Arabesque

[c.chibeau]

hi,

A lot of the time, when I do an arabesque, my back starts to cramp or hurt. Is this because I am using the wrong muscles? Is there something i can do/work on to stop it from cramping?

thanks

[Victoria Leigh]

It's not a matter of the wrong muscles, but the wrong concept of arabesque. Arabesque is a forward and upward movement of the torso, against the backward and upward movement of the leg. If you hold yourself straight up, not allowing forward and upward movement of the body weight, your gluteus maximus is simply in the way of getting your leg up, so, you pull it up and the lower back cramps because it is compressed, instead of lifted up and out of the hips by moving into the arabesque. Also, you cannot keep your hips totally square in an arabesque and expect to have any rotation of the back leg, which creates the line we are expecting to see. Many students seem to approach arabesque as a backward thing. It's not. It moves forward, Sometimes on pointe, students will even piqué to arabesque by pulling the piqué leg back towards them, instead of pushing off of the plié on the supporting and moving forward and up to the arabesque. In a relevé you need to move your body weight forward over the supporting leg to relevé, creating an equal and opposite movement of the torso and head, versus the extended leg.