Watch out Baryshnikov (just kidding, you're the greatest)

Since I entered this program, I have continually been discovering new things about my body; about the way I am built, what my natural strengths and limitations are, and what I can work on to get the most out of this fantastic program and become this thing we call a dancer. This quarter has been especially eye-opening in all of these respects, and now we are nearing the end of it and I want to figure out where I stand: What have I learned about myself that I like, what have I learned about myself that I want to improve, and what are the through lines in my classes?

Upon first consideration, it would appear to the untrained eye that the ideas I've gotten in ballet this quarter are completely different from the ideas we have addressed in my other classes. However, with my semi-trained eyes, I will attempt my own comparisons. I've been doing my modern technique, which is totally about dropping the weight into the floor (do I smell resiliency?). I've been doing contact improvisation, which is also about giving and dropping weight, and I've been doing comp/weight studies, which is, ironically, about giving and dropping weight. Then I've been doing ballet, which is about becoming taller and pulling myself up out of my hips. It seems the opposite, but I think there are at least a few key ideas that I can pull from ballet and bring into the modern.

I think that, even though we do not consciously "drop" our weight in ballet, the opposition we constantly strive for, the connection to the floor against the pull of our bodies upward, has an element of the drop. We have to maintain a relationship to gravity, and I always have to think about trying to find that relationship, whether in ballet or elsewhere. Core strength and initiation is another very important idea that seems to be a through line in all my classes. I have been thinking a lot about "visualizing movement from the core:" feeling the energy in that part of my body so that I can stay grounded in my movement and maintain a bodily awareness, even if the movement does not necessarily "initiate" there from an outside visual perspective. Through both ballet and modern classes, I have been working to strengthen and find my core, and I think this will really help me grow as a dancer. I have also been trying to work on articulation and clarity of movement in all my dancing, and I think clarity is sort of a big deal in ballet. Since we work on it so much in this technique, I think I should be able to gain something from that element of ballet class and take it to my other training.

The other idea I have been thinking about is presence. I was watching the videos of Baryshnikov posted on our Carmen page, and the main quality that strikes me about him is his incredible presence and command of the stage. He's fierce, and he grabs that audience and hangs onto them. In trying to develop my own ferocity, I think ballet can really be a great opportunity to try to develop some kind of personality. Rather than putting on a show, I would like to find a way to exude an energy and "inner life" outward: to show natural feeling and be able to grab an audience (not in a conceited or pompous way). How can I develop a presence through all my training, and become a Baryshnikov in my own right?