How To Do A Ballet Arabesque

Now, I'm going to show you on how to do an Arabesque. Of course, there are a lot of different Arabesques that you can choose. There's a first, second or third Arabesque but today, I'm going to teach you second Arabesque.

So, Rhiann's going to stand at the bar, feet in fifth and she's just going to do the cache derriere, which is the beginning of your Arabesque. What you're after is a really good strong line through the legs. So, you want to make sure that it's not turned in because look what happens, you destroy the line immediately there with your heel.

It's got to be turned out at the top, so you need to squeeze round the top. Then the other thing is that as she lifts her leg, she's going to bring her back slightly further forward but up and forward. And of course, she's going to really stretch that back knee.

But again, look what happens if she turns it in. You've got that heel here which looks rather awkward. You need to keep your turn out so that you've got a beautiful line underneath the leg and then lower.

That's lovely. And close. Of course, that's just the leg and it's just a line but Arabesque is so much more than that.

It's also a quality of the movement as well. So this time, we're going to try again and this time, Rhiann is going to pay a little more attention to her arm and to her focus, the focus of her eyes. I want her to imagine that perhaps a little bird or something is flying off her hand so that it looked like her Arabesque is going on to infinity.

Alright, so we'll start with the cache derriere first and then she's going to reach and stretch out with her back leg but this time, her eyes are going to up and follow the hand, follow the hand up, up and the bird is going to be flying, and then she's going to do a strong lift in her body and making sure that it stays down and then back to fifth. Of course, you might achieve the most fabulous Arabesque and then when you bring your leg down, your bottom is still stuck up in the air so this time, we're going to try our Arabesque. Up you go Rhiann, thank you.

But the wrong thing is going to happen this time and she's going to keep her bottom stuck up which ends up looking very ungainly. You want a strong lift here as you lower your leg. So when you come to fifth, you look like nothing's happened and it's all just so easy, which of course, it's not.

Thank you very much, Rhiann. There you have it, your second Arabesque.