fandomhigh | Ballet for Beginners; First Period [02/08].

When the students came into the dance studio that morning, they'd find their teacher over by the stereo, clearling having some difficulties. It shouldn't be this difficult; she'd never had problems with it before, but, all of sudden, instead of playing the music she wanted, all it was playing was Dead or Alive's smash 1985 hit "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)"....only it was just the chorus hook on a seemingly endless loop. And there appeared to be nothing Rosa could do to stop it.

She'd tried everything, too. Hitting it, unplugging it, pressing all the buttons, trying multiple different CDs and settings, but nothing. It still kept going, and by the time the students came in, she was just about at the end of her rope and finally gave in and did what she usually did when technology frustrated her: she pulled the stereo from the shelf, lifted it over her head, smashed it on the floor, and breathed a sigh of relief as silence finally settled in.

"I'll pay for that," she assured the students, once she looked up and saw that they were already there for class. Not that she imagined they'd care. "Anyway, guess we're not doing music today. Technical difficulties. If you want to hum or sing or whatever, that's fine. I don't--"

And that's when the stereo, dispite its many broken-apart pieces seemed to whirr to life and started in with another round of now slightly distorted "You spin me right round, baby, right round."

And Rosa was really thinking she needed to get on that whole 'figure out the best way to hide a gun in a leotard' things she'd been considering.

"Right," she said, through a clenched jaw, clenched teeth, clenched everything. "Piroettes today. If we don't go crazy first."

[[OCD ~~in the way~~ is up! ...i'm too tired for this]]

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Like a record, baby.

Breq

Vette

Prince Sidon

The usual stretches on the center of the floor will come along with a video clip of a performance that, by now, the students should know involves what they'd be learning, and, today at least, will be listened to a volume a little higher than usual to drown out the stereo.

And then it's off to the barre, with a repeat of the basics warm-up as usual, as well as the battement/développé routine from last week.

The music was a bit repetitive, and Breq found Rosa's way of dealing with the stereo quite impressive, if wasteful and in this case ineffective.

By now she was used to the warm up, and did it, unconsciously humming along.

With at least one more attempt to kick the stereo into silence (spoiler alert: it did not work), Rosa get the class back out onto the floor and started going over piroettes.

"...which means," she was explaining, with a glare toward the pile of somehow still working debris on the floor, "'to spin. Usually turning on one leg while the other is lifted up in passé. They can be fun to do, but difficult to execute well, and they're often used in performances to showcase a dancer's talents. They're also a point of pride with male dancers."

With a nod to them, since, you know, they were there.

She then went over how to do it, emphasizing the importance of alignment and a good fourth position, making them try the base of opening their arms and going up to passé a few times first before really getting into the actually turning it into a turn.

"Don't forget to spot," she added. "Like with chaîné turns, only with piroettes in practice, your best spot is going to be yourself in the mirror. I want you guys to practice doing a single piroeutte, really work on getting it clean and precise with a nice finish, and then we'll see about maybe trying two if you've got the single down."

Edited 2019-02-08 12:19 (UTC)

There was a lot of spinning and turning in ballet, Breq had concluded. She was doing it well enough, but got a little dizzy after a while, and the music on repeat didn't help.

So, as it turned out, doing pirouettes with a pair of lekku was definitely a lesson in interesting body parts flying out whenever you did that nice little head-turn at the end, which was actually a pretty intriguing spectacle, but also meant that Vette was putting in extra effort not just to hold her lekku as close to her person as possible, but to not actually hit anyone with them whenever she didn't.

Rosa figured there was enough spinning...both by the students and that goddamn song...for all of them today without revisiting chaîné turns. And because she was just about done with that song, she was only going to lead them through enough of a cool down to be effective and then try to get the hell out of there.

There had been a lot of spinning. Breq found that ballet was a lot more challenging when she had first thought when she found herself having been signed up for this class. Not in a bad way, but it was strange putting an effort into something that wasn't related to military matters.

Please talk loudly if you do.

And this is why me not knowing what I'm really doing for today's class until I wake up at stupid-o'clock to get ready for a random Friday morning shift is an awesome/bad idea.

Ballet for Beginners; First Period [02/08].

Sign In - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Sign In - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Sign In - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Sign In - Ballet, 02/08.

Warm Up - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Warm Up - Ballet, 02/08.

Lesson: Pirouettes - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Lesson: Pirouettes - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Lesson: Pirouettes - Ballet, 02/08.

Cool Down - Ballet, 02/08.

Re: Cool Down - Ballet, 02/08.

Talk to Rosa - Ballet, 02/08.

OOC - Ballet, 02/08.