceTech&Choreog, CertIVA&WT
Dance Lecturer, Wesley Institute
Creative from an early age, Nicola Baartse chose the path of dance and followed it to Adelaide University and then London...
Choreography drew her to form her own dance company, Mercury Dance Theatre, which performed her work in London arts events.
Back in Australia, she has taught, performed and choreographed in a variety of contexts, most recently lecturing at Wesley Institute's BA Dance programme. She now desires to create works of beauty which delight the heart of God, and leave people with a sense of awe and wonder and nagging questions; a suspicion that they may have touched something they weren't aware of before.