How I do love to travel! Sadly due to the global pandemic, I am not able to travel as far afield at present as I like to regularly. Thankfully, I am still able to walk around the city of Cologne, and also dance!

Walking, strutting, marching, sliding, under-curves, over-curves, crawling, turning, rolling, grapevines, triplets, gallops, skips, and many more movements take us from one place to another in dance. As Mary Joyce succinctly states in her book Dance Technique for Children: “‘Locomotor’ simply means going from one place to another as opposed to axial or ‘on the spot’ movement.” (p.155)

Last week we discussed types of jumps and allegro movements in dance in the Arts of Allegro Podcast, Arts of Allegro blog, and Types of Jumps YouTube Video, which provide a nice general introduction to the various types of jumps that exist in dance.

Today in episode 48, we’re covering other ways to move from point A to point B and you can find out more about locomotor movement in the “The 7 Movements of Ballet” YouTube Video, 7 Movements of Ballet YouTube Playlist. The Sauter (jump), Glisser (glide), and Tourner (turn) videos from that series cover a few of the most common locomotor movements in ballet, and I have also taught more complex traveling steps such as Balancé or waltzing and Pas de Bourée.

Still to come will be videos breaking down March & Prance, Skip & Pas de Chat, Chassé, various jumps such as Changements and Sissonne, and much more.

Thank goodness we’re still able to explore different types of movement, develop dance technique, improvise, choreograph, even “travel” through diverse styles and movement qualities! I look forward to exploring all of these with you in the future. 

Blythe Stephens, MFA