Struggling with brises

[wembley]

Help! This week in class we did brises, and I couldn't cope with this jump at all. I struggle with jumps with beats anyway, as I tend to try to beat along the front/back axis instead of to the sides, and with the extra complications of travelling to the side and bringing the second leg up I just couldn't manage anything!

 

Any ideas for breaking this jump down into easier parts for me to work on?

 

Thanks, Wembley

[Mel Johnson]

You may have hit on the very step that will help point up the difference between beating back/front and from side/side. The old French brisé, which is preserved in Bournonville, was a glissade from fourth position croisé along an effacé line to a fourth croisé a little farther along on a diagonal. As they pass in the air during the glissade, the feet both beat as they pass one another. This is the "broken" part of the brisé.

[Victoria Leigh]

***This post is by b1, and was moved, by request from poster, from another topic where it was posted by mistake.

 

 

Sometimes is helps to think of the brise as a beat on the way up, rather than on the way down. An assemble battu would beat on the way down (to 'assemble' on the way down), and a brise beats more onthe way up than the way down. Also think of that brise (as with almost all beats) as a beat of the upper thighs rather than the feet/ankles. Yes, that is where the beat usually happens, but the impetus for the beating action comes from the upper inner thigh.

 

Hope that helped some.

 

b1

[wembley]

Thanks for the help! I also searched for 'brises' and found other helpful advice from past posts. I actually hadn't realised that it was a modified glissade as I was so overwhelmed by it all!

 

Thanks, Wembley

[Mel Johnson]

Now, as you get the concept, and improve practicing it that way, just tighten it down until you get it going from fifth to fifth! It'll take time, but at least now you have a start.

[Garyecht]

I used to hate brises because I just couldn’t do them very well. Then I ran into a teacher who urged students to think of a brise as a large traveling assemble where the back leg catches up with the front leg and you just happened to add a beat. That really improved my brises. Now I think a lot more about traveling and hardly at all about the beat. Works great.

[dancepig]

I recently had the "class from hell" where we had to do these! Must be something in the air. Anyway, my teacher finally realized I couldn't get the concept of "crossing my legs" (while in the air) and told me to shorten the jump. She also said that one way to practice this was to do very small assembles, but start the brushing leg in the back and keep the brushing leg to the back, don't end in the front. This only helped me get the idea of shortening the jump, I still have a terrible time with beating anything - entrechat, assemble bateu - etc. I swear, when I do entrechat, from the side I look like a duck paddling for my life! I even call it the duck paddle.

[Guest fastfeets]

This is something I struggle with as well. I can execute a single brise', but ask me to do a second or more in quick succession, and I will stumble horrifically. I was told the make absolutely sure I was putting adequate weight on both feet to facilitate the brush, which makes sense in theory, but was much harder to perform. It's getting better, though. I still can't do a quick series, but I can do several whereas before I would get one initial step, then inertia.

 

It's odd, though, because I find beats very simple, and I love doing them. This particular beat does not set well with me. Mental block, perhaps?

[Mel Johnson]

Perhaps. If you want a nice challenge, try this one:

 

Brisé dessus

Pause

Brisé dessus

Pause

Three brisés dessus

Pause

Repeat all

 

If you can do that without "stuttering", that is, by not taking a little step so that you're in a short fourth to begin the next brisé, then you're on your way to success!

[Amy Reusch]

Mel, what is the theory in putting pauses into classroom petite allegro?

We had a vaganova teacher here who was positively maniacal about stopping the natural ballon... it seems like "double assembles" are part of the basic training? I can't understand it... (at some point I was convinced she thought demi plie was a position, she had us stopped in it so often). I can see making the more advanced students do it to go back and clean up their positions, and to teach them to get the jumps from the bottom of their demi plies, but it otherwise it seems like it goes against the instincts that make petite allegro go.... against finding the spring in the feet... kills all bounce... is it my ignorance of Cecchetti that makes me think they don't have beginner-intermediate students doing this in cecchetti classes? I would think Cecchetti would be the model for learning brises, having originated the Bluebird role and all... for the most part, the vaganova trained low-intermediate adults I've encountered... none of them can get that springy/floaty petite allegro going...

[Mel Johnson]

Margaret Craske used to give that, too, so it's in Cecchetti, too. I think it's to show whether you've landed a position squarely, and not make use of a "false balance" or a favoring of one foot over the other.

[Balletlove]

You may have hit on the very step that will help point up the difference between beating back/front and from side/side. The old French brisé, which is preserved in Bournonville, was a glissade from fourth position croisé along an effacé line to a fourth croisé a little farther along on a diagonal. As they pass in the air during the glissade, the feet both beat as they pass one another. This is the "broken" part of the brisé.

 

Hi

 

I am resurrecting this old thread as I am trying to learn how to do brises - and so far not very successfully.

reading Major Mel's post above I am not sure that I am doing or even attempting these correctly at all and I thought that I had at least the theory down correctly . I thought a brise was "an interrupted or broken assemble"?

 

I am obviously having a very blonde moment today but I just cannot work this out

I study under the Cecchetti method.... so if I break this down, my thought process here would be....

starting in corner three in a fifth position, pointe tendu the right foot forward and place to fourth would be fourth position croisé.. if I moved in an effacé line wouldnt I be moving more into corner three than towards corner one???

I am trying to work out when/how the feet would pass in the air during the glissade, but at the moment I am sorry but I dont get it please help.

[Balletlove]

Okay, I think I (we) may have worked it out ... The fourth is facing enface, so if left foot is in front, you start the glissade with the right foot and do a glissade en evant?

[appleblossom]

We did these last night, and in reverse too (start with front foot and beat back front)

 

One thing that helps me is to imagine im wearing a tutu and always engage the abs and lift the rib cage up and over as if you are peering out over the tutu. You have a slight tilt in your body towards the direction you are travelling.

 

Also dont forget the floor pressure on your initial glisse

[Victoria Leigh]

Balletlove, the glissade would not be en face, it would be moving effacé, finishing 4th or 5th croisé.