Ballet Dancing: How to Do a Pirouette
Learn how to do a pirouette in this ballet dancing video. Expert: Maegan Woodin
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Transcript
My name is Maegan Woodin, and I'm a professional dancer, choreographer, teacher and student. I have danced for MTV, Diana Ross, Marc Jacobs and have appeared in many music videos. You can find more information about me and my career, as well as photos and videos, at www.dgtnyc.com. I'm going to be talking to you about ballet. A pirouette in Ballet is a turn that is very commonly found on the basic to intermediate level. The amount of turns depends on the skill of the dancer. So you can start off by just doing a passe in Releve to doing a half turn, to doing a full turn, to doing two, three, four. And for male dancers they can do up to ten pirouettes at a time. So it is important to think about the alignment and the position of your fourth position, which most pirouette's start in. So if you stand in fourth position, again your fourth position shouldn't be too wide, it should be pretty small and your weight should be evenly between both legs. Your arms are going to open up, one arm is to the side one arm is in front. You are going to start in a plie position. When you plie you are going to open up both arms, that is going to be the start of your plie and the start of your pirouette. You are going to open up your arms then bring them together and your foot is going to come passe. So again you are going to plie, open up your arm and everything is going to zip up into passe. And that is the very basic level. And you turn it when you become more advanced. I am now going to demonstrate how to do a pirouette turn, I am going to do a single turn and then I am going to do a double turn.Now I am going to demonstrate a double pirouette.
