En Avant Student Magazine - March April 2022

I S S U E 3

MAR - APR 2022

PEEK

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Hi Everyone! Welcome to the third issue of En Avant! In this magazine, we’ll be looking back in time. We hope you find some interesting nuggets about the past as you flip through this issue.

Absolutely. In this issue, we have our second Teacher Feature - with Mr Peter! We had our own students send in questions they wanted to ask Mr Peter about his ballet journey. In addition to that, we have a quiz about common ballet mistakes, see if you can spot them!

We also have an article on the fascinating history of ballet costume. Take a journey from the 1500s to the present day, with tutus of varying lengths, breeches, doublets, the first pointe shoes, bodysuits and more! All through some wonderful vintage costume illustrations.

We then look back to the late 1990s, to when TLFCB started to form. We have an article with lots of curious information about how Miss Yana began teaching ballet in India and how that eventually became TLFCB.

Along with that, we have some hilarious jokes, fascinating facts as well as some ballet pieces to inspire your dance journey!

We also have some special Earth Day themed content to show how you as a dancer can contribute to saving the planet.

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With all of this exciting content it really is a jam packed issue this summer, go on and enjoy your peek into the past!

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Marius Petipa's birthday Click here to find out about this French choreographer

Rudolf Nureyev’s birthday Click here to find out about this Russian ballet dancer

World Theatre Day Click here to find out more about the significance this day

Earth Day Click here to find out how you can do your part in saving the planet as a dancer

Ballet on the Big Screen We watched two ballets by Christopher Wheeldon. Click here for details

APRIL

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Darcey Bussell's birthday Click here to watch a performance of this former principal with The Royal Ballet

International Dance Day Click here to find out about the importance of this day

Choreography Competition Be sure to participate in TLFCB's choreography competition 2022! Click here for more details

s t e l l a B g n i h W a tc TEACHER FEATURE

LOOK OUT FOR THE QUESTIONS SENT IN BY STUDENTS!

ON HIS DANCE JOURNEY

What got you interested in learning dance at TLFCB? The first time I saw the Yana Lewis Dance Company (YLDC) dance in Cubbon park, Miss Yana taught a few jazz steps in a workshop after the performance. I was in the audience, and I loved the whole experience. When I got an opportunity to learn from Miss Yana, I was the happiest person. Her classes made ballet interesting and fun so I decided to continue dancing.

What did you feel like when you did your first ballet class?

I was a bit confused. It felt like a mime class because I could not understand English and Miss Yana didn't know Kannada or Tamil. I managed to keep up by copying the other students and following them throughout class. The experience of the dance studio - the mirrors on the walls and seeing myself dancing in those mirrors, and the dance floor were all an unforgettable experience for me.

TH IS

What was the first role played on stage? What was your favourite role?

I played the Prince’s companion in TLFCB’s 2013 production of Cinderella. I was one of three companions. My favourite role was the Beast from Belle and the Beast in 2017. It was a role that included a lot of acting and energy, and I really enjoyed that.

E TH

What was a correction that you were alwaysCLgetting?

IS PAR TO I E RT A My correctionsF keep changing over time.

My present corrections include holding STUDENT SCOOP my hips up, keeping my bum lifted, and SERIES pulling up my knees. Some of those Send your own articles/ideas to enavant@tlfcb.org corrections have been the same for a and you can be featured here too! long time, but Miss Yana gives more and

and more detail in each correction as I become more experienced.

continued on the next page.

When and why did you decide to start teaching/assisting at TLFCB? After my BA I decided to be a teacher for two main reasons. Firstly, I love ballet and enjoy classes, rehearsals and performances. I also love to share whatever I have learned from Miss Yana with others. Secondly, I am not the kind of person who can sit in one place and work. I need to move.

What is being a ballet teacher like?

It's actually really a lot of fun. There are some guidelines that I have to follow, such as preparing for the classes that I am teaching one day in advance. This helps me stay organised. Being a ballet teacher also means turning myself into new characters in the younger children’s classes according to the theme or emphasis of the teaching on that day. I really love and enjoy teaching.

Please share your jumping journey, were you always able to jump very well or did it come later? What is your favourite jump? Or one that took a lot of work to master?

(Shilpa, Grade 2) While jumping I feel like I'm playing, and I have always loved it. I get energy when people are around and watching me, and I will make sure I do my best especially when I have an audience. All jumps are my favourite; I find it very hard to choose just one. You don't need to be a master at jump ing to love it all you need

to do is love jumping, work hard and feel like you're flying. While jumping in class make sure you're the first person to start and last person to stop.

What is it like, being a teacher and a student at the same time?

Ballet is something which requires continuous practice and dedication. I am blessed to be a student and teacher at the same time. I consider myself a student forever; there is always so much to learn from Miss Yana.

What inspired you to become a ballet dancer ?

(Asmi, Grade 1) There was a dancer called Sid. He was working with Miss Yana at the time. He taught me ballet when I was young and I got inspired by him and decided to become a ballet dancer like him.

Why doesn't Mr Peter wear a ballet costume during the class? (Swara, Pre-primary) Boys and girls have different costumes. I wear the male ballet uniform.

Was doing ballet difficult physically or were you born with flexibility? Who do you look up to in the industry? (Akanksha, Grade 2) It was a bit difficult when I started ballet because I was not flexible at all. I used to stretch in the kitchen and in the early morning I would be lifting tables around the house to get strength.

I look up to Miss Yana, but I have a different vision for myself. After getting a lot of experience from teaching and once I am financially stable then I will be travelling to villages around India to teach dance. I will share my knowledge of ballet with them. I will go to a random village, teach the kids for a week and then move to the next village.

Who knows, maybe I will find some future professional ballet dancers along the way.

Mr Peter at the beginning of his ballet journey

Spot the Mistake

What is it like to be a teacher? Let's find out!

| 1

What is wrong with this demi plié? a) It's too deep b) It's turned in c) The ankles are rolling

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What is wrong with this relevé fifth? a) The back leg is turned in b) The front leg is turned in c) The toes are scrunched up

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What is wrong with this demi bras? a) The fingers are curled b) The elbows are sagging c) The elbows are too straight

Click here to play this online

4|

What is wrong with this spring pointe position? a) The toes are not pointed b) The ankle is dropping, the foot is sickled c) The supporting leg is turned in

5| | 6

What is wrong with this second position? a) The weight is in the heels b) The thighs are not pulled up c) The hips are pulling backwards

What is wrong with this dégagé derrière? a) The weight is on the back leg b) The legs are turned in c) The knees are bent

1c | 2a | 3b | 4b | 5a | 6a |

Answers

ET BALL ES G A E TH H G U THRO

When you watch a ballet performance there are a million things that tell you what is going on: the music, the scenery, the lighting, the choreography… But what the dancers are clad in plays an enormous part in your experience. The Nutcracker’s Mouse King wouldn’t be quite so frightening were he dressed in a suit and a tie!

Here we take a look at how ballet costumes have evolved through the ages.

Ballet began in the Italian courts of the 1500's. The dancers in these early ballets were mostly noble amateurs. Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers, but they restricted performers' freedom of movement.

In the 1700's, ballet was becoming more and more popular. In France as well as Italy, dancers traditionally wore heeled shoes, men wore the costume à la Romaine, or tonnelet, a stiff, wired skirt of brocade or similar material, resembling in shape the modern tutu.

Women wore heavy costumes reminiscent of court dress, with elaborate trains, wigs, jewels and heeled shoes.

This was what the Western world thought of as an 'Oriental Savage'

Male and sometimes female dancers wore leather masks, comic or tragic in appearance, that represented the character portrayed and concealed all facial expression.

In the early 18th century female dancers began shortening their skirts to show off their lovely footwork and a new heel-less shoe was worn, some dancers also began removing the leather masks that so restricted their facial expressions.

By the late 18th century, choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre appeared on the scene and managed a complete costume reform. The panniers (overskirts draped over an existing skirt to add volume) and hoop skirts abhorred by Noverre were finally discarded in favour of clinging tunics inspired by Grecian robes. The leather masks were done away with entirely.

Among other innovations were tights in 1790, which allowed the freedom of movement to develop new steps, and shoes with blocked toes in about 1820, enabling female dancers to dance en pointe.

Ouch, these shoes look painful!

They have next to no support!

Men in the 1800's wore doublets and breeches similar to regular fashions of the day.

Marie Taglioni introduced the Romantic tutu in 1832, a multilayered skirt reaching to midcalf, which by the 1880s was shortened to reveal the whole leg.

This tutu became the standard costume in the 1900's.

Zoom in on the amazing detailing of these costumes

Through the late 18th and the 19th centuries the tutu was shortened gradually, as footwork became increasingly intricate. By 1870, a new, stiffer style of tutu, called the Classical tutu developed. It sat high above the knee and came with ruffled knickers for modesty.

A vintage poster for Aladdin :)

For Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in the late 1870s, an even shorter skirt was needed to allow for the jumps, and a flared garment that barely covered the behind caused a minor scandal.

Quickly dubbed the Pancake for its flat, wide shape, it was held with hoops and 10 layers of netting. It soon became the style worn by prima ballerinas to show off their strength and skill.

In the 1900’s, the influence of orientalism had spread from fashion to the stage and vice versa. Indeed, fashion designers like Jean Poiret had already used the tunic shape taken up by dancers in the prewar era, and, in the 1920s, costume designers updated classical Russian story ballets with exotic tunics and veils wrapped around the body.

Ballet dancers were dressed in loose harem pants, and turbans, rather than in the established tutu and feather headdress.

Zoom in on this too!

The 1950s saw another tutu shape emerge – the Powder Puff, which did away with the hoops, and used modern fabrics to create and retain its shape.

In the late 1900’s a new style began to develop with dancers performing in leotards and tights, bodysuits, male dancers often bare-chested. Tutus and doublets were still in use but mainly for the older classical ballets. Modern ballets now had their own look and feel. © Foteini Christofilopoulou 2019

We screened excerpts from this ballet and another on 23rd April at TLFCB's HQ! Lauren Cuthbertson and Ryoichi Hirano in Within the Golden Hour, The Royal Ballet © 2019 ROH. Photograph by Tristram Kenton

That was our costume journey through the ages. Stay tuned for more features on the less celebrated aspects of ballet: the music, scenery, lighting and more.

Were you there?

Jokes and fun facts What is a dancer's favourite sweet?

A barre of chocolate

In the western Romanian city of Timisoara, police officers learnt ballet! The police chief signed the officers up for classes to help them move more gracefully while directing traffic so that drivers could have something to smile about in the stressful traffic.

What do you call dancing by the sink?

Tap dancing

Some theatres have blue lights at the back to help dancers spot as they turn to help them stay on balance and not get dizzy.

What do dance teachers and angry parents have in common?

They both tell you to check your attitude

Most professional dancers use three to five pairs of pointe shoes a week. Some dancers may even use up to three pairs a day!

TLFCB As promised in the last issue of En Avant, here is the story of how Miss Yana began teaching in India and the events that led up to the creation of The Lewis Foundation of Classical Ballet.

It is 1999, in a small village on the Kashmir - Pakistan border. A group of children are playing together when suddenly a strange, foreign woman with shiny golden hair steps out of a house and joins them.

Bending and stretching, jumping and skipping, she teaches them movements that they have never done, or for that matter, seen before. Slowly the adults, and finally the village elders join in. This remote village, today well inside Pakistan, has just had its first ballet lesson.

This foreign woman was, of course, Yana Lewis and that day in 1999 was the first time she taught ballet in India. She was 37 and had sold her flourishing ballet school in England and had come to India for a yoga event, finally deciding to make her home here.

Miss Yana was travelling in Kashmir when the local family she was staying with asked her whether she wanted to visit the furthest point you could visit in Kashmir at the India-Pakistan border. "I had to have a letter to prove the family were not kidnapping me and taking me there! It was on the edge… On the edge of war. I stayed there overnight and all the children came to see me, to touch my hair and have a chat! I ended up teaching the whole village ballet, which was a little bit surreal!"

After that, Miss Yana began to teach ballet in India. She didn’t initially intend to teach - she was travelling through India and watching performances of all kinds of Indian classical dance. "I’ve literally travelled from Kerala to Ladakh, and kind of studied dance… not studied it, but gone and sat with people and explained what I did and watched them teaching and all of that… not a structured thing, but wherever I went."

The first structured course that she taught in India was soon after her stay in Kashmir, in the National Centre for Performing Arts in Bombay. Miss Yana taught a three-week long workshop for Indian classical dancers on the integration of points between ballet and Indian classical dance. External rotation is

required in all Indian classical dance forms, and Miss Yana discovered that many dancers were struggling with knee and lower back problems because they were unable to access their turnout completely and therefore forcing it to make it look right. Using ballet, she taught the dancers how to externally rotate from the thighs, not just the feet.

The main objective of this workshop was to help Indian classical dancers use ballet technique for remedial purposes and to prevent injury. “It was lots of fun, they were really good dancers,” she says about her first workshop. “They bought me gunghroos… and they wanted me to do ballet with those on at the end. I did and they were sooo heavy, it was like dancing with ankle weights plus they were jingling all over the place!”

Miss Yana passed through Bangalore on her way to the event with her yoga guru in Pune. In Bangalore she met many dancers, not just Indian classical dancers, and they all asked her to teach them ballet. At the time she couldn’t - she had to go to the event - but she promised them she would, and and all the time she was travelling up through South India to Pune and then further up to Kashmir, this promise was in her mind. Six months later it brought her to Bangalore. She taught a lot of dancers who were with Attakkalari at the beginning, as well as other performers. They were all established dancers who were trying to break out and do something different and they explored ballet to add new flavours to their work.

Miss Yana then continued to teach ballet all over the country. She went back to Bombay, returned to Bangalore and visited a number of places all over India to teach. She has even taught Terence Lewis and his entire company ballet! She mostly taught short courses, so that she could be off on her travels again. Soon enough, her students were asking her to come back and teach them again, and she would return and do another short course.

Through these courses she met and worked with many professional dancers who were curious to learn classical ballet.

Not only that, it’s through these courses that she first taught Miss Elina and Miss Sushmitha! Miss Yana taught classes and courses for other schools and dance centres as well, including some of the early teachers of ballet in India like M S Sreedhar and Tushna Dallas. She conducted these short courses for a couple of years, but then she started spending more time in Bangalore. The courses started getting longer and longer “I had more and more students who wouldn’t ever really let me go!”

In those years, when ballet was unfamiliar to most of the people in the country, Miss Yana recalls that many students used to ask her if The Nutcracker was Barbie’s music. "Kids would come up to me saying “This is Barbie’s music, Miss Yana!” and I said “Mhm. No, this is Tchaikovsky." For me that was really weird, more weird than you can imagine.”

Through the years when she was renting studios in different parts of Bangalore for

her classes, she encoun -tered all sorts of conditions. Holes in the floor, nothing to use as a ballet barre, malfunctioning sound systems, no windows at all, freezing AC that you couldn’t adjust. So, in 2014 Miss Yana decided that enough was enough: ballet in India needed a world class home. TLFCB contacted David Sukonik, one of America’s premier ballet floor designers. Costs would not permit him to come here and oversee the work but he supervised the builders and the entire process online, free of cost. It is India’s first fully sprung floor and supports you as a dancer when you jump.

"Now you know what has gone into our floor. When students returned to the studio after two years at home during lockdowns they kept saying "Miss Yana!

Everything is so easy now, it is all because of this floor!" They appreciated it properly for the first time." The studio has been running since 2015. It has ballet barres, windows, mirrors and a music system that does not malfunction. “When we started classes there I was like "Finally, home!""

Now back to the early 2000s. Miss Yana was still conducting short courses, but ballet was not the only thing she taught.

She also taught jazz, pilates and callanetics. Since there was no constant location where the classes took place, she would rent spaces in local gyms, including a studio in Chinnaswamy Stadium. While teaching at these gyms, Miss Yana came across multiple trainers who had not completed the necessary anatomical education to train others. Miss Yana felt that this was not enough and would educate them on how to teach fitness

based on her extensive knowledge and experience about anatomy and catering training to different body types. As things progressed, Miss Yana also began teaching regular children’s classes and it was something she enjoyed thoroughly.

As her teaching started to grow more and more popular in the city, Miss Yana began training teachers to help her after years of having taught alone.

One of YLDC’s first shows in Kerala

By 2002, Miss Yana had a good number of students dancing with her regularly. She decided to form the Yana Lewis Dance Company a proper performing company. YLDC went from strength to strength as they performed in different venues, and were able to generate enough momentum to support some of the outreach programmes that Miss Yana was (and still is) passionate about. Miss Yana has been teaching ballet to children from less privileged backgrounds for almost as long as she has been in India, but she was able to help more people with the funds that were generated through YLDC performances.

Miss Yana was used to putting on a large number of shows from her lifelong background in the performing arts, but she loved seeing dancers she trained in India perform in diverse situations. One of the YLDC shows was at the famous Mysuru Dasara celebrations, where there were almost 12,000 people in the audience.

It was also a very unconventional setting to perform ballet in, and most of the audience had never seen anything like it before. Her company

also performed two pieces for the Asianet TV awards, one ballet and one non-ballet, at Kanteerava Stadium. ‘When we did these shows, or some of the huge corporate shows we used to do, people used to come to me and say “Oh, so this is what ballet is, we had heard about ballet but we never knew what it actually was before’ and that was very important to me. That I had helped to educate these people about the art form that I love”.

YLDC photo shoot in Cubbon Park 2004

The moment of YLDC’s that made the biggest impact on Miss Yana is of how they were able to use their dancing to raise funds to help the victims of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The tsunami destroyed the homes and lives of thousands of people along the Coromandel coast. “It made an impact on me only later, when I thought about it and I felt that we had done something worthwhile. When it was actually happening that was the last thing on my mind. I am like that, I get an idea and I just have to accomplish it. I’m obsessed with it and I get it done. Then later I might think about it and say, “Oh, that was something really good that we did then.”

YLDC put on a show and used the funds to buy provisions which they sent over at once, all this much before international aid could get through. ‘I joined with a few other people to do the show. We did all the entertainment. There was one singer and another company… We raised a lot of money and we got direct funds to the Red

Cross who were making boxes, and it was being packed in my friend’s garage. We got it sent to Chennai immediately." The response to these events, and people’s interest in ballet as an art form, led Miss Yana to realise how much greater an impact she could make if she structured what she wanted to do in a better way.

TLFCB’s Executive Director Devang Bhanushali played a key role in this decision. “I had closed down my structured ballet school in England and come here. I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to get back into that kind of thing so I said, "Oh, I can just continue as I am going on right now. With a couple of courses here and there and YLDC to perform." But Dev made me see how using the resources and knowledge I had would benefit a larger number of people if I was more systematic in the way I approached my teaching." With Devang’s managerial skills they were able to create a structure that helped her teach regularly and directly help people in need. That structure, in January 2006 became The Lewis Foundation of Classical Ballet.

YLDC photo shoot in Opus

Find gift this summer!

Pi pp iL on gs to ck ing ,2 01 9 Ad ve nt ur es

in

Our previous intensives

Have you ever wondered if you have a special gift? Let's discover the magic together in this year's summer program through ballet, jazz, musical theatre, contemporary, character and national dance.

We will be singing, dancing and creating fun memories for 2 weeks from May 9th to May 20th, Monday to Friday, 10am-1pm.

For more information click here

018 ,2 d n la er v e N

Inspira

e rit ou t o v r fa h o n O u llet p aso e s a b e th for

Sylvie Guillem dancing Marguerite and Armand. Photographed by Bill Cooper ©

ion

t

Click to see

SYLVIE GUILLEM

SPRING FAIRY, CINDERELLA

Daniil Simkin interviews Sylvie Guillem on her experience of her spectacular career

Momoto Hirata and the Birmingham Royal Ballet

DON QUIXOTE ACT I FINALE A colourful finale featuring Marianela Nuñez, Carlos Acosta and The Royal Ballet

SOLOR'S VARIATION

A soaring variation from La Bayadère featuring Sergei Polunin

SECRET GARDEN

DIAMONDS

Read our blog in the Ballet on the Big Screen series!

Watch the full act from George Balanchine's triptych

EARTH DAY What to do with old costumes Upcyle tights and ballet shoes

YLDC photo shoot in Cubbon Park 2004