At BDC there are numerous ballet classes, from basic right up to advanced. Similarly to London their are phenomenal ballerinas standing next to 80year old women who you can only hope once upon a time could do it and there just living their dream until the end! Many of the techniques are Russian based, apart from a couple, dear old David Howard (verging on 85) sitting on his stool, calmly grunting the exercises, moving only with a stick, takes a very british advanced class and is from London, living in Bexhill on Sea in the holidays.
Natalya Stavro is our favourite teacher. very very old school, Miss Myra would be loving it. Once a professional Ballet dancer. She is Russian, around 65, glamourous and feisty, yet really lovely at the same time. She screams and shouts at people, slaps peoples legs, and today continued to kick Rosina's feet into the flattest first position one has ever seen, to follow it with another slap on the bottom 'put that away'. Her exercises are 'pretty' yet impossible, barre work on flat is not an option, releve or full point, everything is called something different and she screams numerous times at the pianist who just sits their calm behind her sunglasses 'This is a ballet class not a concert, follow the dancers, follow the pirouettes, they do 5, you hang on'.
She has intensely blue eyes, perfect makeup and a glint behind her evil russian techniques that makes her loveable. What makes her even more loveable is that she will demonstrate every exercise full out, correct your ecarte a la seconde whilst she is standing on releve in a la seconde too. Her feet are so fished looking at them you'd think they were on backwards, similar to her knees. She mutters the exercises in Russian, claps in peoples faces, stamps the floor, has this blinking twitch when she's thinking, shouts 'pose' at the end of every exercise yet when you do it right she does at least say better. Add in a husky russian accent plus her token prodigy anorexic russian teenage ballerinas who religiously take her class and you have a picture of the setting.
Its definitely a work out, not too sure how flawless our ballet technique is during the class, but who cares when you can give it a double flounce arm in arabesque! We take her Intermediate class every Friday, her Advanced Beginner (shouldn't be called that because its no more beginner that Nureyev) is just too much to handle when she's laying into someone who has no idea what a pique turn even looks like. She makes us laugh a lot, just the way she is, Sam had a massive bout of giggles during ronds de jambe en l'air after witnessing Rosina being kicked into the right position!!!
Natalya Stavro is our favourite teacher. very very old school, Miss Myra would be loving it. Once a professional Ballet dancer. She is Russian, around 65, glamourous and feisty, yet really lovely at the same time. She screams and shouts at people, slaps peoples legs, and today continued to kick Rosina's feet into the flattest first position one has ever seen, to follow it with another slap on the bottom 'put that away'. Her exercises are 'pretty' yet impossible, barre work on flat is not an option, releve or full point, everything is called something different and she screams numerous times at the pianist who just sits their calm behind her sunglasses 'This is a ballet class not a concert, follow the dancers, follow the pirouettes, they do 5, you hang on'.
She has intensely blue eyes, perfect makeup and a glint behind her evil russian techniques that makes her loveable. What makes her even more loveable is that she will demonstrate every exercise full out, correct your ecarte a la seconde whilst she is standing on releve in a la seconde too. Her feet are so fished looking at them you'd think they were on backwards, similar to her knees. She mutters the exercises in Russian, claps in peoples faces, stamps the floor, has this blinking twitch when she's thinking, shouts 'pose' at the end of every exercise yet when you do it right she does at least say better. Add in a husky russian accent plus her token prodigy anorexic russian teenage ballerinas who religiously take her class and you have a picture of the setting.
Its definitely a work out, not too sure how flawless our ballet technique is during the class, but who cares when you can give it a double flounce arm in arabesque! We take her Intermediate class every Friday, her Advanced Beginner (shouldn't be called that because its no more beginner that Nureyev) is just too much to handle when she's laying into someone who has no idea what a pique turn even looks like. She makes us laugh a lot, just the way she is, Sam had a massive bout of giggles during ronds de jambe en l'air after witnessing Rosina being kicked into the right position!!!
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