Unless you are the only ballet teacher in your school, clear communication about how vocabulary will be taught, at what level, and how it will progress over time is critical. Today is the sixth in a series of posts about vocabulary that can be taught more than one way. There are pros and cons to each approach. What matters most is that all the teachers in your program are teaching and progressing ballet technique (including pirouettes) in the same way.
Do you teach pirouette in cou-de-pied? Ever? Before pirouette in retiré? After? Why?
One very common correction in pirouette is not to lift the hip of the retiré leg. Ballet uses imagery of lifting through and being nearly-flat in the front of the pelvis and it makes sense that students would extend this idea to their pirouette. But it is an unhelpful habit that throws them off balance. In order to reach a retiré quickly and correctly, dancers need to understand the way their knee and hip bend in opposite directions.
Because the degree of flexion is less in cou-de-pied than in retiré, this can be a good place to begin teaching pirouette. (This is how I start teaching it.) The physical demand is a little less and it gives us time to build core strength and somatic awareness while still being able to work on a technically correct pirouette.
I am always squawking about how your teachers should be consistent in progressions across genres but cou-de-pied v. retiré is one area where a difference in jazz class ends up not being a big deal. Learning pirouette in a parallel retiré in jazz at the same time as learning it in a turned-out cou-de-pied in ballet doesn't lead to the same lifted hip issue that a too-early turned out retiré does. As long as everyone on your faculty is clear (with the students and in their own head) that this isn't about being right or wrong, advanced or boring, but is about having options as a dancer, the progress and positive experience of your students keeps going.
Whichever position you teach first, it is always a good idea to mix it up in the later portion of the Intermediate and throughout the Advanced Divisions. Dancers become very good at pirouette in retiré but it's a different physical sensation to turn in cou-de-pied. Even if cou-de-pied is where they started, without practice the skill loses it's familiarity. I am a huge fan of (intentionally progressed) diversity in training. It trains dancers who are ready for any choreographic or artistic challenge.
Whichever position you teach first, it is important that everyone is teaching the same progression and everyone understands the reason why. Students cannot have clear technique if teachers are not following a clear plan.
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