Ballet's Secret Code - a documentary (six key principles of Classical Ballet)

so [Music] since the 1980s medical studies have revealed that around 80 percent of professional ballet dancers will sustain at least one serious injury per year and a career threatening injury before the age of 30. it begs the question why would anyone want to enter a profession where the training itself could potentially handicap them for life at such a young age and what kind of training is it which encourages such high rates of injury clearly something is not right nowadays the average ballet class has become a sports medicine dominated arena where the law of the jungle dictates the survival of the fittest it has even become fashionable in ballet companies to entrust the dancer's fitness to army and sports trainers the ballet class has become a competition of physical prowess who can kick their leg the highest who can do the most turns who has the flattest turnout it has very little to do with the original ideals of the art of classical ballet of course it's exciting to watch a dancer spin 32 times on the spot but what about the remaining 90 minutes you're sitting in the theater the intention of art is not just to entertain but to move to inspire and perhaps even to change and to educate an audience if ballet were purely a form of entertainment it would be a sport such as gymnastics or diving ballet is now perceived as an athletic art it used to be about evoking emotions or telling a story through movement and mine the fact is it's easier to kick the legs up on stage than convey deep emotions let's draw a comparison music nowadays is often packaged in bright lights and sexualization which usually has nothing to do with the music in too many circumstances ballet has taken a similar path the fact is extravagant lighting and nudity appeal to the senses but that doesn't mean they deliver any actual ballet in contrast to all this the legendary ballerina anna pavlova didn't depend on special effects kicking up her legs or taking off her clothes to enchant an audience fascinatingly as a young dancer anna pavlova had muscle deficiencies and weak feet if she auditioned for a ballet school today she would almost certainly be rejected [Music] in 1906 she met enrico chichetti who took her on board and agreed to teach her privately the result was she not only overcame her physical deficiencies but went on to become perhaps the most renowned dancer of all time now who was this magician chichetti well between 1870 and 1890 he was the most famous italian dancer in europe he went on to teach at the imperial theater st petersburg and then became ballet master at the ballet ruse though lesser known chichetti could be called the leonardo da vinci of classical ballet just as da vinci applied scientific methods to his art so did enrico chichetti to classical ballet it was said that you could not become a finnish dancer unless you trained with him but who were these dancers who trained under chichetti and praised him so highly chichetti's pupils included pavlova nizinski cassavana lapukava dolin markova praya branskaya specifa izzakovsky massin liffa nyemchinova and many more to use a modern colloquialism chichetti was the big daddy of classical ballet training in the early decades of the 20th century i'm julie cronshaw a former professional dancer who has been teaching chichetti method in london for more than 20 years after two decades of teaching it suddenly struck me that there is a scientific method behind chichetti's so-called days of the week his classes are built upon six physical principles these principles are actually the foundations of all classical ballet and if you can understand and follow these simple and universal principles they will radically change and improve the way you think and move as a dancer no matter what system you train in at first glance a chiquetti class is much the same as any traditional ballet class there is a bar center practice adage pirouettes and allegro but chichetti's days of the week focus on a particular series of steps and movement qualities each day governed by a single physical principle and these physical principles are the science behind the art of classical ballet which if understood and followed correctly will regenerate rather than devour the dancers body and mind and the step vocabulary in chichetti's method is so vast and contains on shamans of such dazzling virtuosity that even the most competent dancer will be challenged to refine their technique improve their musical awareness and strengthen their artistic judgment some say that chiketi method is full of steps that aren't done anymore because they are too difficult but how can they be too difficult when we are told that today's dancers have more technique than ever before when i began teaching i came to realize that the systems i'd acquired on stage were lacking in many areas of technique and movement possibilities despite such huge advances in sports medicine by continually pushing the anatomical limits of a dancer's body rather than exploring new step choreography all that has brought us is an avalanche of injuries some even insist that ballet is dead and that we must blend contemporary dance with acrobatics which are more appealing to public taste i disagree fashions in choreography come and go but a method based on universal principles is timeless in a search for a more complete form of artistic ballet training for the professional dancer one that is efficient anatomically safe and exercises every muscle in the body i looked to chichetti for the answers and i found them it's a method that holds the key to unlocking the secrets of a truly beautiful classical ballet technique chichetti's method not only trains a dancer to the highest technical and artistic levels but also increases cardiovascular fitness and allows a dancer to maintain a healthy body and mind throughout their career and beyond so let's go on a journey to discover the physical principles of classical ballet through what chichetti called his days of the week [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] what are physical principles as with any major art form for something to work for a statue to stand or for paint to remain on canvas and not slide off it for a dancer to move with ideal stability harmony and balance whatever is being done must correspond to physical reality and natural law for this film i sought out two dancers one male and one female each of them had just one week to work with me on these physical principles muriel valtter came out of retirement as a former soloist with britain's royal ballet we filmed her exercises at the moving east studio in london salvatore nicolosi currently with the falziata kaiserslautern in germany trained at the hamlin school in florence under nicoletta santoro at the hamlin schools invitation we filmed his exercises in their magnificent studios so here is an outline of the physical principles at work [Music] let's start with monday lis assembly which is all about the principle of aplom the plumb line is a phrase originally used by builders and architects to establish a vertical line through the center of gravity in an assembly from the fifth position plie the dancer moves one leg away to jump into the air he then assembles both legs together in the air before landing again in fifth hence the term assembly let's look at what the rest of the body's doing while standing in the fifth position in chichetti's day and for the first generation after applause meant the line that runs down through the center of the body holding the center of gravity directly over that line down the back of the front leg and the front of the back leg in the fifth position when dancers disengaged the gesture leg from the fifth position they did not shift their body weight towards the ball of the standing leg like they do today but remain securely on that line of aplomb the dancer is then lifted upwards off the supporting leg using deep postural muscles in the torso a pulmon maintains the body in dynamic opposition about this line of aplomb it's easy to dismiss the notion of standing on the aplom because it's argued how can you disengage the foot from fifth position without shifting the weight onto the ball of the foot but that shift makes the bar work redundant the weight of the whole body is supported on the standing leg making it much harder to counter the downward pull of gravity eventually this produces strain through the whole body as more force is needed to push off the floor for chichetti all movement begins in the body and not in the feet and legs as a dancer learns to stand in their center rather than on their legs the body leads and then the feet follow from day one chichetti insisted the body hold the shapes in opposition with the help of the bar these uncomplicated exercises aim to get the dancers ready for jumping this ballet bar is not about choreography understanding and applying the notion of aplom is the first principle of classical ballet and precisely why chichetti starts his days of the week with lesa sombley [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so to summarize monday's principle is aplom or standing in the vertical [Music] a product [Music] tuesday is all about et palma and chicati steps on tuesday are le petit batmo [Music] the key to tuesday is apollo more also known as contrapposto or opposition in the body moving outwards from a quiet center the dancer creates stable shapes with dynamic potential man is designed to move in opposition in walking you swing your arms right arm backwards as the right leg steps forward and so on the notion of opposition develops logically from standing in and using the aplomb opposition is activated about the body with the support from the postural muscles deep within the torso air pulmon expresses the least action principle this is where you use the least possible amount of energy to produce the greatest possible action [Music] on tuesdays chichetti focused on shamong that skim the floor like the jette batman and the steps with this quality with the head held erect eyes gazing straight out towards the audience the dancer moves forward often along a straight line the body oscillates gently about the central axis and the feet and legs fly along the floor and counterpoint to the beautiful but strictly functional a pulmon in the upper body to chicketti et pulmon was no mere decoration the head is the culminating point of a spiral ornamental as it looks e pulmon is always functional it's the natural opposition of the human machine in action and that is why chichetti dedicated his tuesday class to the study of this fundamental physical principle [Music] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] so to summarize tuesday's principle is a pulmon or opposition about the [Music] vertical on wednesday the principle is about turnout and amplification and chichetti's steps are leshonda jean from the moment the dancer begins to turn out in the first position and extends the heels forward natural spirals already present in the body begin to manifest here we find the shapes held in opposition through a pulmon travelling out to their extremities using the action of moving on they or or to the outside in french initiated by the front of the torso then they return to the center using the action of ondadong or going inside from the back of the torso turnout allows amplification and stabilization of the forms rotation is in the arms legs hands and feet all is beautiful to look at but still functional there are definite shades of emotion here on their shapes are more extrovert on the doll shapes are more [Music] introspective [Music] saw turnout as a functional technical tool not a visual effect he never demanded the toe to heel flat turned out fifth position we see everywhere today in the chichetti fifth position the front foot's heel touches the back foot's toe joint the purpose of turnout is technical and theatrical it was invented to stabilize the lower body and free the torso and arms for expression for chichetti turnout concerns the entire body not just the hips knees and feet therefore chichetti's or shamu cannot be done well with an overcrossed fifth my name is i was the first soloist with the royal ballet for 15 years now i am a full-time bali teacher in montreal it came actually as a shock to discover how difficult the exercises were i've heard some people saying that it was very historic and should be put stayed in the museum but i think actually the method is very relevant to to to today and it's very anatomically [Music] sound [Music] [Music] [Music] so to summarize wednesday's principle is turn out understanding the relationship between hondo you manifest your pretty scientific mind and is there something in particular that attracts you at this stage uh yes there is um mostly just that i'm curious in in in many mediums uh as to what the origins are of that medium even i think i was saying to judy that the origins of language would be as i know it uh somebody gets hurt they still have a toyota girl and they taste something that's nice and eventually these things develop into a form of communication and ballet um there are different schools of valor with different thought but the origin i'm interested in and it appears to me that chiketti seems very steeped in similarly to language well it's the feeling if you feel a certain way you react a certain way if you're depressed you go like that if you're happy yeah you know you jump for joy as well as judy said so i'm curious about that because i'm curious as to what is it come from what is it really expressing so so in that regard uh chichetti seems to be tied in the origin the art form anyway so far we've seen how the first three principles of aplom e pulmon and turnout apply to the dancer as a mechanism standing in space the principles of the next three days thursday friday and saturday apply to the dancer moving in space hello i hope you're enjoying ballet secret code we're halfway through exploring chichetti's days of the week a good time for a brief intermission and a quick word about the amazing side project we've been working on you see in preparation for making this film we rehearsed over 70 exercises and so we decided to put them all together into a single online package complete with hours of commentary technical tips interviews and more stay tuned after the film is over to learn about this extremely unique collection and the official website [Music] www.balletsecretcode.com but keep it to yourself it's a secret and now back to the film [Music] thursday is about legete weight transfer whether amplified outwards moving on they all or gathered inwards moving on the dong jete are about weight transfer in the air forwards backwards sideways the dancer draws arcs in the air this frees up a vast dimension of expression [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] mm-hmm [Music] [Music] so to summarize on thursday the physical principle is about transference of weight [Music] on friday the dancer uses the aerial plane or hanging in the air and chichetti steps include battery that's beaten steps of the legs and point work here as with the jette the shapes are lifted onto another plane the space above the dancer's head for the ballerina suspension is achieved by point work invented by those pioneering women of the 19th century who sought to explore the furthest limits of movement and balance on the tips of their toes in the second half of the 19th century italian ballet shoemakers invented what we would recognize to be the modern day point shoe they hardened the box and stiffened the shank to allow for multiple turns hops and balances on one leg the italian school insists upon a slight spring or spousal onto point this places the feet right beneath the torso on the line of aplomb and avoids clambering or pushing up this reduces the strain on the feet and instead the dancer appears to descend lightly onto their toes applying the least action principle again this technique releases greater expressive potential for both man and woman the friday class of chichetti focuses on a scintillating display of battery that asks them to stay longer in the air than would otherwise be possible the friday class includes both grand battery and terra terre battery [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so to summarize friday is the principle of the aerial plane hanging in the air [Music] finally we come to saturday and chicken steps are legron fuerte sote the physical principle of balon or bouncing like a ball [Music] oh [Music] the dancer uses balon to maintain the first jumps momentum as he shifts direction in the air he bounces like a ball from one step to the next it all seems effortless and inexhaustible and he jumps to convey an emotion he jumps for joy on saturdays chichetti unleashes all the physical principles studied throughout the week these combinations are the most challenging and diverse of all the six days calling for a mastery of dynamics speed change of direction and use of all the spatial planes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so to summarize saturday is the principle of balon or bouncing these six physical principles are the foundations of all classical ballet chichetti's method can be learned by any dancer it does not require superhuman physical peculiarities such as hyperflexibility nor can it be danced well when applying undue force but it does call for strength and great skill or what the french term la dress chicati's method allows the artist to master his profession by studying a technique designed for the theater it is an expressive technique and a technique which is biomechanically sound chichetti works within not beyond man's anatomical limits classical ballet is a tool of thought and emotion chichetti created his method to transmit these thoughts and emotions into a training which he called the days of the week actually i didn't knew about katie before and in the beginning a student i didn't have really good relationship it was really heavy hard and strong method but now as a professional dancer i think it's really i'm really lucky to have this space as long that you studied that that is in your body you can always use as a dancer as choreographer as teacher for everything well i was always interested to to explore the checkety method i've been exposed to a lot of methods and i think anyway to study any kind of method can empower you and enrich you for for what you do and i now a teacher so i am very humble about learning and and getting richer having said that the more i studied the czech method the more i realized that it was based on very anatomical principles but also it would develop or so the artist within you so it's a very human rooted so i just feel it it's just a very complete chicketti seems to have operated on the basis of three notions cycles repetition and variation each family of steps returns in cycles on monday the dancer revisits les assembly on tuesday they return to les piti batman and so on there's no question of a difficult step disappearing never to be seen again it will come back in a week and then another week's time however contrary to common belief when chichetti himself taught he didn't repeat the exact same exercises week in week out year in year out although he never altered the principles he did alter specific details to suit his dancers needs another major point is this in most other methods only young children repeat the simplest basics at the bar every day not so chicketti he believed that accuracy in the most essential exercises tends to wear away over time so these exercises must also be repeated and lastly variation just as in classical music where a composer adapts or modifies a basic musical theme to create any number of increasingly complex variations upon it so this is the same with chichetti's days of the week the daily step themes are uncomplicated but the possible variations are infinite thanks to the repetition and cyclic returns the dancer has time to develop a mastery and control of those variations on the original step themes these are the details that make the difference between art and sport and this brings endless opportunities for new choreography the days of the week are something else too chicketti's specific answer to the question of how to take an exhausted group of professionals and get them on their feet for the evening's performance even the ballet roost dancers insisted that diagolev take chichetti with them on tour to chichetti company class was both a warm-up and a way to improve one's technique his method which fosters perfect coordination nuanced dynamics and choreographic invention produces dancing which as folking said appeals not merely to the eye but to the emotions and the imagination the artist will dance with more grace less strain and fewer injuries throughout their career without artificiality or the need for gymnastics that has in recent years obscured the intrinsic power and beauty of classical ballet so if you want to continue dancing for as long as you can what do you prefer to do training that devours the body or a method that regenerates and strengthens it into maturity you can change your belief that the more pain you feel the better a dancer you will be your body is your instrument a violinist wouldn't trash their stradivarius so why would you trash your body nowadays every movement is not always seeking stability harmony and balance and the tragedy is not that of artistic perfection but a physical harm finally chichetti gives the dance maker a treasure chest of steps and to this day untapped potential his method covers virtually the entire step vocabulary of classical ballet that is why he had such an influence on frederick ashton anthony tudor leonid messin and serge le far chichetti allows the dance maker to create step-rich choreography for a new generation of dancers where the goal is not a six-pack nor a six o'clock ponchay but ultimate artistic perfection so give heed aspiring dance makers by touching the imagination chichetti's method his days of the week will foster new innovation in choreography and will surely prove a training not of the past but of the future [Music] thank you for watching ballet's secret code in this film i've only been able to show you a glimpse of chichetti's genius there is so much more behind the scenes footage and we've now put it together for you many of the exercises and interviews we filmed didn't make the final cut but they are all now available on balletsecretco.com included are more than 150 videos with commentaries explaining the chichetti technique and style historical insights and relevance to today's classical repertoire and a dozen interviews with the dancers crew and teachers from the hamline ballet school in florence so if you're curious about chichetti and want to learn more you'll find a special collection of content and know-how in behind the scenes at ballet secretcode.com if you enjoyed the film you'll love what you find there thank you for watching you

Channel: Julie Cronshaw

Views: 187,234

Rating: 4.8956523 out of 5

Keywords: ballet documentary, ballet's secret code, cecchetti, cecchetti method, the physical principles of classical ballet, the days of the week, ballet secret code, julie cronshaw, george massey, highgate ballet school, classical ballet, Ballet's Secret Code - a documentary (six key principles of Classical Ballet), six key principles of classical ballet, ballet technique, ballet tips and tricks, ballet history, ballet insights

Id: ZGT4g7FHSvA

Length: 55min 23sec (3323 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021