Hello everyone! I accidentally titled my previous blog post the title of this one, sorry if there was any confusion! So, for my final blog post I am sad to say that you will no longer see my wonderful turns on here on a weekly basis. I have loved this project so much and I am sad that it is coming to an end. If I had more time in class to do whatever I wanted, there would be so many more topics I would like to explore. Some of these topics include, guitar, songwriting, nail designing, sketching, hair styling, and many more. It's possible that I will be tackling one of these topics this summer while I have tons of free time. As for my fouette turns, I am pleased to say that I am now able to do different variations of the turn. I have rehearsed in the studio yesterday and the day before and the maximum number of turns I have reached is 10! Which is way past my original goal of four. I have also done the turns with a variation of landings such as a barrel turn (shown in the video) and a pitch, which is extending your leg straight up in the air behind you.
http://youtu.be/mmAJZFFjsfg
To steal a phrase from a fellow blogger Evan Kuo... excuse the sexiness of this video, it gets really hot in our studio
As for the future of these turns, they are commonly used in dance routines that compete at dance competitions, as I may have mentioned before. One of the futures to consider as a dancer is to join a dance team in college. These programs can be very time consuming and challenging to get into, but it's definitely something I have been considering. Just to get an idea of the level of turning excellence these teams have, you can take a look at this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U8D61bQ_OI
Every single girl who is turning in this video is facing the exact same direction at the exact same time, and these are some of the top dance teams in the country. I can only dream of being able to do fouettes this perfectly.
Next season, when new dances are choreographed for jazz and lyrical styles, I could possibly be choreographed into the sections of the dance that include the turns. This means I will be on stage for more of the dance, and I will be able to use these turns to my advantage to score higher on dances. Judges love fouettes!
So glad I got a chance to learn this cool dance turn and I hope that my turns continue from here! Thanks for reading!
-Avery
Blogs I've commented on:
Evan Kuo
Lizzy Cutler
Margo Kaplan
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Final Blog Post #5
Hello everyone!!!
I am so glad that we got to do this project this marking period because it has been one of the most personally rewarding projects of all! I got the chance to improve my dancing skill and just be able to document it and watch my progress this whole time. I love all the support I've gotten from classmates and I also have loved watching everyone else's genius hour projects unfold in the last month. I am proud to say that I did accomplish my goal last weekend and it felt so good to reach it. My personal goal was four fouettes with a double pirouette landing. Here is a video of one of my successful trials. (This is also the video that was supposed to be in my presentation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVSIDbRMezE&feature=youtu.be
I reached my final goal after a long day in the studio. I think the determination I had that helped me reach it came from the deadline of this project. Having a deadline to reach a goal pushes me a little bit harder and makes me work harder to reach it. Wihtout this project I never would have made time to learn this turn or pushed as hard as I did to reach the goal, and that's why I'm so happy we did it. This past weekend I just had a dance competition called Turn it Up dance challenge at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott. I had so much fun watching other girls dance and seeing this turn performed in so many of the dances. Fouettes are a popular dance skill at competitions and I would say are performed in about 3 out of every 5 dances. Watching from the audience, I could see what the person did well if they looked good or not so well if they needed work. I learned a few things from talking to some girls at this competition and I think my turns can improve some more after watching and learning from these dancers.
After doing some research in this past week, I found an article that I loved!
http://www.dancespirit.com/2008/11/improve_your_fouettes/
This gave me some extra tips to think about when doing fouette turns. Now that I have the basic movement down, I can go into the technical stuff so the turns can look extra clean. If I use these tips I probably won't be as wobbly and I will do the turns more smoothly. I like the tip they gave on squeezing the shoulder blades and keeping them down, because this improves the look of the turns as well as the quality of them. And they also talked about what to do if you aren't hitting the turns. They said just to walk away and come back to the studio another day with an open mind. I could totally relate to this feeling because sometimes I would go into the studio to work on the turns and they would be horrendous and I would get very frustrated and this just made them worse. But, if I stopped and went back another day with a fresh start, I could do the turn much better. After reading this article, I was glad that I wasn't the only one who had this problem.
One of my favorite parts about this project was being able to do the turn with someone else! I think this was an extra step I took to try to gain more skill. Doing the turn with another person is so much more difficult because you have to be facing the same direction at the same time, for the whole turn. Your timing and counts have to be spot on. Luckily, my dear friend Kat, who you all know, was willing to do this with me. After a long time of working together to get in sync, we did a fouette sequence together. I was so happy with being able to do this because this means, I am eligible to do this choreography in group dances, because I can hit the turns on time with other dancers. Here's a video of Kat and me, doing our turns.
http://youtu.be/UU1sd6CG9iE
Thanks for reading!!! Good luck with presentations everyone!
I am so glad that we got to do this project this marking period because it has been one of the most personally rewarding projects of all! I got the chance to improve my dancing skill and just be able to document it and watch my progress this whole time. I love all the support I've gotten from classmates and I also have loved watching everyone else's genius hour projects unfold in the last month. I am proud to say that I did accomplish my goal last weekend and it felt so good to reach it. My personal goal was four fouettes with a double pirouette landing. Here is a video of one of my successful trials. (This is also the video that was supposed to be in my presentation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVSIDbRMezE&feature=youtu.be
I reached my final goal after a long day in the studio. I think the determination I had that helped me reach it came from the deadline of this project. Having a deadline to reach a goal pushes me a little bit harder and makes me work harder to reach it. Wihtout this project I never would have made time to learn this turn or pushed as hard as I did to reach the goal, and that's why I'm so happy we did it. This past weekend I just had a dance competition called Turn it Up dance challenge at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott. I had so much fun watching other girls dance and seeing this turn performed in so many of the dances. Fouettes are a popular dance skill at competitions and I would say are performed in about 3 out of every 5 dances. Watching from the audience, I could see what the person did well if they looked good or not so well if they needed work. I learned a few things from talking to some girls at this competition and I think my turns can improve some more after watching and learning from these dancers.
After doing some research in this past week, I found an article that I loved!
http://www.dancespirit.com/2008/11/improve_your_fouettes/
This gave me some extra tips to think about when doing fouette turns. Now that I have the basic movement down, I can go into the technical stuff so the turns can look extra clean. If I use these tips I probably won't be as wobbly and I will do the turns more smoothly. I like the tip they gave on squeezing the shoulder blades and keeping them down, because this improves the look of the turns as well as the quality of them. And they also talked about what to do if you aren't hitting the turns. They said just to walk away and come back to the studio another day with an open mind. I could totally relate to this feeling because sometimes I would go into the studio to work on the turns and they would be horrendous and I would get very frustrated and this just made them worse. But, if I stopped and went back another day with a fresh start, I could do the turn much better. After reading this article, I was glad that I wasn't the only one who had this problem.
One of my favorite parts about this project was being able to do the turn with someone else! I think this was an extra step I took to try to gain more skill. Doing the turn with another person is so much more difficult because you have to be facing the same direction at the same time, for the whole turn. Your timing and counts have to be spot on. Luckily, my dear friend Kat, who you all know, was willing to do this with me. After a long time of working together to get in sync, we did a fouette sequence together. I was so happy with being able to do this because this means, I am eligible to do this choreography in group dances, because I can hit the turns on time with other dancers. Here's a video of Kat and me, doing our turns.
http://youtu.be/UU1sd6CG9iE
Thanks for reading!!! Good luck with presentations everyone!
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Vlog Post
Here is my vlog video for turns! I am getting so close to my goal! So exciting :)
vlog from Avery Ryan on Vimeo.
Along with the vlog, here is a video showing just a bit of the practice I've been doing. There is DEFINITELY progress made between the last video and this one!
Monday, March 2, 2015
Blog Post #3
Hello everyone! I am very excited to be posting on my blog today because I have made so, so, so much progress since the last time I updated you. I have been working in the studio every Saturday and Sunday morning and I have also been using the studio on Mondays and Wednesdays with the help of my dance friends. Along with this studio time, I have been practicing at home too. We are redecorating our living room, so the rug was taken out and now there is a tile floor in its place. This is a great place to practice my turns because there is no furniture, and the hard floor is good for turning. I am so pleased with how much I have improved and even though I have a lot to work on, I am confident that my end goal will be achieved in the next week or two.
The most help I have gotten on my turns was from my ballet teacher, Miss Kim. After working with her for just a few minutes, she gave me the exact corrections I needed to improve the control of my turns. Also, she gave me an explanation of the muscles that need to be engaged the most in the turns, and the ones I should be tightening the most when trying to rotate. I have used her corrections in the studio this past week and I have noticed a lot of improvement. I have gone from not being able to complete one without help of the ballet barre to support me, to being able to do three complete turns most of the time. I only need to be able to complete one more with the addition of a double turn ending. This goal should not be too far beyond my reach. However, this is not all I have to work on.
What I think my turns look like vs. what they actually look like when I watch a video of myself are two very different things. Sometimes I feel like I executed a turn perfectly, but after watching the video, I see that I look like someone who has never danced a day in their life. This scares me because as a dancer, it’s all about how I look when I’m dancing, that’s the whole point. But in order to improve, I have to get over the embarrassment of looking like a flailing fish, and use it to help me improve. I’ve found that using this technique of watching myself in a video, helps a lot with making corrections to make the turns look better.
Another strategy I have used is watching other dancers complete the turns and sometimes listen to their explanation of what they focus on while executing the turns. By watching them, I usually pick up on details of their leg placement, arm placement, and where they focus their eyes while turning. Then, when I try the turn, I attempt to mirror their actions and see how these details help me.
Some things I know need work with my turn is the extension of my rotating leg and making sure that it is ALL THE WAY straight. Otherwise, this turn will not look very graceful. Also, I have to work on getting all the way up on releve, meaning I have to push harder off the floor to stand higher on my tippy toes. Another thing I must work on is the rotation of my leg and making sure I rotate it all the way to the side rather than just leaving it out in front of me. These are the three things I will be working on in the next few weeks to accomplish my goal.
A big part of doing these turns is having the right amount of resistance and rotation against the floor. I’ve been asking around and researching which shoes are the best for fouetté turns. I have concluded that either ballet shoes or half-soles are the best kinds of shoes to use for fouetté turns. Here are these two shoes:
These are ballet shoes. They are used in most ballet classes from beginner to advanced.
These are half-soles. These shoes are used in contemporary and lyrical and are made specifically for turning because of the padding under the toe area.
So after many takes, I decided to put a short video together of my progress with the turns so far. In this video you will find some failures, and some ‘okay’ attempts to completing the turn. The hard part of this project for me is putting myself out there and being okay with failing and sharing my failures with all of my blog readers. However, to show my progress I have to show you all how it’s been going, even if I do look like a flailing fish. Because of the perfectionist side of me, I would rather wait until I have completely and perfectly executed the turn before showing anyone at all, but hopefully this will open me up to a whole new world of embarrassing fails and room for improvement. Embracing my failures may help me with improvement, so here goes nothing... Talk to you soon!
Blogs I’ve commented on:
Margo Kaplan
Lizzy Cutler
David Weiss
David Weiss
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Extra Post: Fouetté Turn Compilation
Hey everyone! Hope all of your Genius Hour projects are going well. I've decided to give you all further demonstration of the turn I am learning to do. A lot of times when people watch the turn, they see how graceful and fluid it is, and think that it doesn't look that difficult to do if you can dance and if you practice it. However, I put this to the test when I asked some students in our class to try out fouettés just to show that they are not easy whatsoever. Then I compared their attempts of the turn with turns done by some girls at my dance studio who have been helping me learn how to fouetté. I hope you get a good laugh out of this, and understand that fouettés are much more difficult than they seem. Talk to you soon!
Video Link (click here)
Video Link (click here)
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Blog Post #2
As I began to research the fouetté turns, I thought the most important thing to learn was the proper technique of the turn. I found a very helpful dance blog with some pointers of how to practice the turns using the support of a ballet barre. Now, to any non-dancer, most of these terms will not make sense to you whatsoever, but trust me, this was a good exercise for a beginner like me to learn the basic motion of the fouetté turn.
“Do a complete, proper barre for your level and introduce the preparing exercises just after the rond de jambes:
1. Preparation at fourth position in demi plié with working leg derrière, working arm to the side
2. Relevé passé devant; same arm of working leg to first position; count: one
3. Plié and extend your working leg forward to 90 degrees; count: two
4. Relevé and whip the working leg to the side, still to 90 degrees; working arm to the side; count: and
5. Bring the working leg to passé quickly; arm goes back to first; count: three
6. Repeat counts two to three several times”
1. Preparation at fourth position in demi plié with working leg derrière, working arm to the side
2. Relevé passé devant; same arm of working leg to first position; count: one
3. Plié and extend your working leg forward to 90 degrees; count: two
4. Relevé and whip the working leg to the side, still to 90 degrees; working arm to the side; count: and
5. Bring the working leg to passé quickly; arm goes back to first; count: three
6. Repeat counts two to three several times”
I found this exercise on this website:
After trying this exercise many, many, times, I finally got the hang of how the counts and timing work when a dancer performs a fouetté turn. Out of many of the exercises I’ve been working with to practice this turn, here is a short clip of one of them.
After searching for tips on how to fouetté on YouTube and on dance blogs, I found that physics played a large role in how fouetté turns work, and by understanding the physics of a fouetté turn, a dancer can improve their turns.
One video that I watched was extremely helpful, especially towards the end when they talk about fouetté turns specifically. According to the physics of turns, getting the deepest plié possible in the turn, and extending the working leg as high as possible, makes the turn easier and gives more momentum for when the dancer spins around. I think the most important part of the physics that I learned was torque. Torque is a measure of how much a force acting on an object causes that object to rotate. The torque in a fouetté turn comes from the plié (the bending of the standing leg). All of the force that a dancer gets when they pull up onrelevé (on their toes) comes from that moment in the plié. The torque comes from how much the dancer pliés, and getting too much or too little force on that plié will throw your whole turn off balance.
Physics video link:
As I go to the studio again this week, I will take these physics tips with me and incorporate them as I turn. I hope that these tips will make my turns more controlled and help with the gracefulness of the movement.
Blogs I've commented on:
Margo Kaplan
Evan Kuo
Lizzy Cutler
Blogs I've commented on:
Margo Kaplan
Evan Kuo
Lizzy Cutler
Friday, February 13, 2015
Introduction
Fouetté Turns
Before I begin explaining anything about my Genius Hour project, I'm sure I need to explain my topic first. Fouetté turns are a kind of turn that dancers perform in ballet, jazz, modern, and lyrical styles of dance. The term fouetté is a ballet term. It's meaning in French is to whip, which makes perfect sense because of how the turn works. Instead of me trying to explain what it looks like, just watch this video.
This video shows the fouetté turns done with pointe shoes, which basically means the dancer is putting all of her weight on the very top of her toes. Personally, I am not at the level to dance on pointe shoes so I will be learning to do them without the pointe shoes. As you can see, the "whip" definition makes sense for this turn because the dancer uses the momentum of her leg to whip her upper body around to complete the turn.
Now that you know what my topic actually is, I think it's important to talk about how I plan to accomplish this goal. I will be using the studio where I dance to practice in. Having the right amount of space, the big mirror, the ballet barre, and the right kind of floor is necessary for me to learn this skill. There are parts of the turn I can practice at home, but having the studio to practice in will make learning the turn much easier for me to do.
I go to the studio almost every day of the week, and I plan to make time on Saturday and Sunday mornings to designate specifically to learning fouetté turns. In addition, I will practice during the week at the studio occasionally, but mostly at home.To help me learn how to do these turns I will be asking a few peers from my dance studio who know how to do fouettés to come in and help me. I'll also be using online tutorials, which there are a ton of on YouTube, and the help of an instructor if need be.
My main goal for this project is to be able to execute at least four fouetté turns and land, gracefully, that's the key word. These turns may look easy to do to some people, however making them look so controlled and fluid is extremely difficult. To begin, I plan to work on the basic motion of the leg that isn't the supporting leg (the one that "whips"). Practicing a basic motion like this will allow me to keep the control that is needed when performing the actual turn.
I think the hardest part about doing this project and learning fouettés specifically, is being willing to make an absolute fool out of myself if I fail at the beginning. I know that I will obviously not get these turns right away, and I am not really sure how good I will be able to get by the end of this project. It took a lot for me to choose this topic because of my fear of not being able to succeed with these turns. But, I hope to use this blog to update you with all of my successes and failures with this project.
To measure my progress I will post videos or just write about my progress with the turns. This will include whether I completed a certain amount of turns, what I still need to work on, what I've improved on, what I can do to improve on the turns, and the variations that I have tried or practiced with the turns.
Wish me luck and I will most likely be updating after this weekend.
Before I begin explaining anything about my Genius Hour project, I'm sure I need to explain my topic first. Fouetté turns are a kind of turn that dancers perform in ballet, jazz, modern, and lyrical styles of dance. The term fouetté is a ballet term. It's meaning in French is to whip, which makes perfect sense because of how the turn works. Instead of me trying to explain what it looks like, just watch this video.
Now that you know what my topic actually is, I think it's important to talk about how I plan to accomplish this goal. I will be using the studio where I dance to practice in. Having the right amount of space, the big mirror, the ballet barre, and the right kind of floor is necessary for me to learn this skill. There are parts of the turn I can practice at home, but having the studio to practice in will make learning the turn much easier for me to do.
I go to the studio almost every day of the week, and I plan to make time on Saturday and Sunday mornings to designate specifically to learning fouetté turns. In addition, I will practice during the week at the studio occasionally, but mostly at home.To help me learn how to do these turns I will be asking a few peers from my dance studio who know how to do fouettés to come in and help me. I'll also be using online tutorials, which there are a ton of on YouTube, and the help of an instructor if need be.
My main goal for this project is to be able to execute at least four fouetté turns and land, gracefully, that's the key word. These turns may look easy to do to some people, however making them look so controlled and fluid is extremely difficult. To begin, I plan to work on the basic motion of the leg that isn't the supporting leg (the one that "whips"). Practicing a basic motion like this will allow me to keep the control that is needed when performing the actual turn.
I think the hardest part about doing this project and learning fouettés specifically, is being willing to make an absolute fool out of myself if I fail at the beginning. I know that I will obviously not get these turns right away, and I am not really sure how good I will be able to get by the end of this project. It took a lot for me to choose this topic because of my fear of not being able to succeed with these turns. But, I hope to use this blog to update you with all of my successes and failures with this project.
To measure my progress I will post videos or just write about my progress with the turns. This will include whether I completed a certain amount of turns, what I still need to work on, what I've improved on, what I can do to improve on the turns, and the variations that I have tried or practiced with the turns.
Wish me luck and I will most likely be updating after this weekend.
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