Elegant Arabesques

The arabesque is my absolute favourite ballet move.

It's so graceful and elegant! And while it does require a lot of strength, what really makes it beautiful is the artistry that the dancer brings to it.

To help my dancers learn to Arabesque, I use this wee rhyme:

* Arms to the Sky (Stretch your fingers, imagine you are looking past your hands to the stars in the sky!)

* One to the Side (This is the arm position for First Arabesque)

* Foot to the back (With my Senior Ballerinas we can gently turnout our leg)

* Tap, tap, tap, (this ensures there is no weight being held on the back leg)

* One, two, three...lift! (How long can you balance before coming back down?)

With my Senior Ballerinas, we practiced lifting our leg while balancing on the barre (or back of a chair).

The aim isn't actually to lift it as high as you can, but rather that the leg is kept straight with a pointed toe. This can be a challenge for some of my older girls as they want to impress and kick their legs back as high to the sky as they can! So they need a little reigning in from me ;-)

For my younger students, we used ribbons attached to a bracelet that each child could wear on their wrists.

This helped draw attention to what their arms were doing and really encouraged them to extend their arms forward. My wee Baby Ballerinas were mesmerized, watching the colours of the ribbons, and my Junior and Primary Ballerinas worked so hard to make sure their ribbons were held out from their bodies.

Here is one of our Primary Ballerinas doing a stunning Arabesque!