attitude promenade

[Guest Medora]

Hi everyone! Well I am getting to learn the pas de deux from Corsaire (yippe!). I have dreamed of learning this since I first heard the music from the grotto scene, and I am so excited! At the same time I could kick myself for my ambition, because it's so hard!! Yikes! Of course we are cutting the 32 fouettes though. ;)

So, anyway, I have to do this attitude promenade into a penche, like Julie Kent does in ABT's version. My partner moves, but I am having trouble following. How do I get around and penche without falling off of it? I have never done holding the hand promenades until now. Before it was the kind where the guy holds the waist and turns around. I am finding that this kind is a lot harder. But so much fun!

[Mel Johnson]

Medora, this is not a particularly difficult movement; there's something rather similar in "Les Sylphides" for that matter, and it requires that you have excellent control over your arms and shoulders. You need to practice this with your partner, because no two dancers do it exactly alike. Just make sure that you take a good attitude balance at the very beginning, and the two of you have to work out the promenade between yourselves. Just a few times, and you should get it. You both have to work equally here; he can't pull you around, and you can't do all the work yourself.