Tag: lame ducks

DO keep your body straight up and down. “Many dancers tend to pull their hips back and tip their bodies forward in step-overs, but that makes it difficult to get around,” says Nanako Yamamoto of American Repertory Ballet. DON’T leave both feet on the floor at the same time. “A well-executed lame duck goes from […]

“Lame duck.” It sounds like nothing else in the classical ballet vocabulary, right? Also known as step-up turns or step-over turns—or, more technically, as piqués en dehors—these tricky pirouettes show up all over the classical ballet repertoire, perhaps most famously in Odette’s Act II variation in Swan Lake. Here’s how to keep your lame ducks […]