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Posted on 06 August, 2020 | By Sassy Mama
Does Dancing Really Lead to Better Memory? Elevate Dance Academie Shares 5 Long-term Benefits of Dance
Could dance give your kids good posture, better discipline and even better grades? Read on as Elevate Dance Academie lists out the long-term benefits of dance
Few things feel better than getting a good shimmy out, right mama? Dancing always puts us in a good mood – even babies can’t resist bobbing side-to-side when music plays! But what if we told you it could boost your child’s academic performance, along with increasing focus and attention span? Turns out there are plenty of long-term benefits to dance, making it one of the best enrichment programmes for your kids to try.
1. Dancing Builds Better Posture & Agility
With ballet being the the main foundation in most forms of dance, taking formal classes can help to train your body to adopt a better posture while standing, sitting and working. Basic tips include, “Shoulders pulled down, straighten spine, core engaged, butt in, centred pelvis, weights off your heels, arms lighted.” – all the essential pointers for good posture! This is the chant you would hear on repeat in a dance class, according to qualified, award winning multi-genre dance teacher LangLey of Elevate Dance Academie, who has more than 23 years of teaching.
2. Dancing Lifts Your Mood & Can Strengthen Friendships
Dancing increases levels of seratonin in the body. The feel-good hormone contributes to wellbeing and happiness, which can be a good way for kids to find balance between winding down and academics.
Joining a dance class often means participating in group dances, which encourages teamwork. While most schools conduct a selection process, Elevate strictly does not select children to compete in group competitions in order to give every child a fair chance at performing. This may result in less-than-perfect group dances, but is so worth it to cultivate inspired, passionate little dancers!
3. Dancing Frequently Can Boost Memory & Make You Smarter
According to a 21-year study by the New England Journal of Medicine, the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing. Dancing is a mentally engaging activity, encouraging the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of the brain (which are activated during physical activity) to rewire themselves and allow for better information processing speed and loading.
4. Dancing Helps with Discipline, Attention & Focus
A structured dance programme can encourage students to keep striving to progress in their technique and ability as they challenge themselves through the various grades. As the whole body is activated during a dance class, students are more likely to pay attention and focus on the task at hand. In the long run, these qualities build perseverance!
5. Dancing Makes You More Creative
At local dance schools like Elevate Dance Academie, most students start off with ballet as the main foundation and eventually venture into different dance styles of their choice. This allows them to get creative and discover what interests them! Exploring new forms of dance can also encourage kids to search for creativity in other aspects of their life, whether during play or academically.
Focusing on classical ballet, modern and jazz, Elevate Dance Academie offers a holistic and comprehensive dance curriculum in a positive, unbiased environment. Their specially curated Extension Programme complements the dance school’s curriculum to expose students to a well-rounded dance experience. It includes opportunities for dancers to participate in international dance exams (including the RAD, ISTD and CSTD certifications), dance concerts, annual overseas immersion programmes, local excursions, tailored guest workshops and master classes by international and local instructors – so your kiddos will learn from the most accomplished dance pros! The school also emphasises on encouraging versatility and the development of self-concept.
So even if your child is not keen on making dance their ultimate career, the benefits are tremendous to help them succeed in life creatively and even academically! Elevate has students of all backgrounds (some as young as 3 years old and as old as 28!) who have made dancing a part of their life while successfully balancing school and work.
So are your little dancers ready to ‘Take It Beyond The Stage’, mama? Find out more with Elevate Dance Academie and you could be looking at the next Misty Copeland of Singapore!
Sign up with a friend and get 10% off your next term* fees! *Must be one full complete term. Terms & Conditions apply.
Ballet has embraced many cultures and traditions, and evolved. Across the globe, many companies, vocational schools, techniques and methods have been established with differences in characteristics and style.
In this article, we will discuss some of the techniques widely used in the world.
French Technique
Rudolf Nureyev (1973)
The French technique is the basis of all ballet training. When Louis XIV created the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, he helped create the codified technique and vocabulary still used today.
French technique was particularly revitalised under Rudolf Nureyev (1938 – 1993) in the 1980s when he worked as the director of the Paris Opera Ballet School and has drastically shaped ballet as a whole. He incorporated his own styles along with his Russian training into the French classical teaching.
Dancers are trained to attain a traditional and classical ethereal look, while executing steps that are both impressive and virtuously quick.
It is often characterised by technical precision, fluidity, gracefulness, elegance, clean lines, musicality and fast tempo. Fast footwork and quantity of steps is often utilised in order to give the impression that the performers are drifting lightly across the stage. Hence the music was often played slower. Port de bras and épaulement are more rounded than the Russian technique, but not as rounded as the Danish.
The French technique is one of the most fluid method but due to its informal creation and lack of literature, it is not practiced outside of the Paris Opera Ballet School.
Bournonville Technique (Danish)
August Bournonville (1828 painting)
Bournonville emphasis that dance should not be an expression of joy and romantic only but also touches the heart with natural grace, precision, dramatic impact and harmony between body and music. Dancers exudes fluidity, delicate detail, seamlessness, musicality and displays movements effortlessly though they are technically challenging. He never composed a variation in which dancers merely run or walk from one corner to another. The dancer dances the entire time even with his or her back to the audience. He created his ballets with himself in mind, establishing the importance of male character which was slowly neglected during his time. The movements feature virtuosic male solos filled with strength and ballon.
Bournonville technique is marked by lightness and fast footwork against an at-ease upper body where the eyes is lowered and upper body follows the working leg, to exude kindness instead of proud. A key component of this technique is the distinctive lifted torso framework; the use of diagonal and graceful épaulements in which the upper body turns towards the working foot. It incorporates the basic use of shaped and soft arms which are usually held in preparatory position for every beginning and end of movements. Pirouettes begins from a low position, often starts with a low developpe into seconde for outside turns and with a low developpe into 4th for inside turns. Jumps are ballon with the illusion of imponderable lightness. This technique focuses specifically on the romantic tone and tells a vivid love story. The legs define rhythm while the arms define melody. The main principle is to execute with natural grace and with harmony between body and music.
Cecchetti Technique (Italian)
Enrico Cecchetti and Varvara Nikitina (1890)
The Cecchetti technique developed by Enrico Cecchetti (1850 – 1928), an Italian ballet dancer, is a strict training regimen with an emphasis on understanding of anatomy and science.
The goal of this technique is to instil important characteristics for the performance of ballet into students so that they do not rely on imitations of teachers. It enforces planned exercise routines for each day of the week and ensures that each part of the body is worked evenly by combining different types of steps into planned routines. For example, a specific barre for each day of the week and each side of the body is worked altering from week to week.
This technique teaches quality over quantity; it was better to execute the movement right once, rather than doing it sloppily several times.
This technique adopt the importance of recognising that all parts of the body move together to create beautiful, graceful lines; against thinking of ballet in terms of the arms, legs, neck and torso as separate parts. Dancers arms and legs are all one working entity. The energy is focused through the feet and up through the head so the line goes on infinitely. It develops a dancer’s balance, ballon, poise, elevation, poise, suppleness and strength. It is famous for its 40 adagios composed by Cecchetti and the popularly known 8 port de bras.
The training system traditionally has 7 grades with examinations up to diploma level. The progression helps to ensure that movements are taught based on a planned sequence. Hence new movements are only introduced once previous movements are mastered.
Vaganova Technique (Russian)
Agrippina Vaganova in Paquita (1910)
The technique is created by ex-dancer of the Marinsky Ballet, Agrippina Vaganova (1879–1951) while teaching at the Leningrad Choreographic School by the Soviet government in the early 1920s. Her book “Basic Principles of Russian Classical Dance” 1948, outlined her ideas on ballet technique and pedagogy which includes outlining precise teacher’s instruction on when to teach, what technical components to teach, for how long to focus on it, and what amount of focus at each stage of the student’s career. This technique is marked by the fusion of the classical French style, elements from the Romantic era, athleticism of the Italian method and the dramatic soulfulness of Russian ballet.
Vaganova technique focuses on the equal importance of expressiveness of port de bras using all parts of the arm, development of the lower back mobility and robust legs with extreme flexibility, strength and endurance. It is very neat with precise movements that expresses clean lines yet softness underneath. Vaganova emphasised dancing with the entire body by promoting harmonious movement among arms, legs and torso. She believed that the torso was the foundation of all movements, so the dancer’s torso had to be strengthened. One exercise she prescribed for this area was that of doing plies with the feet in first position. Many movements required the dancer to remain in the air for as long as possible to offer an illusion of floating. Arms should not simply decorate a movement, but should assist the dancer in high jumps and turns. All training can be encompassed and displayed in the course of one grand pas de deux, hence how the graduation exams are done.
In 1957, the school was renamed the Vaganova Ballet Academy and continues to be the associate school of the former Imperial Russian Ballet, now the Mariinsky Ballet. In total, the syllabus traditionally consists of 8 levels up to diploma. Early training focuses on two aspects: epaulement and the development of total stability and strength in the back. Some famous dancers are Anna Pavlova, Natalia Makarova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and George Balanchine.
Side note: In Russia, there’s another technique called the Legat method named by Nikolai Legat.
Balanchine Technique (American)
George Balanchine (1965)
Developed by George Balanchine (1904 – 1983) at the New York City Ballet. His method draws heavily on his own training in the Imperial Ballet School Russia.
Balanchine had a special liking for jazz and modern movement, as well as being a huge fan of Fred Astaire. He enjoyed watching dancers break laws of motion and would not allow an orchestra to slow down for his dancers, clearly stating his liking of speed. His dancers developed speed of motion and utilise more space in less time that they would fit a lot of movement into a small block of music.
Today, the Balanchine technique is taught at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, as well as at the schools of Miami City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet Chicago Studio Company.
Many of Balanchine’s ballets reflect a contemporary or neoclassical style, a reaction to the Romantic anti-classicism. The technique focuses on the dance itself and not on a story plot. Balanchine technique dancers must be extremely fit and flexible. It is known for its extreme speed, athleticism, emphasis on long limbs, very deep pliés, off-balance positions, flexed hands and feet. The longer arabesque line could be achieved by opening the hip to or away from the audience while the sidearm is pressed back. This type of placement goes against general ballet form. Another key difference is en dehors pirouettes taken from a lunge in fourth position with a straight back leg.
Royal Academy of Dance, RAD Technique (English)
RAD Operatic Elementary Syllabus (1920)
Founded in London in 1920, the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) or known as as the Association of Teachers of Operatic Dancing previously, was established by a group of dance professional.
Considered as one of the youngest ballet technique, also referred to as the English technique, it infused the best elements of the Cecchetti, French, Bournonville and Vaganova technique to create a new syllabus that produces a more rounded dancer who has a solid technique yet gentle and express emotions through their dancing.
It is an international dance examination board where there are specific grade and vocational levels which a student move through in order to complete the training. It is a ballet-focused path designed for older children and young adults who wished to pursue a career in professional dance.
The key principle behind this technique is the attention to detail and that basic ballet technique must be taught at a slow pace, with difficulty progression often much slower than other techniques. As a result, the primary importance is placed on executing steps with improved technique rather than increasing the level of difficulty. Through this, students are expected to execute harder techniques easily. This technique is characterised by the incorporation of classical ballet technique, free movement and character dance.
Today, this technique is widely spread worldwide, in Northern America and parts of Asia.
Chinese Technique
A scene from the Red Detachment of Women (1972)
Chinese ballet is a new form of technique mostly derived, evolved and still developing from the long standing tradition and structured Chinese dance in China. It has a unique mixture of traditional Chinese folk stories, a touch of ideology and a dash of western ballet techniques and styles with adaptation to well-known classical productions.
There is the exquisite and distinctive approach in teaching of the technique where students focus on precise positions and placement, extreme strength and flexibility especially on their backs and hips, and performances are filled with highly intense emotion. Students backs are unusually supple and legs extensions are high without any apparent forcing. Companies and schools adapting this technique follow a strict training schedule, developing students with great dignity, poise, composure and concentration.
Companies adapting this technique are National Ballet of China, Shanghai Ballet, the Classical Ballet of Guangzhou, and the China Liaoning Ballet.
