A couple of nights ago we received a particularly challenging adagio combination for center. We started out with doing two slow steps backwards, arms extending front and side and flexing at the wrist as if gently pushing someone away. Joan likes to begin adagio with a glimpse of a story or character. After a rond de jambe we raised the left leg to attitude en avant, passé to extend to attitude to the back. Promenade holding the attitude then passé through to hold attitude en avant. Passé side to developé croisée. Passé to attitude to the back again and penché forward, extending the leg and arms to come up into arabesque, hold and place into fourth to pirouette, finish facing croisée second side.
This was all done on one leg, the only switch occurred in the beginning when we changed legs in the rond de jambe. Joan told us to keep breathing and rather then arriving at one position and holding it, keep a sense of flow, keep moving from one position into the next. This was very helpful. Joan is one of the few teachers who actually teaches a slow adagio in order to really work thoroughly and cleanly.
The petite allegro on the other hand was very fast. Starting out in right fifth front, entrechats trois, jeté, temps levé, assemblé, travelling to the right glissade change, scissons change, two entrechats quatres. Repeat to the left side. The stumbling block in this combo is going from glissade to the scisson. Keeping the glissade low to the ground and anticipating the scisson really helped weaving the steps together.
