Slade Coaching

Private coaching may appear to be an added expense and a time commitment, especially when you're paying for 3 or more dance classes weekly. Yet, even a single private lesson can be more advantageous in addressing technical flaws than all those group classes put together. As teachers, we wish we could devote individual attention to every dancer, but it's not feasible in a crowded ballet class. This raw footage shows Marigold getting verbal feedback and video analysis, and in 4 minutes, she's already improved her technique and understands the issues that were limiting her pirouettes. Private coaching can make all the difference 💗🩰

Starting September 6th I’ll be hosting supplemental ballet classes on the weekends! These classes are great for those wanting an extra technique class in their schedule to prep for performances, auditions, or to reach a personal goal. Sign up weekly at sladedance.com or dm for more info!

This one gets me 😭 Pic of the last private before college! We've been riding strong since 2019, and Autumn's dreams of dance have become a shared reality, with her attending SUNY Purchase, just like I did 💜 Go get ‘em’

This!! 🩷

I teach ballet because I care about the future of the art form. Sadly, I see a lot of “dumbing down” of the genre either to make it “palatable” to students or because there just isn’t time any more to pass it on properly. In my opinion, ballet can and should be for everyone without having to make elaborate modifications to its structure.

How ballet is taught is hundreds of years old, but evolution has to happen because arts are a living communicating language. Knowing the “why” of formatting, terminology and aesthetic is consistent. Why do we start at the barre, for example? Well, we don’t in some cases. In the youngest levels of creative movement, it has been shown that using the barre actually impedes the development of core strength and balance. But, these observations are relatively recent because in the early days of ballet, toddlers and elementary aged children were not taught ballet vocabulary until they were near puberty when the body becomes capable of handling consistent and codified training. I believe that waiting until age 8 is the best time to incorporate the barre simply because by age 8, students are mature enough to not use it as a jungle gym, in addition to the other reasons I stated above.

As for the material we present at the barre, there is a reason for the order of skills. We start by using the large muscle groups and work to isolate the smaller groups. Skills build up with the center work intentions at the forefront. After plies(large leg muscles), tendus(feet muscles), degages/jetes/glisses(quick inner thigh and foot work), and ronds de jambe(hip mobility in 180 degree planes in space both on the floor and en l’air), we work toward adagio movements with fondus and developpes, petit battements and frappes for petit allegro, and grands battements for grand allegro. This gives the body a chance to warm up and prepare for what is coming next without the support of the barre.

Center exercises should encompass several exercises that were done at the barre for stability on one leg without support. Then the real challenge of adagio, pirouette study, petit, medium and grand allegro can be incorporated with the skeleton and muscles ready to move from one tempo to another with greater movement difficulty and speed as the class progresses.

I understand that dance studios/schools are businesses, however, by cutting class times short(90 minutes is the golden standard for a “full ballet class”), teachers and therefore students, are having to “cut things out”. Teachers have to choose…do we only learn “steps” or do we learn about how to stand up correctly on our legs so that our posture and alignment are conducive to efficient movement strategies? There’s a lot of “swiss cheese ballet” going on when teachers have to make the difficult choices of what to skip or skim over or not teach at all when there are significant time constraints. And we all know that the students themselves, most of whom have never been to a live ballet performance or have only seen one or two local productions of the Nutcracker, don’t understand the history of ballet nor how its fully-formed architecture can assist them in the study of their other dance genres.

As a living art, ballet must change with the times. Gutting its composition though is not the answer. There has to be a way to unite the business of dance with the thorough instruction of the technique. I’m not sure exactly what it is or how to effectively achieve it, but I will continue to pursue it. My goal as a teacher isn’t to produce professionals. Though many of my current and past students are competition dancers who are required to take ballet for the sake of a team requirement, I want to prepare the future audiences who can support professional companies, because without an audience, ballet will die. Educated spectators who understand what they are viewing, realize the compositional elements and appreciate the time, physicality and dedication of the dancers, will pay money to uphold its existence.

Written by Kirsch