Observations on teaching pointework using the Italian school technique

During the latter half of the 19th century, Italian ballet shoemakers developed a new kind of slipper, with reinforced blocked toes, which would allow the ballerinas of the Italian school to show off new and daring jumps, balances and spins on the tips of their toes. The era of virtuosic technique in classical ballet had arrived.

It is in one way, an apotheosis of the technical ability of the classical trained ballerina to transcend the earthly plane and ascend into that of the aerial which began with a few, fleeting moments en pointe of the Romantic era ballerinas.

However, those pioneering ballerinas ascent onto pointe was really just a logical progression of their moving upwards onto the tips of the toes. As they strove to inhabit the aerial plane, the body was drawn upwards, the shape sustained in the torso by paulement and the feet found their place under the centre, not by clambering up onto pointe but as a result of a natural extension of a lift in the whole body.

As a young student in blocked shoes for the first time I remember very clearly the first exercises of the beginning pointe class, done at the barre of course. In addition to rising up and rolling down through the feet we learned how to spring up into a 5th position with both legs so well crossed and underneath our centres that we imagined that we were doing a relev onto a postage stamp.

Then we re-learned relevs devant and relevs passs, as we had done them in slippers but now in pointeshoes. Again we were instructed to bring the supporting leg under the centre of the body as though relev-ing onto the postage stamp.

The technical instructions were very clear from the start. When doing a relev in pointeshoes we always employed a slight spring, bringing the toes under the centre of the body rather than rising up through the feet and moving out towards the toes. Gradually we were able to add pirouettes to the relevs passes, to pos and relev in arabesque and to attempt fouetts ronds de jambe en tournant, that brilliant trick of the Italian school.

When I was dancing professionally in the USA it was considered unseemly to spring onto pointe and I quickly abandoned much of my original pointework schooling to fit in with dancers around me. However, as I moved away from the spring technique, virtuosic steps such as fouetts ronds de jambe en tournant, which had always been for me relatively easy to do, took greater effort, and I had to work a lot harder to stay sur place.

When I first started teaching pointe, in the USA, I continued to employ the methods I had learned there as a professional dancer. However, back home in the UK I started to study the Cecchetti Method in depth, so as to be able to attempt the Final Diploma and to finish qualifications as a teacher of the Cecchetti Method, I had to re-learn and re-evaluate the Italian school spring technique. Now I am teaching my pupils the same technique I was taught as a young student. From the first moment that my students relev into 5th position, onto that proverbial postage stamp, they are not just jumping up in the legs but engaging the whole body in a co-ordinated effort, activating the opposite forces (up in the body, down through the legs), keeping the vertical through the centre of gravity and gaining the power and security they need to dance en pointe by disturbing their alignment as little as possible.

Vaganova quotes in her book Basic Principles of Classical Ballet:

In so far as pointes are concerned, the Italian technique has such unquestionable advantages that I subscribe to it without reservations. Cecchetti taught the dancer to rise onto the pointes with a little spring, distinctly pushing off the floor. This manner develops a more elastic foot and teaches the concentration of balance of the body on one spot.

Vaganova mentions also the disadvantages of the foot considered beautiful in everyday life, because it is weak. This is the foot that has a high arch, with a well turned, slim ankle, correctly grouped toes, in other words the foot that is considered absolutely necessary today for a classically trained dancer to even be considered for a job in a professional ballet company.

However, in my role as a teacher to students who have not been chosen by audition but who attend classes mainly for recreational purposes, I see children with the greatest possible variety of leg and foot shapes. Without exception I find that if they learn to relev in slippers with the slight spring and can hold this shape in their bodies correctly- maintaining their aplomb- whether they have a high arch or barely an arch at all, they will eventually be able to relev onto pointe.

Then there is the issue of descent, back into the fifth position. Again, the Italian school employs a slight spring whereby both legs jump down simultaneously. As with allegro, this is identical in form to landing from en lair in a saut and is suitable for much of the en pointe virtuosic choreography of an allegro variation. It is technically easier also than the rolling through the feet descent I was always required to show in Pas de Deux as a professional dancer. My students learn first the Italian school spring down technique and do not learn to descend with the rolling through the feet method until they have acquired great strength and control in their overall training.

Finally I would like to mention how important it is in the Italian school to have total co-ordination of the legs and arms, body and head, and the part this plays in developing the purity of line and freedom of movement inherent in a well trained classical dancer. Cecchetti insisted on his dancers repeating a series of ports de bras everyday so as to refine the co-ordination he demanded of them in their upper body and remind them how to use the arms and torso in allegro by incorporating the most sophisticated of movements into adagio such as sustained pirouettes in open positions and in renvers en dedans.

This schooling, with its adherence to physical principles and an insistence on total co-ordination leads a dancer naturally to the development of technical virtuosity. Thus the slight spring onto pointe now appears to be not so much of a gimmick, in order to execute those 32 fouetts, but rather is a logical component in a well thought out method of classical ballet training.