Pas de Basque

Teaching Ballet is a challenge.  Students come from school, where the intellect is addressed, and they expect to be taught with the same methods, which does not work for dance.

Try to explain Pas de Basque.  I started with the country, or peasant version, which is similar to the "Pony" we used to do in the sixties.  Quite tricky, shifting, but not totally stepping onto each foot, a step you learn by seeing someone else doing it, and do it, too.  You can't really learn it slowly.  The rhythm is important, because if you take a lot of time you will put your weight onto the foot, whereas the faster you go, the more likely you will just barely weight the foot, doing it correctly.  Obviously it can be taught by watching, by visualizing it, and by doing it to music with others around doing it, too.
So try to write it down and learn it from a memo?   Maybe Labanotation would be able to convey the motion, since it writes down the entire movement as would notes on a staff.

When I went to College in Colorado Springs, for the summer modern dance program, that was one of the courses I studied.  It was fascinating, but you needed to continue practicing reading and writing in Labanotation to be really proficient.

Rudolf Laban

Sample Labanotation

It annoys me that my spell check will not recognize the word, labanotation, although it is a heading in Wikipedia, and that Rudolf Laban, the founder, is well known throughout the world.

Pas de Basque has many variations besides the peasant style.  I tried to convey the different forms, without doing them.  First the students did not feel the relationship between the steps and the variations.  They could not get the scheme of it all.  Then they could not get the idea of the larger jumps and the timing of the "hitch kick" pas de basque.  It is at times like that you need a video machine, amazing visualization abilities, or one students who can be "in your mind".  I had neither last night.  It was like trying to swim through a pool of chocolate pudding.  Mucky with little success.

I wonder how many teachers complain of their failures.  I think I should stop teaching since I can no longer dance, jump, or demonstrate.  I still love to teach, I know what we need to bring to the students, and I love to see each student's progress.  It is just so wonderful when they "get" what you have been working toward!


That challenge is to bring the true movement of the Pas de Basque, the mental pictures of flying and emoting dancers, that create amazing art on the move out of my brain onto the stage of the studio.  How is that possible....when words, visualizations, explanations,  mental telepathy and esp  all fall short!