4dancers – Page 25

Interview: New York City Ballet Corps Member Laine Habony

August 13, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

Laine Habony. Photograph by Kenneth Edwards.

At what age did you begin ballet? Where did you receive your early training?

I began dance at age 3. Both my older sisters danced and I begged for a year to take class too. I started in a combo ballet/tap pullout class at a Montessori school and my first recital was a tap recital.

The next year, I started ballet and tap classes at a small studio called Denton Ballet Academy. I moved to Ballet Conservatory (BC) when I was 8 to train with Kelly Kilburn Lannin. Ms. Lannin introduced me to classical ballet, modern, tap, jazz, and musical theater. It was a great performance studio that fed into a local company, LakeCities Ballet Theatre (LBT).

I was invited to join LBT at age 11 and performed many ballets there for two years before leaving for NYC. At BC/LBT, I was able to train with Ms. Lannin, Shawn Stevens (NYCB and Twyla Tharp), and Allan Kinzie (Boston Ballet) as well as guest artists including Michael Vernon (Royal Ballet), Josh Bergasse (On The Town, Smash), Marco Perins (La Scala), Julie Kent (ABT).

When did you realize you wanted to be a professional ballet dancer?

I always preferred tap/jazz over ballet until I was 11 years old – then I got my pointe shoes! I auditioned for summer programs that winter and spent my 12th summer at ABT NYC. I knew then I wanted to be a professional ballerina in NYC. When I was 13, I performed Serenade with LBT and knew then it was Balanchine all the way.

I saw on YouTube that you competed in Youth American Grand Prix (YAGP) when you were 13. Tell us a little about that experience and what you learned from it.

I did compete in YAGP when I was 13. It was a great year. I did two classical pieces – Satanella and Aurora’s first variation from Sleeping Beauty. I also did a contemporary piece choreographed by Shawn Stevens to Vivaldi called Red Cardinal. I had gorgeous tutus sewn by Elizabeth Schillar, a tutu designer in Texas. She allowed me to help with the creation, picking fabric and even sewing on all the crystals.

I won 1st place in Classical in Dallas and Top 12 in Contemporary and went on to compete in the YAGP NYC Finals. I had great scores and great comments and was offered full scholarships to quite a few places including Canada National and John Cranko, but I had to decline them all because I already knew I was going to the School of American Ballet (New York City Ballet’s official school) on scholarship.

Training for YAGP is an experience a young dancer cannot replace at that age. Private lessons that provided individual performance coaching were so valuable for my technique and confidence. My coaches taught me to work for the sake of experience, not to win a contest. I learned that a dance career is a marathon not a sprint, and not to get caught up on losing or winning any one thing.

[Read more…]

Dancers: Let’s Talk “Core Control”

August 5, 2015 by 4dancers

Henry Vandyke Carter [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

by Jan Dunn, MS

Aloha! — Happy August! The posting below is one I’ve wanted to bring you for a long time–discussing “core control” (alias “center” in dance). It’s something that’s very important, yet not that many people – dancers included – really understand what it’s all about. (And thanks to Denver Dance Medicine
Associate Sarah Graham, PT, provider for Colorado Ballet and many Broadway touring companies, for her help in clarifying the information from a medical perspective).

I hope that after reading it (along with Part Two, coming in a few weeks!), you’ll have a better idea of what all this “core” talk is, and how to best incorporate it into your dance life. My best to all –
Jan

For some time I’ve been wanting to bring you an article on “core control”. I put it in quotation marks because it’s a term that conveys different things to different people, and not everyone really understands what it means. In the dance world, we often refer to “center”, as in “find your center”–but many dancers do not really understand what that means, either.

The term “core control” is everywhere in the media / fitness world, and many people think it means “abs”. And abdominal muscles (one in particular) are very much involved in “core”– but there’s much more to it than that. From reading this post, I hope you come away with a better understanding of exactly what it means, and hopefully get some hints and cues on how better to incorporate it into your life–both in dance and in everyday movement, because it is important in everything our body does!

So much has been written / so much could be said–it could be the topic of several different posts. But over the years, teaching dance / Pilates / Franklin, I’ve evolved a specific way of teaching it to people, using a fairly short version that makes sense to everyone.

In the medical field, it is the same as back stabilization–in other words, when your back and torso are strong and able to provide support for your entire spine and limbs—because your arms and legs are going to be more fully able to move and be supported by your torso, to do all of those gorgeous extensions and powerful movements we love to do and see in dance, when your “core” musculature is strong.

So with that said, from here on out, I’m going to use the term “back stabilization”, which you now know means “core”.

This post is going to be in two-parts: In this first segment, I’ll do a lot of explaining. For the second one, I want to show to you some specific exercises and things you can do at home or in the studio to help increase the strength of all the muscles we’re talking about here–i.e, ways to help improve your back stabilization / “Core Control” / “center”.

The Four-Legged Stool

There are a good number of muscles / muscle groups involved in back stabilization, but we’re going to simplify it and talk about the 4 primary ones. When teaching, I like to use the analogy of a 4-legged stool.

Think of it this way:

You have a 4-legged stool made up of 4 main parts, all of which are necessary to keep the stool (your torso) upright and strong, and in balance.

1–One leg of the stool is the Transverse Abdominal muscle, or TA for short.

This is the deepest of the 4 abdominal muscles–on top of it is the Rectus Abdominus (RA), or the “6-pack” muscle (whose main function is to flex – bend forward – the torso, not to provide back stabilization). Under the RA are the obliques, running in two different directions. They help stabilize the torso, but they are often over-used, and then the really important one, the TA, is not working in the most beneficial way.

By modified by Uwe Gille (Gray397.png) [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The TA is right next to the abdominal cavity (and one of its jobs is to help keep the abdominal organs in place). Its fibers run horizontally, across the torso, all the way from the lower ribs down to the pubic area. It wraps around the body and integrates into a large fascia (connective tissue) in the back (see illustration above). So it’s literally almost like a corset around the torso. Researchers have identified the lower portions of the TA, the ones in the low belly / just above the pubic area, as the crucial ones active in back stabilization.

2 – the 2^nd leg of the stool is the Pelvic Floor.

[Read more…]

Remember To Breathe: Stepping Up Your Stamina

July 22, 2015 by 4dancers

You can practice breathing techniques anywhere! Doing this has helped me in other pursuits like hiking mountains!

by Alessa Rogers

Effortless grace.

That is what people think of when they think of ballet. And that is what we strive to be, with our tutus and tiaras and sweat and…wait what? Yes, dancers sweat, and we also curse sometimes too. Ballet is hard work after all!

But–back to effortless grace.

Yes, that is what we are. At least- that is–until halfway through Tharp’s In the Upper Room or maybe David Parson’s Caught or the Don Quixote third act pas de deux, when we are gasping for air like a fish out of water, with a variation and a coda left to go (and don’t forget those pesky bows that are next to impossible after a three hour long ballet).

No one wants to be that dancer that is visibly out of breath and increasingly out of control, making the audience worry if they need to call a doctor. But dancers for the most part tend to forget about stamina, focusing instead on technique and shape and choreography and musicality–and even injury prevention. These are all very important to consider, of course, but if a dancer is too exhausted to get through a piece then technique just isn’t going to be useful. Actually, as a dancer gets more tired, technique gets sloppy, choreography becomes harder to learn, and it’s definitely the time when injuries happen.

So a few years ago I set out to consciously improve my stamina. It was mostly out of necessity; a high-profile world premiere was looming where I would be onstage for all but four minutes of the entire full-length, no intermissions, ballet (and those off-stage minutes were for stressful costume changes!). A lot of the work was running and jumping. The first time I ran through the full ballet in the studio I went home and passed out at about 7 o’clock. I knew I had to get myself in shape.

Wouldn’t it be nice if dancers had trainers the way professional sports stars and Olympics athletes do–with scientists, analysts, nutritionists and trainers at our disposal? But we don’t. We only have ourselves, and our acute sensitivity to our bodies, to decide what works for us individually and what doesn’t. We have only ourselves to maintain accountability, to customize a plan that works for us and turn our bodies into fine-tuned machines.

Fast forward a few years and I’d say my stamina is now one of my strengths as a dancer. Other dancers often note how when they are bent over and panting I am still standing up and smiling. None of what I do now is scientifically proven–but they are the practices I’ve discovered that work for me.

See for yourself if some of these work for you: [Read more…]

Dancers: On Preparing for Nationals

July 7, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

"Apologize" by BdwayDiva1. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic. — “Apologize” by BdwayDiva1. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic.

by Karen Musey

It is amazing how fast the end of the dance season has arrived! Just when the challenges of the year are met, suddenly Nationals season arrives. For many studios it is just the beginning of a fast paced, intense week that will live on in studios’ and families’ memories for years to come.

A few tips on getting the most out of your week(s):

Rest. Make sure dancers/teachers/parents take some time out to recuperate from the year, before rehearsals and preparation for Nationals begin. After the intensity of the dance and school year and other personal challenges everyone faces, a little time off beforehand recharges students, faculty and families for the thrilling and energetic week that is Nationals. This is especially important if your studio registers for more than one Nationals. A little rest will recharge everyone’s body and spirit to be able to refocus on goals for the end of the season.

Update your goal. At the end of the season, sometimes dancers find themselves having already achieved their goals, and sometimes challenges come up that force dancers to rethink their goals. Maybe the achieved goal was to complete a clean triple pirouette. The new goal could be to make sure the movement before, during and after the triple stays emotionally connected to the piece. Make sure every team player knows what the overall team goal is, and recommit energy and focus to it. Share with each other specific, measurable goals that will feel like great achievements regardless of marks or placement.

[Read more…]

For Dancers: An Easy Guide To Portion Sizes

June 25, 2015 by 4dancers

by Catherine L. Tully

What you eat matters, but so does how much you eat. Unfortunately, portion sizes can be hard to estimate. Let’s face it, nobody wants to carry around a stack of measuring cups!

Luckily, there’s a fairly simple way you can ballpark portions without too much trouble, and it involves something you always have with you—your hand! Use the following to keep an eye on how much you are eating—it works quite well. (Sizes are approximate.)

1 serving of meat = the palm of your hand
1 tablespoon = your thumb, from the second knuckle to the tip
1 teaspoon = the tip of your index finger, second knuckle to the tip
1 cup = the size of your fist
1 ounce = your thumb, from the first knuckle to the tip
1⁄2 cup = loosely cupped hand

These simple measurements can help you estimate how much you are eating and keep you from overdoing it. Keep them in mind when you head out to a restaurant, or when you are preparing meals or snacks.

Dance Advantage and 4dancers have written a guide for healthy eating, studying smart, navigating dance coursework, roommate relations and more–designed specifically for college freshmen going off to a dance program. This post is an excerpt from that e-book.

Learn more about this resource and get it for yourself or someone you know here:

The Four-Legged Stool

1–One leg of the stool is the Transverse Abdominal muscle, or TA for short.

2 – the 2nd leg of the stool is the Pelvic Floor.

Disclosure – Affiliate & Ad Info

Copyright Notice

2 – the 2^nd leg of the stool is the Pelvic Floor.