#fouette

Her fouette technique is solid and she's honestly one of the best turners to come out of VBA. However, my teacher would call her a 'greedy' turner. She's ambitious and always wants to do more and more and more and sometimes it doesn't turn out.

In some ways, it's cool because it leads to new and exciting combinations, especially when she makes intelligent execution decisions. For example, at the end of Bolshoi's Coppelia, the ballerina does a series of fouette moving along the diagonal. Intentionally traveling and trying to cover the massive BT stage is challenging. Most just do singles, Sevenard upped the ante by doing 1+1+1+2, and smartly chose to stay in place for the double fouette and then travel on the singles. She's a very snappy turner, and she fits the turns in the music beautifully here.

However, she often has trouble because she goes for too much, ends up off the music and loses her rhythm and timing which causes her to lose her balance. Each fouette is supposed to correspond to one count of music. A standard coda in ballet is 32 counts, hence 32 fouettes: dancers rely on that rhythm to keep the turns going. When you start to add doubles or other variations, it's harder to keep the rhythm and stay on time. A double pirouette obviously takes more time to complete than a single one. That being said, 1+1+2 (4 turns total) is MUCH easier than 1+1+1+2 (5 turns total) because you're ideally supposed to time each count to each fouette (not each pirouette). With 1+1+1+2, you have to squeeze in the double pirouette in a single count in order to stay on the music. 1+2+1+2 is even more challenging because you're supposed to do 6 turns in 4 counts.

Fitting in extra turns means you have to turn faster, you need to take more energy, which also requires more control. Sometimes, that extra force can throw a dancer off. That's also why the 1+1+2 is easier, you have more time to complete the double pirouette and you can kinda relax and float it around. Marianela Nunez does a great job of showing that suspended quality for the sustained double (or in her case triple)

Dancers get tired and the supporting leg gets worn out from all those single leg releve. The more tired you are, the harder it is to keep exerting force to do the extra turns. When Sevenard is tired, she sometimes takes TOO much force because she's just trying to gut it out. In these moments, you rely on the music to keep your tempo, and your balance but if your combination is so difficult to keep in time with the music...you're in a bit of trouble. Some teachers will encourage dancers (especially those who struggle with the step) to just do fouettes 'through' the music, focusing on their body's internal rhythm and natural speed without heeding the music. It works. It's not nearly as captivating.

Now Sevenard also succumbs to insanity and has tried to do 32 counts of straight double fouette, incredibly difficult. I think this is the cleanest I've seen her do it, other times it becomes a hot mess. To her credit, she does 16 fouettes, each double taking two counts, this is still pretty musical. But she's still got me holding on to the edge of my chair, it makes me nervous. Now, I would bet that she could probably do straight doubles right after a good warm-up class. But I'm much less confident in her completing the set cleanly at the end of Don Quixote when her legs are shot because she's been dancing for over 2 hours.

Honestly, I find dancers like Maria Alexandrova who often just do 32 perfectly in music singles to be very impressive. It's an approach I'd love to see Sevanrd try sometime.

Improve Fouetté Turns ON POINTE | Kathryn Morgan

Today I give you my tips for mastering your fouettés on pointe. Fouette turns can be very daunting, especially if you have to do 32 of them! So we talk about placement, arm position, tricks for hitting a la seconde, and more. Fouettes are achievable! You just have to believe in yourself!