How to do a single turn in dance
Jazz Dance Basics- Basic Turns in Jazz Dance
Jazz Dance Basics- Basic Turns in Jazz Dance
Turns- Rotating movements performed inplace or travelling, executing by turning the whole body on 2 feet, on 1 foot, from one to another, or while jumping.
(you may also like to check video ‘11 elementary turns and spins for dancing’ on Youtube)
Basic Turns
Pivot Turn | A turn on two feet. Stepping fwd on one foot, quickly change direction of your body to face the opposite direction. Both feet remain on floor. To make a full, or complete, pivot turn, step fwd again but in a line opposite from the original direction. Continue the pivot to end up facign in the original direction. Remember to spot. |
Paddle Turn | A simple turn that pivots the body around one spot. |
Chaine Turn | Derive from ballet. It is a two-step turn generally performed in releve, but it amy also be performed in plie. The body rotates 180degrees on each step of the turn, and the turning movement progresses in a straight line. The weight shifts from one leg to the other with evenly balanced steps. In chaine turns performed in releve, the legs should be held in first position turned out. In chaine turns performed in plie, the legs may be held parallel or turned out in either first or second position. |
Soutenu Turn | ‘Sustained’ Turn also originates in ballet, but it may rotate in quarten turns, half turns or whole turns in Jazz dancing. |
Touch Turn | A variation of the soutenu turn, but this turn is executed partially around on one leg as the opposite leg touches the floor. To complete the turn, the weight transfers to the ‘touching’ leg by stepping onto that foot. The touch turn, or touch soutenu, can be executed in either releve or plie. |
Pirouette | Pirouette (whirling about) turn in Ballet is inplace, with the supporting leg in releve and the other in passe. Here it can be in parallel or turned-out position. Parallel ones may also be done with the supporting leg in plie. In doing pirouettes, bring the lifted knee directly to high passe, maintain good alignment, and spot. |
Prepare for the turn by stepping to parallel second in plie, pulling the second leg in to meet the prep leg as the turn is executed with both legs in releve. The weight of the body is shared equally by both legs during the turn. The turn may be executed either inward or outward, with the second leg being pulled in, to cross either in front or in back of the prep leg.
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Jazz Turns - Dance Labs
Courses for Dancers and Dance Teachers
Our Jazz Turns courses are designed to enhance and build upon your existing dance skills. Are you looking to build foundational skills by focusing on proper placement and technique? Or maybe your goal is to refine your turn consistency so you can add elite-level turns to your repertoire? Whatever your objective, we’ve got you covered. Simply review the courses below to find the level that’s right for you.
LEVEL 1: FOUNDATIONAL TURNS
This is the place to start if you’re new to Jazz turns or need to brush up on the fundamentals.
Instruction includes proper placement and muscle engagement for each turn, helping you understand not only the “hows” but the “whys” of correct form. You’ll also learn center-floor and across-the-floor combos. With practice and focus on proper technique, these lessons serve as a foundation for more complex skills.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- How to spot
- Chaîné turns
- Piqué turns
- Single pirouettes
- Balance exercises
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Kayla Bagshaw
Requirements: A basic understanding of the positions of the feet and arms for dance.
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LEVEL 1: FOUNDATIONAL TURNS
This is the place to start if you’re new to Jazz turns or need to brush up on the fundamentals. Instruction includes proper placement and muscle engagement for each turn, helping you understand not only the “hows” but the “whys” of correct form. You’ll also learn center-floor and across-the-floor combos.
With practice and focus on proper technique, these lessons serve as a foundation for more complex skills.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- How to spot
- Chaîné turns
- Piqué turns
- Single pirouettes
- Balance exercises
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Kayla Bagshaw
Requirements: A basic understanding of the positions of the feet and arms for dance.
LEARN MORE
LEVEL 2: INTERMEDIATE TURNS
The techniques taught in this course should help you refine and expand your Level 1 skills. Each turn includes step-by-step instruction on body placement and engagement, including the execution of center floor and across-the-floor combos. By practicing the lessons taught in this course, you should master proper technique for these intermediate turns.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- Balance exercises
- Double pirouettes
- Inside pirouettes
- Coupé turns
- Pencil turns
- Introduction to fouetté turns
- Introduction to à la seconde turns
- Tips and tricks
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Cicily Oldham
Requirements: Have mastered the skills in Level 1.
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LEVEL 3: ADVANCED TURNS
These detailed lessons encourage the full-body connections and proper mechanics required for successful turns. You’ll learn insights and tricks that will help you push beyond your limits as a dancer. Practicing the lessons taught in this course will give you an enhanced understanding of your body, so you can get the results you want with any turn, anytime, anywhere.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- À la seconde turns
- Fouetté turns
- Attitude turns
- Tabletop and pencil turns
- Around the world à la secondes
- Leg hold turns en dedans (inside)
- Leg hold turn en dehors (outside)
- Tips and tricks
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Joelle Banford
Requirements: Have mastered the skills in Level 1 and 2.
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LEVEL 3: ADVANCED TURNS
These detailed lessons encourage the full-body connections and proper mechanics required for successful turns.
You’ll learn insights and tricks that will help you push beyond your limits as a dancer. Practicing the lessons taught in this course will give you an enhanced understanding of your body, so you can get the results you want with any turn, anytime, anywhere.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- À la seconde turns
- Fouetté turns
- Attitude turns
- Tabletop and pencil turns
- Around the world à la secondes
- Leg hold turns en dedans (inside)
- Leg hold turn en dehors (outside)
- Tips and tricks
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Joelle Banford
Requirements: Have mastered the skills in Level 1 and 2.
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LEVEL 4: ELITE TURNS
In this Elite Level 4 training, you’ll continue to explore specific layering of conditioning exercises, center floor exercises, and across-the-floor combos that lead to turn mastery. These elite lessons build and guide you in your quest to understand the enhanced body awareness needed to be a consistent turner.
You’ll learn to “turn out of skill and not out of luck.”
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THE COURSE
- Reverse around the world à la secondes
- Spotters
- Floats
- Forced arch pirouettes
- Coupé into pencil turns
- Pencil pirouette switching spots
- Elite pirouettes into a jump leap
- Tips and tricks
COURSE DETAILS
Instructor: Joelle Banford
Requirements: Have mastered the skills in Level 1, 2, and 3.
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BUNDLE:
JAZZ TURNS COLLECTION (20% OFF)
Are you all in? If you’re ready to seriously overhaul your jazz turns skills, the Jazz Turns Bundle is the way to go. This package includes Jazz Turns course levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 at a 20% discount.
You’ll have lifetime access to all four of these ground-breaking courses, so you can step it up from the ground up! Master the fundamentals to build that solid foundation, then take it to the next level with intermediate skills, before breaking through those barriers to advanced movements, and build consistency with our elite turns course.
LEARN MORE
BUNDLE:
JAZZ TURNS COLLECTION (20% OFF)
Are you all in? If you’re ready to seriously overhaul your jazz turns skills, the Jazz Turns Bundle is the way to go. This package includes Jazz Turns course levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 at a 25% discount.
You’ll have lifetime access to all four of these ground-breaking courses, so you can step it up from the ground up! Master the fundamentals to build that solid foundation, then take it to the next level with intermediate skills, before breaking through those barriers to advanced movements, and build consistency with our elite turns course.
LEARN MORE
Rotations and turns in dancing (practice)
- Posture
Rotations are performed with a taut and even body, "coccyx retract", "long neck", chin looks up. This will help you balance and tighten the axle needed for long term spins.
- Dot
All dancers know to "hold the dot" to spin, but I wonder if you can change dot fast enough? In order to rotate long and hard, you need to train a sharp and lightning-fast change of point.
The point should be kept at the level of your eyes and a little higher. Don't look at the floor or you'll end up there.
- Alignment (cross)
Concentrate on aligning the line of the shoulders with the line of the pelvis, they should be parallel. If you do not align the lines of the shoulders and pelvis during the beginning of the rotations, you will not be able to catch the balance and your rotation will not be long, a maximum of 3 pirouettes. To do this, you should train in front of a mirror, stand in a relevé and make sure that the lines of the shoulders and pelvis (hips) are parallel. Also, in front of the mirror, you should control the position of the body, become sideways and make sure that you are not leaning forward or leaning too back.
- Balance
When pirouettes, you balance on a half-finger (relev), practice balance without rotation.
If you can’t stand on a half-finger without spinning, then you won’t be able to stand in a turn either. Practice balance on half toes without rotation, train both the left and right foot, you should stand eight counts at a very slow pace, this will strengthen your axis. What type of spin do you train, classic turnout or jazz closed? Practice every type of balance until you can, it will come in handy in your career as a dancer, modern show groups use all kinds of techniques.
- Your thumb
Where does your thumb point when you rotate it? If your finger is not pointing in the same direction as your knee, this rotation is not considered correct and you will not be able to achieve a multi-spin. Stand on your half-finger and make sure you don't "clubfoot" that your thumb is pointing in the same direction as your knee. There is nothing worse than a clubfoot dancer! If the foot is placed correctly, the weight is also distributed correctly and you will be able to build the best axis for rotation.
Make sure that during the rotation you do not jump on the half-toe, do not "play" up and down and your instep is stretched as much as possible. Throughout the rotation, you should stand on the maximum possible half-finger.
- Use the dance floor (parquet)
Push off the deep plyé floor with all your strength to set the maximum possible rotational energy. Imagine a Devil in a Box spring toy, you push it down into the box and when you open it, it kind of shoots up with maximum force, while you direct this energy into rotation with your hands. Push off from the plié with enough force to get on the half-toe and extend the knee, and of course not more than necessary, otherwise you can not resist. Also, there is a technique in which, during the performance of the plie, the dancer exhales and then briefly inhales during the first turn, which allows you to increase the moment of rotation using an additional force.
- Matching shoes
Depending on the choreography, wear specialized dance shoes.
It is not recommended to do rotation without shoes, you can comb the skin on the balls of the feet.
- Arms
Have you noticed that when doing a series of pirouettes, the arms are closer to the body in subsequent turns than in the first turn? Quite right! During a series of pirouettes, it is very important not to lose the energy of rotation, for this the dancer must skillfully collect his hands to the body, distribute energy for each turn, so that in each subsequent turn the hands are a little closer than in the previous ones. Try it in practice, if you do not bring your hands together, then the rotation will not be fast and not long, but if you sharply take your hands to the body, then you will sharply spin at a higher speed. Now that you know what to do, you should train the most important condition - while bringing your hands together, hold the "cross" (the line of the shoulders and the line of the pelvis should be parallel).
- Pulling
Imagine that while you are spinning, someone is pulling you up by the top of your head. This will allow you to keep a straight axis and rise as high as possible on the half-finger with the involvement of the main muscles of the body.
- Practice
Pirouette, like a circus trick, performing a series of pirouettes requires long hours of regular practice.
"When I was preparing to break the world record, I worked out at least three days a week for several hours. And it took about a year for me to start rotating from 19up to 55 turns without stopping," says Lucia Sofia. can rightfully be considered a veteran of the Winter Olympics. For the first time, competitions in this sport were held at the Games in London in 1908 and were represented by men's, women's and pairs competitions. It took 68 years to wait for the appearance of ice dancing in the Olympic program.
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It won't take long to find the reasons for this delay. Unlike dancers, with single skaters and greenhouses everything is very clear. Even if you don’t know the names of all the elements, you can always distinguish a high-quality rental from an unsuccessful one at least by the presence or absence of falls, and the “like / dislike” factor works secondarily here. And the viewer was more willing to watch pair and single skating, and dancing ... And how does it all work there?
See also
Technical revolution. What did the leading Russian figure skaters show at test skates
Actually, this question is relevant for many today. For the 1976 Olympics, the International Skating Union (ISU) had already outlined the technical rules, and ice dancing officially became an Olympic discipline. The first ever Olympic gold in this form was won by Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov, and until 2006 only twice the highest award was given to non-domestic athletes - at the 1984 Olympics, the British became the first Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean, and at the 2002 Games the French celebrated the victory Marina Anisina and Gwendal Peizerat.
However, the situation changed already at the 2010 Games. And largely due to the fact that Russian coaches began to move to the West to work with local skaters, which led to increased competition overseas. The clearest examples of this are Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva, who actually began the history of American and Canadian ice dancing. It was they who led the American duo Meryl Davis / Charlie White to the gold of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi (by that time Zueva was their head coach, the skaters stopped working with Shpilband a few years earlier). In addition, Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, now the most titled figure skaters in the history of this discipline, have been training in their group for a long time.
Read also
Golden time. Figure skater Trusova started at the adult level with two world records
Today, the power in ice dancing belongs to four-time world champions and five-time European champions Gabriele Papadakis and Guillaume Sizeron of France.
Russian duets are also very strong, but so far they have not managed to break into the lead. The main weapons of the Russian team in the fight against the French are Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, and Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin even managed to get around Papadakis and Sizeron in the fight for gold at the 2013 World Junior Championships in Milan.
Are they jumping there?
No. Ice dancing is the only discipline in figure skating that is almost completely devoid of jumping elements. For jumping more than one revolution, athletes will receive a penalty. Yes, and one-turn jumps should not be carried away, because this will destroy the structure of the program and will not allow judges to evaluate the skill of owning a skate.
As in other disciplines, dance duets perform short and free skate, but they are called differently - rhythm dance and free dance. The first one should be given special attention. Due to the fact that ice dancing is technically difficult to evaluate, ISU, in order to make it easier for the judges, each season sets a certain musical theme for the rhythm dance, establishes a central dance motif and a set of rhythms in which this same dance should be performed.
Thus, skaters in the short skate need to perform a set of elements and at the same time in one mandatory segment of the program (the so-called pattern) demonstrate exactly the type of dance that was given by ISU. The musical leitmotif of the new season is musicals or operettas, the main dance is a playful and extremely fast finstep.
What do they do in these dances then?
During the rhythm dance, skaters must perform the following elements.
Twizzles
This is one series of parallel rotations on one leg in motion. In single skating, for example, twizzles are part of the step sequence and have no value, but in ice dancing it is one of the two most expensive elements. By the way, it is on twizzles that dancers most often make mistakes visible to the naked eye. So, at the European Championships - 2019in Minsk, Katsalapov and Sinitsina made a fall on this element in the short run and remained outside the top three.
All elements, with the exception of choreographic, in figure skating have a difficulty level from basic to the highest - the fourth. Depending on the level set by the technical specialist, the element receives a fixed base value, after which nine judges give points for the quality of its performance (the so-called GOE) in the range from "-5" to "+5", which then serve as a coefficient when calculating the final allowances to the "base" or deductions from it. One worst and one best estimate is immediately excluded from the protocol, then the remaining seven numbers - GOE coefficients are converted into specific points in accordance with the basic cost of the element according to the ISU table, summed up and divided by seven. The number obtained as a result of division and rounded to the nearest hundredth will be the final score on the GOE scale.
So, for successfully executed twizzles (on the fourth level and with good GOE allowances) you can get about 10 points.
Pattern
The element includes the pattern dance itself (finstep for the current season) and the pattern dance track, in which each step must be performed in accordance with the requirements of the ISU for a particular season.
Tracking the quality of the performance of the pattern is difficult not only for the audience, but also for the athletes themselves. It is not uncommon for skaters to literally freeze in amazement when announcing their marks - after all, everything seems to have been performed correctly, and the scores leave much to be desired. However, then it turned out that the technical team found small errors and lowered the levels.
Support
There are not too many requirements here. The main thing is not to get too carried away in time (up to seven seconds are allotted for an element) and that the partner should not be completely above the partner’s head. When placing a GOE, the judges look at the beauty of the position and the original approaches to the element.
Step Sequence
This is where the dancers get the highest score. Skaters who demonstrate silent, smooth gliding with so-called "deep ribs" on skates and a variety of steps can earn 12 points or more for this element.
In free dance, unlike rhythmic dance, there are no restrictions in the choice of music. As a consequence, there is no pattern section. Otherwise, the free program does not differ very much from the rhythm dance in terms of the set of elements. Unless, instead of one support, you need to perform three and two tracks instead of one.
Spin
In addition, skaters need to add one spin in free skate.
Choreographic element
As well as three different choreographic elements. Their notable feature is that the GOE premiums here almost always exceed the base cost, which is only 1.10 points.
They say ice dancing is a very subjective thing. This is true?
Yes and no. In fact, the assertion that duets who have waited "for their turn" win in ice dancing is not without meaning. But it can also be justified logically.
Ice dancing can hardly be considered a technical discipline.
The quality of skating and good coordination are all the specific features of this type that affect the elements performed. At the same time, other qualities that are almost impossible to learn come to the fore.
See also
"Our pair skating is in full bloom right now." Coach Vasiliev on the results of pre-season rentals
The feeling of a partner, the artistry and the flatness of the couple affect the overall impression of the judges from the rental, which is then reflected both in the GOE allowances and in the second rating scale - the components. Presentation of the program, composition, interpretation - on these points the best duets in the world consistently receive the highest scores, up to the maximum (10). An important factor in evaluating the components of the programs are the skill of skating and the variety of connecting elements. And here, of course, experience also determines a lot.
Telling a story during a performance and at the same time appearing on the ice as a whole is a difficult task for those who have recently paired up.
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