Back to Basics

[Prudence Warner]

Prudence walked into the dance studio, she was wearing an olive leotard, grey knit shorts, a pink wrap front sweater and pink leg warmers along with her pink ballet pointe shoes. She was normally dressed in the same uniform that she asked her students to arrive in, but had decided to shake things up a little today, and she preferred to wear pointe shoes over slippers, but didn't give her students the choice, they were only allowed to wear slippers in dance class. She turned the music on and took her time warming up her own muscles so that she was stretched and ready for when the class arrived.

She was excited that the class number had grown quite a bit, and that a few of them were male nonetheless. She had sent a note to all of her new students telling them of the uniform that they were expected to wear to her classes: girls needed to be in a black leotard and pink tights, and the boys had a choice of wearing white or black leotard or shirt, with black tights or a black unitard. All students however, needed to arrive with ballet slippers, any who came with only pointe shoes would, today, dance in bare feet, the next time they would observe the lesson from the benches.

She had only just finished when the students began entering the studio and when she was sure they were all accounted for she smiled warmly. "Welcome one and all." She said. "For those that don't know me, I am Ms Warner. I ask that you all find yourselves a spot at the barre and we will begin." She waited for them to position themselves at the bar. She walked over to the stereo and pushed play. "Starting in first position with demi-pliés.. grand pliés.. on to slow tendu.. now tendus in fifth, which are a little faster with degages... On to piqués and we will finish with a balance at the barre.. then onto ron de jambe with these, I would like you to include some lunges and port a bras and finish with a balance in arabesque to stretch out the back muscles... Next we do frappe... on to grand ronds de jambe... Take some time to do Barre stretch... And we'll finish with grand battements..."

As the students worked through the movements, Prue walked down the line of dancers, fixing the odd posture here and there, tweaking how the head was sitting, how a hand was positioned, the arch of the back, the angle of the leg; things that were often forgotten whilst the dancer was thinking about her next move.

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Students:
@running7
@kate

Athena Achilles
Elizabeth Toman
Gretchen Holmes
@neighneigh
Katja Eder
Marguerite Girardeau

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This is the warm-up

No one here is a principal dancer, so everyone will have at least one thing that needed correction - something to think about as you reply

[Athena Achilles]

Athena raced out of class as soon as they were dismissed and made her way over to the gymnasium. Slipping into the locker room, she quickly changed out of the jeans and sweater she was wearing and pulled on her tights and leotard. She then slipped her feet into her slippers, put her clothes in her gym locker and then made her way down to the dance studio.

Now that she had been at the Academy for a while, it was getting easier and easier to lose herself in dance class, allowing a little more of her passion to make its way to the surface. She made a mental note to herself to began working on her ballet conditioning again. She knew that she would never go back to ice skating on a professional level, that career had died when she moved to the States, and she had no interest in becoming a professional dancer, but that was no excuse to allow her body to losing all the toning of a dancer that she had worked so hard to develop over the years. Entering the studio, she smiled toward their teacher and waited for class to start.

Finding herself a spot in the middle of the barre, she balanced her left hand gently on the rail and easily followed the woman's instructions, trying to keep her turnout as best as she could. She jumped as she felt a slight pressure on her shoulders and the small of her back. She had been so focused on her turnout that she had forgotten about her posture. Straightening her back, dropping her shoulders and lifting her stomach, she continued with the warm-up.

[Elizabeth Toman]

Libby strode out of class and made her way to the gymnasium, where she got changed into her ballet uniform, slipped on her flats and shoved her clothes into her gym bag. It kind of annoyed her that she didn't have a locker in the main locker rooms, but she did have one in the gymnastics studio and she guessed that was the important part.

Flouncing out of the changing rooms and into the dance studio she looked around with a haughty look, almost as though she was surprised that everyone wasn't bowing to her. After all, she was the Queen of the beam. She tapped her foot, impatient for the class to get started.

Finding a spot for herself at the barre, she glared that the person who stood behind her and opened her hips easily into first position. She guessed that being a gymnast came in handy for dancing as she had no problems with turnout or flexibility. She worked her way through each of the exercises as Ms Warner called them out. She growled as the woman placed a hand on her stomach and back, pressing slightly to remind her to hold posture. "Get your hands off me." She growled lightly, feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment, though she instantly corrected her posture so that she looked like even more of a snob than she did before.

[Marguerite Girardeau]

Meg was more excited than anything to attend her first dance class. However she had needed to do some preparing, She'd called her mother she moment she found out what the uniform here was different than what she was used to. It didn't take long for her mother to ship her the black leotard she was missing, as well as her well-loved/worn ballet flats that she hadn't brought to school with her, thinking she wouldn't need them. Her mother promised her a new pair for her birthday, but she had no problem with these ones for now. 

Changing into the uniform and carefully pulling her hair into a ballet bun, she made a final check in the mirror before rushing from the locker rooms to the dance studio. She smiled brightly at the teacher, and waited patiently for their instructions on what to do first. Her smile faded slightly when she found out they would be doing barre work. It wasn't unexpected, she'd had to do her fair share of barre work in Paris too, but it was very dull and boring. 

Finding a place on the barre, she began the movements with slow and practiced precision. They were movements she'd done over and over and over again when back in Paris, hoping to someday audition for the Corps de Ballet at the Paris Opera. Her mother had told her she was well enough to take the exam now, but she was too young and didn't fully believe she was ready. And indeed she wasn't, her arms and hands still needed correcting, as she tended to hold them a little stiffly. She didn't even notice it, it just sort of happened. Her balance while good, was far from perfect as her leg began to tremble trying to hold her balance for more than a few moments.

As she began her barre stretches, she allowed her eyes to wander down the line of dancers. Many of them didn't seem as highly trained as Meg, but they seemed nice enough and were working quietly. Well, many of them. There were some that seemed to think they were far better than they were, and that irritated Meg to her core. No one was better than anyone else, certainly not the girl who was snapping at the teacher even though her posture was clearly sloppy. Shaking the thoughts out of her head, Meg focused instead on her Grand Battements to finish the exercise. 

[Katja Eder]

Katja left her previous class and hurried to the gymnasium, specifically, the girls' locker room, to change. It only took her a couple of minutes to get her 'uniform' on, before she brushed out her hair with her fingers and twisted it up into a quick, somewhat neat bun, which would stay, and be out of the way, for the duration of the class.

Once that was done, she left the locker room and headed towards the classroom, smiling at Meg as she spotted the French girl. Once they were given their instructions, to line up at the barre, Katja complied, finding a place somewhere that wasn't quite the back, but couldn't be classified as the middle either. She followed the teacher's calls relatively easily, the words were the same wherever one practiced, and as Ms. Warner came by, allowed her hand's position to be corrected. As they moved on, Katja tried to keep better check of her hand position, something that she'd often forget about, but still keep her posture nice, which was a hard thing for her. However, as they finally finished, she felt like she had done, if not well, at least passably, and she finished the battements with care to her position.

[Gretchen Holmes]

Gretchen changed into her ballet uniform in her room, tying her hair up in as neat a ballet bun as she could manage, before pulling her jeans and a sweatshirt over it. She tossed her ballet flats in a bag before pulling on her riding boots. She planned to go from ballet straight to the barn to visit Pegasus and Bahir, Pegasus in particular had gotten a bit muddy in the paddock and needed a good cleaning. 

Once she was dressed, she headed to the dance studio where several girls were already ready. She pulled her jeans and sweatshirt off, stuffing them into her bag and pulling out her ballet flats. She put her bag and boots well out of the way before pulling on her slippers and heading out onto the floor to join everyone else. She smiled and said a quiet hello to the teacher, and patiently listened to their instructions. 

She found herself a spot on the barre towards the end of of the row of dancers and began her pliés, focusing on keeping her head up and her posture straight. Her turnout and leg position needed constant correcting, but it was alright with her. She'd never had the best turnout, and flexibility for her was something she needed to work extremely hard on. She just wasn't naturally flexible, she wasn't sure why, and it frustrated her quite a bit when it seemed to come so easily and naturally to everyone else. But still, she tried her hardest to keep her legs straight and her feet turned out, stretching as far out as she could manage while still being careful not to injure her muscles. 

[Deleted]

Julius quickly changed into dance clothes that fit the required uniform and headed into the dance studio.  He saw only girls, when he walked in.  He had no problem with girls.  He had had classes in which he was the only boy, a couple of times, but there were usually at least a couple of boys.  He knew that it shouldn't bother him, but sometimes it was a little annoying that there were so many more ballerina's then there were danseur's.    

He was not surprised to see that they were starting off with barre exercises, as they almost always did at his previous dance school.  He liked how barre exercises were good for warm-ups and for practicing technique and developing focus, but ballet was more fun and easier to lose himself in off the barre. 

Julius picked a spot on the bar.  After the teacher spoke, he started working on the combination.  He was surprised, toward the beginning when the teacher actually touched him to correct his arm movement.  His previous ballet teacher would just shout out when someone needed to correct something, which was really embarrassing, but this way was embarrassing too.  He tried to focus better.  He had a minor slip up on one of his piques, but he just kept going as if that hadn't happened and he didn't slip up again.