Intermediate Ballet at Boston Ballet’s Newton Studio

Although I was super tired today I decided I would take a nap and go to a 7pm class tonight. I was ready to go at 6:30 but then I realized that my 10-class card that my dear boyfriend bought me was NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. So we both spent the next 20 minutes tearing up the house trying to find the envelope that neither of us have seen since last week. 😦 Needless to say I was late to class which I HATE but the class went well. I came back home and STILL CAN’T FIND IT. 😦 I hate losing things. In any case here are my notes on Boston Ballet’s Friday Intermediate class. It was my very first time taking Intermediate at Boston Ballet!!!! 🙂

 

Studio	Boston Ballet (Newton studio)
Website url	www.bostonballet.com
Price	$17/class $140/10 class card
Levels and Freq	Newton Studio has Beginner (3x/week), Elementary (7x/week), Intermediate (6x/week)
Location	Newton – easy parking since there’s a dedicated parking lot. For those of us that don’t have cars, 2 options: commuter rail to Newtonville stop but the last train back to the city is before evening classes end. Or you can take either just a bus or  T bus combination, it depends on where you’re coming from. Googlemaps is your friend. Note: The entrance to the studio is NOT on Washington Street, it’s perpendicular to the street. Walk between the gas station and the H&R block, through the BB parking lot and you’ll see the doors on the right.
Facility	Nice facility. 5 studios. The big studio has this nifty ledge on the wall that you can put your water bottle etc without cluttering the floor under the barre. I find this studio less intimidating and more welcoming than the South End one. It’s a little more intimate because of the size and just seems a little more family oriented.
Reception	The desk is immediately to your left when you walk in. I’ve always had a good experience talking to the girls at the counter. They sell shirts, bags, and other Boston Ballet stuff there too.
Dressing Area	Sometimes the trash can is overflowing with paper towels which makes me feel like they should install dryers. It’s always very clean though. 4-5 bathroom stalls and I think there’s even a shower! There’s also a changing and locker room section.
Class	Intermediate (WHAT WHAT) May 24, 2013 Friday 7-8:30
Teacher	Laura Young. I liked her, she was no-nonsense but in a good way. And funny.
Music	Accompanist. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the music. Shame on me.
Size	20-25ish (I forgot to count but we were in the big studio and it was pretty packed but not in an uncomfortable way) 3 men
Attire	Tights and leotards with coverups . It’s Friday so I did my version of Casual Friday – yoga pants and a tank.
Barre Timing	Didn’t really look at the clock this time but I think it was pretty average 40-45 mins
Delivery of Exercises	She would tell you the combo either by marking it full out or just saying the words and marking with her hands. I felt fine following her and if I didn’t get it on the right side, I definitely knew it on the left.
Type of Corrections	Group and Individual
Correction Notes	When doing multiple turns from fifth – yup we did the dreaded, pirouette, plie, pirouette, plie etc in place from fifth- make sure you’re using your back to help initiate the turn and to help stop it so you don’t keep turning. If you’re turning to the right, think of your left back rib area pulling slightly back and then when you come around also pull that are back to stop you from over turning. I’m hoping I have the directions right.When you’re developpe-ing she said you have to have a moment of suspension when your leg has reached where it needs to be because if you take forever to get up there the audience won’t be able to see that your leg was there since it’ll be coming down right away. Basically get through passé quicker. She had us change up the timing for tombe pas de bourre so that the focus would be on the tombe so it was tombe hold quick pas de bourre. She explained that the counts were the same as we are used to, we were just accentuating the tombe rather than keeping it all the same.
Noteworthy Combos	The one I got a little stuck on was glissade jete, glissade jete, glissade jete assemble, sissonne left pas de bourre, glissade jete, glissade jete, glissade jete assemble sissonne back, sissonne back, sissonne back. It’s wasn’t a hard combo per se- I just have problems moving quickly I guess. 🙂 During the jump section we did jumps in second with a beat – very cool. I thought it was like a entrechat quatre which I did at first but there wasn’t enough time and I think I looked silly. We also did a waltz in place which was an interesting spin on waltzing. 🙂
General Vibe	I felt really comfortable in this class. I liked the teacher and I liked the people in class. I would MOST DEFINITELY go back and plan on to. It was a bit of an older crowd probably due to it being Friday (fine by me). There was this one younger dancer who was just lovely to watch. She has amazing port de bras – knows exactly how to use her arms. She had nice and bouncy balances. Good person to have in front of you! 🙂 There were other good dancers of course but she stood out to me because she was right in front of me haha.
Level true to class	I think it was on the easier end of intermediate. I felt very comfortable and didn’t encounter any crazy new steps that I haven’t done other than cabriole. I just looked it up and it definitely doesn’t look that bad. Psh. But it looks like one of those coordination things. I’ll try it next time. She gave options if you didn’t want to do a cabriole or double pirouettes or pirouettes in general.
Temperature (Scale 1-10 5 comfortable 10 hot, hot, hot)	8. It’s hot and humid out and at first I was comfortable but when we started working it got humid really quickly. I had sweat drops on my face from my glasses – can’t wait till my contacts come in!!!!!
Body Assessment	I’m not sure what happened today but I felt like my extensions were a lot less tight and a little bit higher than normal (still nothing to call home about but better). Usually I try to hike my leg up by using brute force from my thighs but I didn’t do that this time or at least not as much. Woohoo!
Corrections given to me specifically	Need to lift up on the standing leg’s knee when battement-ing. This really helped me feel more stable but also got my working leg a little higher since I wasn’t as focused on getting it up there as I was pulling up.