Classical Ballet Technique

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Summary: Great Book
Review: As a Ballet Artistic Director and instructor I have found this is one of the best books of it's kind. I find that I use it every day. I have been teaching Ballet for 30 years and this is the most complete book I have found that is not just a dictionary. The pictures are easy for my students to follow when I can not show the step because of my maturing body.

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Summary: Fantastic reference book.
Review: I agree with bif@whidbey...it is the best reference book that I have seen on classical ballet technique. It has become very common with all of the teachers that I have taken at in the past several years.

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Summary: This book is exactly what we need!
Review: I am a beginning adult Ballet student who has been studying Ballet for only a month, but I already found this book very useful. It's got a sequence of pictures of real ballet dancers (not drawings) illustrating each step very clearly and precisely. The other good thing is it's got these pictures that show the "wrong" technique too for comparison. This is exactly what we students need. I took some ballroom dancing and there are a couple of standard technique books written on the subject, but they are all verbal discriptions so it is very hard to visualize the pictures. I wish there were a book just like this one for all the other dances. Anyway, this book is a MUST have for all serious, semi-serious ballet or dance students.

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Summary: Excellent book!
Review: I bought this book at a bookstore a few months ago. I love it! It gives you an in depth look at all of the steps, positions and other things needed to perfect a dancer's technique. The book takes you through every move, step by step with photographs and instructions. This is a wonderful book for both beginner and advanced dancers. You really can't go wrong! As a dancer I was at first reluctant to purchase this book for fear that the technique shown would disrupt my class teachings. But it didn't at all. It is a wonderful book!

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Summary: Good Book
Review: I think that this book is a very good book. It shows a lot of pictures so that we can follow to become a good ballerina. It also show pictures of common errors so that we can avoid making the common errors. I myself do not dance ballet, but I am very fond of this dancing. I have friends which dance ballet and they also found this book very useful.

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Summary: Be A Perfectionist With Technique
Review: If you are a dancer who wants to seek perfection in proper alignment this book is the one for you. It begins by introducing the basic characteristics of a dancer. The qualities companies look for in a true ballerina or dancer. The long arms, long neck, and weight requirements and so forth. Each chapter goes into depth of doing the proper positioning of the arms in conjunction with the eyes, hips and posturing of the entire body. The key to a good dancer is her technique to dance clean by having her basics completely intact. This book gives you an in depth analysis of every imaginable position. I consider this book to be a MUST to a True Dancer!

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Summary: If you only own 1 ballet book.....
Review: make sure it's this one! The best job ever of getting ballet technique between a book's cover. The photos are fantastic!

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Summary: you cannot go wrong with this ballet book
Review: My ballet teacher says this is one of the best ballet books around. It has hundreds of pictures explaining each move and the common errors performing them. I am buying two more for my friends.

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Summary: A Very Good Book
Review: This book and Suki Schorer's Balanchine Technique are as good as this type of book gets, along with Lincoln Kirstein's earlier and similar work. This volume's great virtue is the photographs which show specific 'proper' technique together with photos of common technical errors regarding the same 'steps,' 'positions' or 'movements.' The latter are what is particularly helpful in this book for dancers as well as informed audience members. The mistakes are common and generally there is agreement on most all of them. The 'error' pictures afford a good contrast to 'proper' technique and thereby give it meaning and reference. A good work.

Rating:
Summary: Best Reference Book
Review: This book by Gretchen Ward has been the most useful and used book that I have as a reference for teaching ballet. The pictures are wonderful. They actually show photos and not poorly drawn pictures. It shows so many movements used in classical ballet, with pictures and descriptions. It also has a wonderful section for teachers, which give you tips and a teaching guide that gives you insight on the order of what you should teach at specific levels. This book is so organized and covers so much material. I love this book and highly recomend it to every teacher who teaches ballet!