Most Efficient Technique For Multiple Pirouettes

[jamesters]

This girl does 36 using Jazz technique. I also noticed she's not fully on releve, more like demi releve. Even in jazz shouldn't pirouettes be from full releve?:

 

 

This guy does 11 pirouette using ballet technique, though he looks like he could have gotten more. I also noticed he winds his torso which I've been told is no good. Now I'm not sure if it's simply no good for aesthetic reasons but might be good if wanting to do a large number of multiples.

 

[Mel Johnson]

First clip, we've seen before. She's on a specially prepared surface dedicated for facilitating turns. Not very useful for real world applications. Second clip is from the movie White Nights, and it helps to be Mikhail Baryshnikov when he was 36. In both cases, the dancers establish a balance they can maintain and continue to balance while they rotate about their central vertical axis. Baryshnikov goofs on himself in a present-day show where he dances with a film of himself in his twenties. In one sequence, they make a cut-and-splice repeating loop so that it looks like the filmed Mischa was doing about 30 pirouettes, and the live Mischa looks at the screen and shakes his head. Gets a good laugh every time.

[Momof3darlings]

And in the top video, she's wearing a tap shoe not a jazz shoe, so she's turning on a metal surface on her shoe as well. 36 would still be hard to do even in tap shoes, but my youngest can pull off 10 in tap shoes but take off the tap shoes and put on ballet or jazz shoes and she can do 2 solid, sometimes 3.

[jamesters]

Cool details, but what if the surface was the same and the shoes were the same, which style of pirouettes would be best for multiples?

 

Also, is it okay/helpful to rotate the torso before twisting before doing multiples!?!

[Mel Johnson]

Not with any sense of classicism does the torso twist. Remember, both of the examples shown in the videos were comparatively casual with regard to classical line or attack. It's OK to throw yourself into a turn if the effect desired is abandon and roughness, but when you have to be a Renaissance prince, a certain style has to rule. Basilio in Don Quixote might be able to wind up for pirouettes, Duke Albrecht, never!