The Turn Out Tutorial: Part 2

Hello readers!

Behold the following video of me, Brilynn Rakes doing a simple ballet combination at the barre. In this short video you will see how I make shapes and transition into and out of shapes using my turn out.

My whole body is affected and transformed when I use turn out. My posture corrects itself and my back, arms, legs and feet move separately but cohesively. 

A ballet dancer (like any house) is built from the ground up. Turn out is the foundation because it prepares the body for all of the movement that is to come. Turn out is the first "action" or "thing" dancers must apply to their bodies. 

Once the foundation is laid, we add different dance steps into the body's vocabulary with the hopes of keeping the foundational turn out in tact. Without foundation, the body's shapes will lack clarity of line and the movement will be initiating from the wrong place. 

If ballet movement is initiated from inwardly rotated positions, dancers will look like normal people, instead of ethereal creatures. When I am dancing, I never want to look normal. I want to appear unique and interesting. Utilizing turn out is my first step in achieving this goal. 

I hope my video gave you a better sense of what turn out looks like in motion. In part 3 of this tutorial, you will get to see what a fully (and successfully) constructed ballet dancer looks like. Stay tuned!