En Avant September October 2022

ISSUE6

SEP - OCT 2022

DANCING

WITH

SPIRIT

editorial Hello, we are Aradhana and Maya, the Editors of En Avant.

This time, we have a special Halloween theme, Dancing with Spirit. Many of the features this time focus on the eerier aspects of ballet. We hope we don't give you nightmares!

Earlier this year we invited TLFCB students with the interest to share the extensive world of ballet with you all. We were were looking for team members with creativity and drive to join us at the helm of the TLFCB magazine. Now, we are simply delighted to introduce the extended En Avant team!

Hey! I'm

Arshia

For this issue, I have created the cover, inspired by Myrtha from Giselle. More about her in the first feature. I have also made a soft-pastel illustration for the article about pointe shoes.

Hi! I'm

Aashaya And I'm

Arpitha

We wrote an article called Ballet's Most Haunted, focusing on antagonists in ballet - some that are well-known and others that are less famous but worthy of note.

While writing this article, we discovered some incredibly distinct and innovative characters and performances that broadened our understanding of dance. Look out for a bonus interview with Carabosse!

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We also have a very special interview with Javier Wong - a student at The Royal Ballet School who did class at TLFCB for a couple of months during his summer break!

Hello! I'm

Anagha

I wrote and illustrated an article about cooldowns and their importance after a dance class. As a corollary, I also added a few tips on injury prevention.

Hey! I'm

Neerja

In this issue I wrote about the ambience of scary ballets. I watched some of them multiple times to identify the set, lighting, music and costume. It’s so interesting to see how a ballet is produced!

Hey! I'm

Aakanksha

For this edition of the En Avant magazine I wrote an article about the parts of a pointe shoe and also delved into how they came to be.

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Ballet Festival of India 2022 Where TLFCB was one of the host centres

Misty Copeland's birthday Watch ABT's first female African American principal

Polina Semionova's birthday Click here to watch her perform the Odette variation

Arthur Saint-Léon's birthday Giselle is one his most celebrated works. Click here to watch it

In Catherine de Medici's court the first ever ballet called Ballet Comique de la Reine was staged

OCT

Ballet with Pets Click here to see a montage of this fun filled day.

OCT

OCT

NOV

Halloween Feed your festive spirits for a spooky and exciting edition of En Avant

World Ballet Day Be on the lookout for live streams by dance companies from all over the world!

Haunted

BALLET'S MOST

By Aashaya Anand and Arpitha Bhat

Swan Lake is a story of love and betrayal; enchanting yet tragic, and a ballet most loved. Its central antagonist is Baron Von Rothbart, a selfish and cunning sorcerer who casts a spell on Odette and turns her into a swan.

The villains and antagonists we see in ballet represent our unfiltered emotions — rage, fury, envy and so on. Instead of suppressing these emotions, they embody them. They serve as more than just a means of conflict for the main character, often having more character than the protagonist themselves. In this article, we’re going to go over the complexities and intricacies of the antagonist in ballets — some more popular, some less.

His character is cruel and obsessive, proving to be a stark contrast to that of Odette’s; the white swan representing kindness and purity.

He often wears a winged costume with large feathers to seem almost owl-like, a representation of his true form. In some ballets, his costuming is less exaggerated: more human but with the feathers still present.

Odile

SWAN LAKE

Baron Von Rothbart SWAN LAKE

Damin Yusupov

His daughter Odile, also known as the Black Swan is considered an antagonist as well. She moves with a fierce elegance and is just as charming as her father.

Bill Cooper

But really, Odile is only a puppet in her father’s grand scheme.

Click here to watch Odile's variation!

Myrtha

Koschei

GISELLE

THE FIREBIRD

Jack Devant Tristram Kenton

Myrtha, from Giselle, isn’t just a villain.

Myrtha is what is created when a woman is wronged in such a cold and ruthless manner that she refuses to forgive or forget. She carries great malice and wrath with her everywhere she goes, but she’s also eternally weighed down by incredible sorrow from when she was betrayed.

Myrtha is queen of the Wilis - phantoms who died just before they were married, deceived and betrayed in their lifetimes. They don’t ever let go of their pain. Instead, they channel it into vengeance, double-crossing those who crossed them once. Like a forest fire, they thrill through the woods they inhabit, dancing passers-by to death.

“Myrtha is an exhausting role. When I would get tired my shoulders tended to go up, so I had to find a way to lift above my rib cage to make everything look simple and easy,” said Michaela DePrince, a dancer at the Boston Ballet.

When Myrtha emerges from the darkness, audiences go silent. She enters in a pale white dress to ominous music. She forms large movements with her body, almost floating over the stage in a ghostly manner.

Click here to watch Myrtha - Queen of the Wilis variation.

A Russian folk tale adapted into a ballet, The Firebird is about a mythical bird and a prince, Ivan Tsarevich, working together to take down a sinister sorcerer, Koschei the Deathless, and liberate thirteen princesses from his spell. Igor Stravinsky was the composer and genius behind the ballet. He masterfully orchestrated the soundtrack for this ballet, juxtaposing and blending themes of fantasy, realism and social commentary.

Koschei the Deathless cannot be killed. His soul is stored away in a needle, which is in an egg buried under an oak tree. No existing record of literature describes his appearance, so he had to be reimagined for the ballet. His body is devoid of a soul and he wears a red costume, appearing both sickly and scathing. His body moves in concert with the egg in which his soul is hidden. When the egg is tossed around, his body too gets thrown around.

When the needle snaps, so does he.

Click here to watch the Infernal Dance of King Koschei.

Ghost Dancers GHOST DANCES

Jane Hobson

Trapped in the liminal space between life and death, the Ghost Dancers are wretched and desperate to escape from their state of not-quiteexistence. Their costumes are heavily exaggerated — they wear torn clothes and body paint that highlights their bones, giving them a hollow appearance. They wear face masks that imitate those of the Mexican tradition, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

The Ghost Dancers symbolise those who were oppressed and murdered across South America in the 1970s. The ballet artistically paints a picture of the aftermath of the Pinochet Coup in Chile, where the citizens of Chile who met their deaths too early, still live on and on somewhere, even if we can’t see them. There is an image of a tribe that grinds the bones of the dead to make a soup that is then drunk, to illustrate how the dead live on in the living.

This ballet is powerful. The Ghost Dancers break and bend the boundaries of ballet, creating something entirely different out of it. Unlike most ballets, their movements do not appear effortless.

The heaviness of their pain isn’t meant to be hidden from the audience — it is blatant. And there is nowhere they can put this pain. So they carry it, in death as they did in life.

Click here to watch the full ballet.

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SLEEPING BEAUTY

Carabosse wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening, and this infuriated the wicked fairy.

She curses baby Aurora and declares that on her 16th birthday, she will prick her finger and die.

Her movements, mime and costuming encompass how truly terrifying this character can be. She wears a long cloak and a detailed dark dress, as well as a headpiece with or without two horns.

Carabosse isn’t afraid to show the betrayal and rage she feels as she leaps and soars across the stage with such power that could make the entire audience cower in fear!

Here we asked Ramya Manikam, who danced as Carabosse in TLFCB’s Sleeping Beauty in 2019, to talk about her experience playing the character.

LE IS PART TIC OF AR E TH

Carabosse is an evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty.

She makes her appearance to some of the ballet’s most exciting music. She is accompanied by her faithful minions: a group of sinister gargoyles that lurk in the shadows.

TH IS

Carabosse STUDENT SCOOP SERIES Send your own articles/ideas to enavant@tlfcb.org and you can be featured here too!

What was it like playing Carabosse?

I don't think I have ever enjoyed performing something more! For me personally, it was one of the roles I have always wanted to play the most and I was simply ecstatic when I got cast for it. I won't deny that trying to pull off such a big role can be very stressful, especially when it's a favourite. Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference between feeling excited and nervous. Playing Carabosse allows you to explore and push your performing limits to a wide extent. It’s a rare opportunity in classical ballet repertoire to get to play such a raging madcap, and I had an absolute blast!

What did you need to do to fully embody the character on stage?

As far as villains go, Carabosse is your archetype.

She has been portrayed for centuries across so many mediums of art, each with such strong characterisation, and I had to really dig deep to go the extra mile to see how best I could make this version my own while staying true to the essence of her character. You want to relate to the Carabosse you portray because anger and pettiness are very visceral emotions that are expressed best when they sprout from a place of familiarity.

Notice Car abosse's b lack pointe shoe s?

They were painted specially fo r the show .

Ballet pink is too pretty for Carabosse's wickedness!

It took a lot of attention to detail and repetitive practice. Through the months of rehearsal, I researched every portrayal of the character that I could find online, listened to the music on loop every chance I got, playing the character in my head, then seeing how that worked in front of a mirror, on video, and in the studio with the choreography. It was this constant repetition that helped me build a solid picture of the Carabosse I wanted to play. An interesting thing I discovered was that apart from my own daily angst, the literature, music, TV shows and even the kind of humour I was into was instrumental in shaping my interpretation of the character. Maybe the pop-culture you are exposed to has a big influence on how you intuitively express yourself.

It's really a balancing act between being mindful of who Carabosse is to the ballet and letting your wild, uninhibited side take over!

Something I enjoyed especially was how well written the entry music was for the character and the scene. It really pumps you up and leads the scene! Such sensational music demands high energy choreography and trying to physically rise to the level of the music really took the wind out of me the first couple of months. The most challenging part is throwing yourself into this character without sacrificing technique, bringing out your most intense acting skills while not forgetting that this is still classical ballet! A very large part of being able to pull this off requires you to be in the best of health physically and mentally.

I had to commit to getting myself into the studio as often as I could and practice, practice, practice!

There is no substitute and though sometimes that felt excruciatingly tedious, I wouldn't have otherwise gained the strength and muscle memory to support all the other aspects of my performance. Maintaining a supporting workout regime and ensuring my diet supplemented the energy I needed was also crucial because there really is no rest for the wicked, and no matter how present the character is in your head, she will not translate into adequate physical expression if you're exhausted before the piece is over.

What part about playing an antagonist did you enjoy the most?

I guess a lot of it really boils down to having the freedom to behave badly! There's a certain delight in making very wrong things look right. Carabosse gets the whole gamut from being arrogant, vindictive, furious, sadistic and even a bit immature. I read somewhere that 'there is nothing good about her!' Antagonists are usually written as very powerful characters and it makes you feel strong, albeit in a pretty terrible way. I remember Miss Yana telling me that I need to make myself appear larger than life, that I need to ooze evil from every part of my body and still make the audience love me! That really is the beauty of the stage - where you get to embody an over the top version of you, that may never be entertained in real life. It's a great release!

MEET

Javier is a student at the Royal Ballet School, London. Through August 2022 he attended ballet classes at TLFCB. Find out about his journey in the professional ballet school world.

In which schools have you trained? Which methods? And what are the differences you’ve noticed in the different schools you’ve been to?

When did you start dancing?

It’s been a really long time. I’ve been dancing since I was four years old, so I guess that makes thirteen years now.

What got you interested in dancing?

When I was little, I lived in Los Angeles, and there was a school a little far out from the city. There was a summer intensive that they were doing and I think it was two weeks long. We were always watching this show called So You Think You Can Dance, and one of the judges was Debbie Allen. She runs a dance school in Los Angeles. My parents found out that they were holding a summer intensive and thought they should put me in it. There I spent two weeks doing all sorts of different styles - flamenco, tap, ballet of course, jazz - anything you can think of.

At the end of two weeks there was a recital where we presented a dance from every single style.

After that my parents asked me if I wanted to continue dancing, and I said yes and chose ballet.

I have lived in a lot of places. I lived in Los Angeles. I lived in China for a while and then I moved back to Canada, where I’m from. In China, where I lived from when I was five to when I was eight years old, I was studying with a teacher in the Vaganova method. That’s when I started getting serious with ballet. I went three times a week. After that I moved to Canada. We spent a year looking for a school in Ottawa. We found a school, and they did the Cecchetti method. Cecchetti has very standardised exams which I had never done before, and was very different from the Vaganova method. I auditioned for the National Ballet School of Canada (NBS) which is the main ballet school in Canada. But it’s in Toronto, and I lived in Ottawa.

So I ended up moving away from home when I was eleven years old to go to this school. There it was their own method - it was a mix of all different things - Vaganova, Cecchetti, anything. After spending four years at NBS, I decided to audition for the Royal Ballet School, and that’s where I’ve been for the past year. There again it’s a mixture of styles. It’s very English, but it’s their own.

What are your dream roles?

I was thinking a lot about this question because I didn’t just want to say the big classical roles.

Obviously I want to do those roles… Romeo really sticks out to me. But also soloist roles, like in La Bayadère the Golden Idol. It’s just so exciting to be presented as a soloist. And the White Rabbit in

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Christopher Wheeldon. I just think acting and creating a real character is fun. That’s what I want to do. I want to really show to audiences, if I ever get the chance to, how I can build a character and understand the mind of that character. I feel like with a more in depth story like Romeo and Juliet or Onegin, the role of Eugene Onegin, would have a lot of character development, and I would really want the audience to see me put that in.

Ever since I was little, anytime someone put on music, I would just start moving. I’m one of those people that is always moving, and that's kind of why my parents decided to put me in that summer intensive. The way it feels on the body… you guys know… in class, doing something well feels so redeeming.

The feeling of having something to work on.

Ballet will never have an end goal. Even if you are a principal dancer you can still reach for more. In ballet you can just keep going further and further and the goals never end.

What do you find the hardest about ballet?

My teachers see me as a perfectionist. I see myself as a perfectionist too. So sometimes when I don’t get something right away it upsets me, and that brings me down. Keeping up my confidence, I wouldn’t say it’s a big struggle, but it’s something I have to work on. Everyone in ballet knows that you’re never going to be perfect. Every single turn is not going to work every single time.

Understanding that and moving on is a big part in keeping myself sane doing so much ballet.

What are the three things you enjoy most about ballet?

A big thing for me is definitely the storytelling.

It is a very, very diverse dance form, but the storytelling you can do with just dancing on stage is so interesting to me. I love when a dancer really portrays a character, when you can just tell a story even without knowing anything about the plot.

What are some performances?

of

your

memorable

I just finished my first year at the Royal Ballet School. We do a year end presentation. Every year it’s on the Royal Opera House main stage. Just standing there and thinking about how many iconic and legendary dancers have been on that stage…

Javier performed in this ballet with the Royal Ballet School

Raymonda, Compañia Nacional de Danza (Spain)

Swan Lake, St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre

Javier performed a waltz from this ballet

We were fortunate enough to perform Act III of Raymonda with the company’s set and costumes. Everything was from the Royal Ballet company. That inspired me to work hard and get to any company, really. My year was also involved in performing an excerpt from Frederick Ashton’s Swan Lake which was created at the Royal Opera House. It was a waltz. Performing that waltz on the stage where it was created with a live orchestra was a surreal experience, especially to have that background to it all. For sure the year end presentation was memorable.

What are some of the best things you’ve learnt or taken away being part of the Royal Ballet School?

I think for sure working with former dancers, wellknown former dancers in London is really good.

They’re professional dancers in the companies we all know of. They have so much knowledge and they know what it’s like to be in a company so they know how to train you and how you can work towards eventually getting hired.

Have you ever felt any kind of pressure for being a male dance student?

Have you been part of any ballet competitions?

I haven’t. In China I was doing private classes for three years and it was very hard training. When I moved to Canada we chose a school that just focused on Cecchetti, just hard, set Cecchetti curriculum so there were no competitions.

What has been your experience of coming to India and learning ballet here?

I’ve been so grateful to find a school here. It’s important for me to keep up my training even when I’m resting and to have a studio… I’m really grateful for it. Coming to The Lewis Foundation, I have been able to keep working. Having a teacher like Ms Yana is keeping me in shape! It’s different, every school is different.

I have been in the professional ballet school world for a while which means I only go to school with people doing ballet. But I do remember before I went to NBS I went to a normal school in my home city and there were people who made fun of me. Because I was a boy and it was made for girls only and all you do is go on your tiptoes… I did go through that. I didn’t know much about ballet back then, I didn’t know just how big the world of ballet is. Now I wish I could go back to them and tell them that what we do is so hard and physically demanding. Once you educate yourself about ballet, you won’t have anything to say.

There were people making fun of me, but I left normal school so I haven’t faced that at school.

Click h ere for som e startling new s a bout the b o ys in Javier's former school, Nationa the l Ballet School of C ana da.

Are there any noticeable differences between learning from a male teacher and a female teacher?

Yes… I’m happy you ask this. When you are in your younger years, you could get either a female or a male teacher. From Grade 6 to right before I left for the Royal Ballet School I had a female teacher. It was only in Royal that people told me that they had never had a female teacher. There are people who say that boys should only have a male teacher. While I do agree that it’s important to have a male teacher in your final years of school and you’re working to get into a company, I think having a female teacher as a boy in your younger years can be helpful for so many things.

Having both really helps. There’s nothing wrong with being taught only by a male or female teacher. I personally feel that having a female teacher helped me gain a lot of understanding in port de bras, and having a male teacher has also really helped.

Would you want to get en pointe?

Yes! A hundred percent! The ballet world is very much changing. I have heard from people that some companies support their male dancers trying pointe as exercises. It’s so strengthening for your ankles and your feet in general which can be really helpful because we do a lot of jumping. If I could have that as an option, I would take it. It sounds really helpful. People are doing it around the world.

What steps do you think ballet companies and schools should take to get more boys interested in ballet?

Branch out, show young boys what ballet for men is. We’re already doing that, but if there could be a way to really show the physically demanding parts of being a male dancer… pas de deux, the lifts, the crazy jumps. It shows how much we’re capable of doing, and to me that’s exciting. It excites me to see how much ballet lets us do physically. Obviously what I got a lot of was, ‘Oh, you just spin around,’ but it’s way, way more than that. There’s so much that ballet lets us do physically and I think showing that to them is the way to go.

+ E CLASS C N A D R AFTE S FOR SOME TIP an ha Madh

By Anag

ON TO THE STRETCHES

In class, you pay close attention to every detail of your dance. After class, however, it is tempting to head home without a proper cool down routine. But this is hard on our muscles since going from grand allegro to complete rest is a steep change. A good cooldown would flatten the curve and make this change more gradual. In our classes, we often do balancés, plies and/or port de bras before the révérence in order to begin the cooldown process.

Cooling down not only helps with recovery, it also reduces soreness since we’re gradually bringing our muscles into a state of rest and our heart rate down in a gentle manner. As dancers, we work the whole body, so it wouldn’t make sense to only stretch one part of the body after class. Here are a few simple cooldowns that don’t need much equipment, but are still immensely helpful: BEFORE STRETCHING It's imperative that we bring down our heart rate first before we begin stretching so it's a good idea to go slow and steady. Taking a walk around the studio to act as a mediator from intense exercise to more stationary stretches is advisable.

HYDRATE! Small sips of water before and after a cooldown do miracles. This not only makes up for fluid loss caused by sweating, but also regulates the body’s temperature.

ALL STRETCHES CAN BE DONE BEFORE CLASS, TOO!

PECTORAL STRETCH Place yourself next to a wall corner or door frame.

Bring your arm up against the wall with the elbow and shoulder bent at 90 degrees while maintaining a straight back and a strong core.

Draw the opposite shoulder back and your body in a straight line while keeping the arm firmly pressed against the wall.

Hold for 30 seconds, then do this three times with each arm.

EXTENDED CHILD'S POSE Kneel and sit on your feet, separating the knees to about your hip’s width.

Bend forward such that your arms are extended as much as possible with your palms facing down.

Now, come up onto your fingertips as if you are holding down something round and bring your chest down towards the floor.

Hold this position and then slowly roll back up.

Lunge Stretch To reach the hip flexor a bit farther, perform a lunge stretch. Your hands should be on the floor on either side of your right foot as you lunge forward with your right foot.

If possible, place your chest just inside your right thigh or slightly above it.

Be sure your right shin is straight.

Put your left leg straight behind you and plant your left foot's toes firmly on the ground.

Put your left knee on the ground.

Until your hip flexor gets a stretch, push your left hip toward the floor. Maintain the stretch for at least 20 seconds while breathing normally.

Stretch both legs two to four times more.

For an added stretch, bend into a cambré on either side.

HIP FLEXOR STRETCHES In order to loosen hip flexors as part of your cooldown, try some of the following stretches:

Standing Hip Flexor Stretch Using the ballet bar or a wall for support if necessary, put your weight on your right foot and stand tall.

Raise your left foot toward your buttocks while bending your left knee.

Grab the top of your left foot with your left hand as you reach behind you.

Maintain a tight knee bend with your left knee pointed down toward the floor.

To experience the hip flexor stretch, tilt your hips slightly forward.

Keep your stretch going for at least 20 seconds. On each leg, carry out the stretch two to four times.

HIP ABDUCTOR STRETCH Lying on your back, stretch your legs.

Bring your right knee into your chest.

Your thigh and your trunk should be at a 90degree angle.

Keep your left leg extended and your right knee bent.

Put your left hand on the right knee's outside.

Only move your right knee close enough to the midline of your body to experience a little stretch.

If you want a deeper stretch, try crossing the right knee over to the left side.

Hold for 20 to 30 seconds.

Repeat on the opposite side and do three sets on each side.

For an added stretch, extend the right knee outwards, extending the leg, to form the shape of the letter ‘K’.

Think of it like reaching your leg downwards as opposed to upwards Reach your other arm into the shape of a T.

CALF MUSCLE STRETCH To stretch out your calf muscles, which inarguably work super hard during a dance class: Start with your hands pressed against a wall.

Keep your hips square, with the front leg bent and the back leg completely straight in a lunge.

Turn your back leg in slightly to prevent rolling in.

Hold this stretch and repeat on the other leg.

To stretch another part of your calf muscles: Starting in the same lunge, bring your back leg closer to the wall.

Bend the knee, keeping the heel down and toes slightly turning in.

HAMSTRING STRETCH Stretch your legs out in front of you.

Bend one foot in so that the pad of your foot is touching the other leg.

Reach forward and try to touch your chest to your knees.

A FINAL REST To finish your cooldown routine, lie on your back and hug your knees to your chest. You can rock sideways, and forwards and backwards, to add a rolling effect on your back. After this, slowly roll up from your position.

A good cooldown routine is an important part of preventing injuries due to dance. In addition to this, here are a few more general tips and reminders for prevention of injuries; after all, prevention is better than cure, right?

Always warm up and cool down before and after class. It is crucial to remember that a cool down is just as important as a warm up for the body.

Eating well, sleeping well and staying hydrated throughout the day does wonders for the body in general, and it is especially important for dancers.

A good tip for preventing some common leg injuries is to increase calf muscle endurance.

Doing some single legged rises, even if it's just twelve on each side will help massively.

Another good tip in terms of strengthening the body is to strengthen the smallest muscles of the foot. A simple exercise to do this, using only a resistance band: Sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your knees and ankles bent at 90 degrees.

Your big toe should be wrapped and lifted in a resistance band without the other toes being raised.

Press that toe down to the floor, keep it there for a few seconds, and then slowly let go.

Do this ten times in total.

Once you're comfortable with the exercise, repeat it with your little toe, followed by your second, third, and fourth toes.

A very important part of prevention is awareness, so make sure to regularly read up about the latest evidence-based research. Our awareness regarding our own body will give us leverage and also won’t leave us in the dark if injuries do occur.

The most important tip on this list is to listen to your body. Remember that your body knows best. If it is complaining at any point, it is never a wise idea to just push through it. Getting it checked out and resting is better than having to go through a more severe injury.

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By Neerja Chandan

With Halloween around the corner, let us explore the ambience of three spooky scenes from ballets. Through sets, costume, make-up and costume, these scenes portray all the eerie things happening in the ballet’s storyline. Let us see how it is done!

First up - the Graveyard Scene from Giselle

Set

Costume

Giselle’s entry as a Wili takes place in the graveyard. The setting is mostly a deep dark background with gravestone props across the stage. The backdrop is the night sky filled with mist and sinister looking trees. Throughout the night, the darkness of the graveyard is portrayed with the lack of lighting on the scene. The little light there is is primarily on the dancers.

The Wilis, ghosts of dead women, are portrayed in white. Their costumes are long flowy white skirts that represent their ghost-like appearance.

Next - the scene in Petrushka's room from Petrushka

Set The scene is set in a dark room with little or no props. The walls portray the night sky filled with stars and a half-moon, abstract icebergs (or snow-capped mountains), and a prominent portrait of the Charlatan (Petrushka's master).

Costume Petrushka wears a red cap, white blouse and chequered trousers. All the costumes take inspiration from puppetry shows and traditional Russian references as well.

Make-up Petrushka’s make-up is horrifying for a jester-like puppet. He has intentionally been made to look scary to support the story line. Petrushka’s face is painted white with hints of red near his cheeks.

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The scene happens in a fog-shrouded part of the forest. The background has dark tree silhouettes and there is a cauldron that the witches dance around. A lot of special effects and smoke are used.

Costume

And finally - the witches in the forest scene from La Sylphide

Set

The witches wear rag-like clothes shredded and torn in asymmetrical layers. The costumes emphasise their evil, destructive and freakish nature. Other costumes include white dresses with white flower crowns and tiny fairy wings for the sylphs and costumes inspired by traditional Scottish clothes.

Jokes & fun facts Being en pointe doesn’t just look impressive – it’s also an incredibly difficult skill to master. That’s because of the strain that it places on a dancer’s toes. Whenever a ballerina is en pointe, you see, she is carrying three times the weight of her body on just her big toe. .

Where do fortune tellers dance?

At the crystal ball

Although most ballerinas have retired by the age of 40, that was not the case for Charin Yuthasastrkosol. In fact, she only started learning ballet when she was 47 years old. She even went on to land the Guinness World Record in 2002 for being the oldest performing ballerina at the age of 71.

I didn't fall!

It was a tombé.

Male ballet dancers' core, arms and legs have to be in peak physical condition. The weight of ballerinas they lift is the equivalent of between 1 and 1.5 tons each show. By contrast, a weightlifting competition would see the heaviest male competitors lift a total of around half a ton across two events.

What’s a vampire’s favourite dance?

The Fang-o!

THE PARTS AND PAST OF

By Aakanksha Mukherjee

Have you ever wondered how in Swan Lake Odette seems to be flying across the stage as though she truly were a swan with wings gliding through the sky? Or how in The Nutcracker during The Waltz of the Snowflakes the dancers float and drift around seamlessly emulating the movements of snowflakes during snowfall?

While dancers train extremely hard for these roles and focus on technique and performance, there is one special tool that helps them achieve this magical effect. This is the pointe shoe - a shoe made specially for the art of ballet, allowing dancers to completely have their weight and elevate themselves on the tips of their toes!

SHOES

Dancers of this art were constantly trying new methods and techniques to make their ballet look weightless and light. In stride to achieve this, in 1795, Charles Didelot created an invention he liked to call the “flying machine”, which was in the simplest of terms a rope and pulley system that would lift dancers up and allow them to stand on their toes. The ethereal quality this machine gave to dancers soon became a crowd favorite, both amongst the audience as well as choreographers who involved this machine in more and more dances and pushed the boundaries of ballet.

Now before we look at how ballerinas are able to achieve such an impossible feat and what goes into making a pointe shoe, let us look at the history of pointe shoes in ballet and how this invention came into being.

The Past of Pointe Shoes During ballet’s creation in the courts of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, dancers wore heeled shoes in line with the era’s aesthetic. However, in the 1730s a ballerina by the name Marie Camargo became the first to switch to the soft soled and unheeled ballet flats, thus giving her the ability to perform leaps and jumps.

The machine was used to lift dancers on to pointe as well as right up into the air!

In the 19th century, emphasis on technical skill to rise en pointe without the aid of wires was worked on. Ballerinas wished to be able to rise on their toes without the machine. Marie Taglioni was the first to achieve this feat when she danced La Sylphide en pointe, with simple ballet flats that had been darned at the sides and around the toes to give her extra support.

Pavlova

While in the 19th century pointe shoes had been used to differentiate fairies from mortals in ballets, in the 20th century, famous choreographers like George Balanchine tested the limits of how pointe shoes could be used to enhance their dances.

Taglioni

Later in the 19th century, Italian shoemakers developed reinforced pointe shoes with stiff boxes made from newspaper, flour paste and pasteboard. The shoes’ cardboard insoles were reinforced with leather to give more support to a dancer's foot.

The creation of the modern pointe shoe is credited to Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina of the early 20th century. Pavlova had particularly high and arched insteps (the inner part of the foot between the ball of the big toe and the ankle) as well as slender, tapered feet. To compensate for this, she inserted toughened leather soles into her shoes for extra support and flattened and hardened the toe area to form a box, similar to pointe shoes used in ballet today.

In recent years scientific approaches to pointe shoe construction and training have helped the shoe adapt to contemporary choreographic demands. In 1993, Gaynor Minden launched a shoe inspired by the shock-absorption found in athletic footwear, opening the door for other designers to experiment with modern materials to improve shoes’ durability and fit. There has also been emerging research in dance medicine to make pointe work safer.

There has also been a historic change that we see now with the colour of the shoes as well as who can wear pointe shoes. In the early 1970s, Dance Theatre of Harlem began customising the company dancers’ tights, pointe shoes and ribbons in shades of brown to match their skin tones. This helped elongate the shape of ballerinas legs and help them create beautiful lines while dancing. The effect was revolutionary for classical ballet. But it isn’t until recently that pointe shoe manufacturers have started releasing shades that reflect the diverse skin tones of the dancers wearing them. Gaynor Minden released a collection of inclusive satin shades in 2017. The following year, Freed of London followed suit, in collaboration with the London-based dance company Ballet Black. While the change taking place may be taking time, it has opened up conversations on inclusivity and the diversity of this art form. Most importantly, redefining what a pointe shoe looks like breaks down a longoutdated construct and makes ballet more accessible and welcoming to all.

The Parts of Pointe Shoes 1. The flat end part of the shoe is referred to as the platform which allows the dancer to balance and perform pointe work.

2. The box is the part of the shoe that encases the toes.

Similarly, in the past, male dancers only danced en pointe for comedic effect in roles like Bronislava Nijinska’s 1924 Les Fâcheux. But now we can see more male dancers attempting pointe work as a means of strengthening their art and making the shoe more accessible for people of all genders.

3. The vamp covers the top of the foot and the metatarsals, which are the muscles in our toes that help dancers stand en pointe. The vamp has an enclosed piece of circular drawstring elastic running around the whole shoe which enables a dancer to increase the tightness of the shoe and prevent the shoe slipping off the back of the heel.

4. The shank is the insole of the shoe and some professional dancers often modify their shoes by cutting off certain amounts of the shank close to the heel in order to further increase flexibility of the shoe and allow them to dance and point their feet better.

5. The outer sole is usually made from leather and is the part of the shoe which is in contact with the floor when the dancer is standing in a flat foot position.

6. The wings are the two symmetrical sides of the vamp, towards the platform.

7. The ribbons help dancers secure the shoe to their foot correctly and this will ensure the shoe stays on the foot.

8. Elastics also hold the shoe in place. They are usually over the ankle, as in regular ballet flats, but some shoes may have a second elastic closer to the box. Sometimes the elastics may be crossed as well.

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Art by Ashia Mehra

Leotard Hunt!

Battu has stolen and hidden the ballerina's leotards! Help her find them by showing her the way through the maze.

Solution

Inspiration Click to watch these snippets of ballet's eeriest moments for chills down your spine

CARABOSSE The fiendish mime piece from one of ballet's quintessential villains Carabosse from Sleeping Beauty

MEDUSA A clip from contemporary choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's evolution of the classic Greek tale

FRANKENSTEIN Look out for the great set and costume design in this mime scene from Liam Scarlett's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel

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Read What the New Yorker had to say about Akram Khan's groundbreaking Giselle

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