ladies and gentlemen this is ballet rain welcome back to the box with your most trusted very favorite ballet nerds on the internet and today is your formal introduction to the different styles in ballet if you've been around on our channel for any amount of time you've probably heard us make a comment like oh the balentin this oh the classic bournville that and if you're sitting there wondering what is up with all of these ballet styled and why do they keep talking about it then this is the vide
o for you Classical Ballet is sort of the big umbrella term yes but within Classical Ballet we have a lot of different styles and also a lot of different training methods and so they're kind of all coexist together in the big happy family of clasical ballet each style has sort of its own little quirks its own personality and so today we're going to be walking you through the differences between some of these Styles their main characteristics some of the philosophies Behind These training methods
and styles and some trademark steps that can help you identify them when you see them on stage if you're ready to meet all the members of our little ballet friend group then tap the like button and let's get going so I guess the best place to start is to begin with the oldest member of The Classical Ballet friend group and this is of course none other than the French Training Method whose Roots Trace way way way back to 1661 in the courts of King Louis the 14th and I think it's pretty safe to s
ay that this is the start of Classical Ballet yeah it has had its Origins right there in the academy Royal D and from there it just you know kind of started taking off and it spread around the world but this is like OG the O OG ballet now of course that is not the kind of training method that the French method is today the French method went through sort of a glow up in the 1980s by Rudolph nurv who was a legendary dsur in those times obviously nurv did keep a lot of the principles of the Traini
ng Method but he made it more applicable to nowadays ballet training in order for the dance of that Training Method to keep up with modern standards I think French dancers are very clean we've said this before French dancers are known for their very clean lines very precise footwork that is one of the principles and the kind of the key pillars of their Training Method and the thing that they're most well known for is their clean lines and that technical cleanliness and Purity and everything like
that it shows when they dance their Arabesque are absolutely spotless beautiful and square and pure and it's just Exquisite the French really prioritize that very Royal and elegant look in ballet and I really like it it's not too flambo it's not overdone I I feel like it kind of encapsulates the the tradition of the original Classical Ballet which was only performed ever in Royal courts it has that sort of demeanor and that sort of royalty vibe that the original Classical Ballet had I think the
French dancing specifically their acting and their Artistry is very nuanced it's very subtle it's not dramatic you know it's very candid but in a very poised way it's very btic kind of more subdued than most other companies I would say most other most other styles keeping everything looking very Baltic very poised very Polished in in terms of specific like technique things technique trademark things I would say the French dancers they keep their portra very forward compared to say vaganova or b
alenine if you were to take your arms up to fifth they would be very much here and less like up you know they have that sort of forwardness the arms are never behind the body they're always placed in a very perfect position and even like their Arabesque is never twisted and huge it's very it's it's squared elegant which makes for a very very classy approach to the dancing we're probably all wondering where can we see some beautiful French ballet of course the first place to go is the one the onl
y Paris Opera ballet they have a gorgeous gge company and all of their dancers really embody the French style in terms of the clean lines the technical Precision there have been some famous French dancers over time and there still are today oh yes Dorothy Gilbert's one of them she's a beautiful dancer so so so good from the past there's Lauren hair Elizabeth Patel or D Sylvie gam as well so yeah there have been so many beautiful beautiful French danc I'm sure you can find some of them on YouTube
highly recommend I would say the French style in a nutshell is like your very classy elegant good example friend she's a very diplomatic one the one with perfect manners she probably wears you know silk shirt kitten heels and wears a nice perfume yes that friend that's sort of the vibe that the French stle gives off for me defin always like just put together always present always nice always on top of it yeah yeah our next friend in the ballet friend group The born enville method you've heard u
s talk about bville quite a few times on this channel and I'm sure a lot of you have been able to kind of pick out that bournville is quite different stylistically than a lot of the other styles it was created by August bournville he was actually very influenced by the French method in fact the bournonville style is kind of like a little time capsule of what the original French style used to be and as time went on all the ballet Styles kind of evolved and changed to fit the changing landscape of
ballet and then borille was over here and went you know what we could also not do that and what was interesting about the bournville style and the way he taught is that he assigned a specific class to each day of the week yes so you'd have your Monday class your Tuesday class wednesday class etc etc and You' repeat those exercises for every week that way everything was very well rounded and you made sure you had like a balanced valet diet exactly throughout the whole week yeah Bonville himself
was a fabulous fabulous dancer had a beautiful career and then when he took up teaching he definitely put a lot of energy and a lot of focus into his his male dancer protes so that they would all eventually hopefully become as good as he was when they grew up borille technique really has the most challenging technique and it's very demanding specifically on the men yes because bournville was like you know I can do it you have to do it the bournville male dancer is a very very very technically st
rong so strong incredible dancer yes the trademark qualities of the bournonville technique I'd say is just their lightness and their speed with particular skill and PE battery which is like those little jumps where you beat your legs and all the small things like that which is very challenging to do but this was like bville trademark it style and it was his strength a strength of his own and so it became the strength of all of his students after him obviously they really valued lightness and bei
ng able to jump without any apparent stream yes the whole goal was to make all this incredibly hard stuff with your feet but to make it look so effortless and so easy and so Carefree on top some trademark bournville positions include this very inclined head and a lot of other ballet styles were very upright whereas in bournville he put the head down here his purpose was to make the dancers appear very welcoming very friendly very open and kind of very humble and approachable and just like friend
ly Good Vibes all around obviously the classic born and Bill very little use of the arms very little use the know you're doing like jet J breath and all that and the arms are just like here and maybe you're a P like this a little bit a little definitely is a very Fantastical physical feat for any dancer to accomplish and it's it's still it's still breathtaking in today's ballet scheme in terms of the arms bournville arm positions are generally very rounded compared to the other styles in terms o
f the fifth on ba position or the Brea position in most other B sty the position is much longer a little bit more like elongated oval shape for bournville the arms were shortened it's a bit rounder it's a little bit more circular the same thing for his Demi bra or open first position and for his Demi second position it was a everything was a very very rounded again to portray that sort of soft and gentle and friendly picture it kind of reflects one of bville philosophies that the feet are the Rh
ythm and the arms are the melody that was his sort of outlook on ballet and it really shows in his choreography and in his balls I'm thinking about like flower Fest yeah the feet are the Rhythm and the arms are the melody um another classic born andil thing this is mostly found in his valys yes the bville shoes TM these are shoes specifically for the men they're the ones that are black but then it has like the white that comes into a point at the toes obviously we've never worn them we're girls
but allegedly they make you look sickled from the moon so so every time we you do a bournville ballet chances are you're a man you may have to pull out the bournville shoes and then really make sure that you're shaping your feet well because all bets are up you're on your own again going with the general bournville feel the acting style is of course Very relatable very personable and very realistic it's nothing too theatrical it's not overly dramatic it's not super poised like the French school
either it looks very genuine it looks very realistic it kind of enhances the overall born enville charm of making it look very friendly and very relatable Whimsical and full of life in that regard bville loved life and he wanted to portray that joy in the dancing it's very evident all the ballets that he produced are very like very lighthearted good vibe ballet you know if you think of Napoli such a happy ending flower Fest is adorable P even like the conservat most of his Works were just like t
hey're very happy so where do we find these amazing bournville ballets well obviously bournville was Danish so the Royal Danish ballet is a really great place to start their company is bournville trained and they also perform a lot of his ballets to kind of keep that Legacy on of course their dancers are more versatile and they don't just dance with their arms here they can do a lot of they've done a beautiful Gizelle production but they do so so well in The banville Valleys their men are oh my
gosh their men are so so so strong do you want to talk like solid double tour Landing every single time oh my goodness some bournville trained dancers and include Eric Brun Nikolai Shuba and Johan cobor these are all famous bournville trained Dan I think to describe bournville the best it would be your small Bean friend golden retriever energy kind of friend full of Whimsy probably a little naive very innocent wholesome kind of person bille seems like the person that would just make friends in t
he most random places could be walking down the street and then suddenly he's best friends with somebody like oh my God let meet my new friend how did you meet we were on the crosswalk together now we're friends okay all right all right that kind of friend the one that just loved on everybody that's Bor that's the born and b style now we're moving forward to the chetti method founded by enrio chetti who was an Italian danur who became a teacher later on in his career he might have been one of th
e greatest in terms of teaching my opinion and I feel like a lot of the current training styles do send from chetti today Chet's fingerprint is everywhere you know yeah he's literally everywhere the BT training Russian rad also yeah they all draw inspiration from jetti was actually a very famous man he trained a lot of famous dancers including Anna paava herself and B ninski like the greats of them were trained by enrio chetti and it was considered that you were not a fully trained dancer MH unl
ess you had finished your training with chetti that's how serious he was so Chet's Training Method he had a training method kind kind of similar to bournville in terms of he had his iconic days of the week system which was again a Monday Class A Tuesday class all the way up to a Saturday class and then you just repeat those every single week there were like six principals you would have one principal focused on each day of the six days of the week just to make sure the daners were well-rounded a
nd that no one would be in balance that everyone would have mastered every single thing that there is to Classical Ballet and his method includes some of the most difficult combinations and steps that honestly a lot of them aren't done anymore because they're too hard toti really emphasized the importance of understanding ballet technique which is yeah partly why we really appreciate CH it's perfect for the ballet nerd it's perfect for the ballet nerd the understanding was so important to him an
d he made sure that the dancers weren't just copying what they saw you know the greats doing yeah and they actually understood the techniques and so they knew how all the concept were supposed to work they had mastered all these different movements all these different principles in classical so that they would for themselves become a very well-rounded dancer chetti also valued each dancer as an individual he didn't try to like put the technique as like a one- siiz fits-all mold he wanted the dan
cers to embrace their natural turnout for instance rather than trying to push for the 180 Dee turnout in Chet's mind the health and well-being of the dancer was more important so he wouldn't stress crazy crazy amounts of stretching he wouldn't emphasize a complete perfect turnout it was supposed to be a training to make the dancer as an individual the strongest and the best that they could be so that they could have a long and fulfilling career with as few injuries as possible some interesting t
rademark characteristics of the chetti style is that he actually did not encourage his dancers to cross their fifth completely like toe to heel but he actually said that the heel should line up with the toe joint the big toe joint and that still is a valid technique today like there are definitely dancers who don't overcross their fifth jenti really encouraged complete coordination throughout the entire body yes which honestly I feel like in order just to do a chetti class you would need to have
mastered coordination throughout the entire body or you wouldn't be able to make it because chetti exercises again kind of going along with the coordination thing he never like to have the wrist flick at the end of the movement so if you're to take your arm to fifth I'm going to try and shrink down so you can see you don't want to he doesn't want the flick at the end he wanted everything to arrive together so you don't have that afterthought yeah all the transition had to be really smooth and s
eamless and not just for the arms I guess but for all the transitions in general it was supposed to be completely seamless another thing that they do with the chetti method is the the special frappe the English style you Flex the foot strike the floor and then you do your frappe the Russian Style you do it with a pointed foot and you don't really strike the floor but the chetti style is the hardest one of course you have to do it from the sirud PA position which means the foot is wrapped around
the ankle strike the floor and then do your froe it's difficult y'all it's it's not easy it's not easy chetti all of chetti stuff is so so hard so where do we go and watch some beautiful chetti Ballet Now that we know that their dancers are some of the greats unlike the French style that has its kind of central Hub which is the Paris Opera ballet or the vaganova Russian Style as you'll see in the minute they have like their own banova Academy as it's sort of home based chetti doesn't actually ha
ve this like there's no major chetti ballet school or chetti company where all their dancers are chetti trained rather like we said Chet's fingerprint is literally all over the ballet world and there are many different chetti teachers and chetti dancers all over the world fun fact actually the founder of the Royal Ballet school was one of Chet's students and so when she founded the royal Val school it was very much a chetti method-based school until 1986 since then they've kind of devised their
own Training Method like the Royal belly school training curriculum or something but it still remains very much influenced by chetti today paava Valentin ninski like obviously Testaments of Chet's greatness Monica Mason what can we say they're all fabulous chetti is your non-judgmental nerd friend definitely chetti I feel like is that person that you can always go to for advice and knowing that they will not judge you and they'll just take you as you are and give you the best advice exactly they
're just the one that is friendly and welcoming to everyone very nerdy very smart very clever probably wears glasses you know yep that's chetti for you next up is probably the most popular and probably most adored I say style of all time and this is of course the vaganova method or the Russian training style this was founded by agripina vaganova who was a Russian ballerina with the marinsky ballet back in 1916 she devised this Training Method and it was kind of a combination of the elegant Frenc
h style and the virtuostic Italian chetti style when you look at vaganova and chetti Dancer you can definitely see some similarities in terms of the difficult combinations in the sort of tricks that they are able to do banova is considered the most one of the most rigorous training me methods to the point of all the dancers that enter the vaganova school have to pass a very thorough physical examination make sure that they have the physical ability and capability to go through the banaba method
because it is very very difficult very demanding and it's not for everybody the students that enter the vaganova academy in Russia have to have pre-existing beautiful turnout hyperextended legs crazy ranges of flexibility in every regard this is all because if you don't have that to begin with with you'll you will struggle very much with this Training Method vaganova had a very strong idea that the culmination in the ultimate test of a dancer's skill and training was their ability to perform a f
ull length P so a grand P entry adio Solo solo kod that's kind of like the ultimate test of a dancer in her eyes and so every single combination in her class was to prepare a dancer in terms of technique and also the stamina to eventually be able to perform a grandp so all of her combinations are very very long very very thorough and a lot of the time they sample passages from famous pteras so some trademark vova things definitely the arms are much more dramatic and extended expressive than the
past three styles that we've talked about so far definitely every style up until this point was much more demure much more forward much more placed banova here we have banova with this extremely extremely expressive and extravagant portra very very Grand and so open comparatively I think emphasis on high extensions and flexibility is a must for vaganova dancers from the very beginning vaganova prioritized a very very Supple lower back she believed that the back should be involved with every sing
le movement and the only way to achieve that is to have a lot of mobility in the spine itself so the dancers had to stretch a lot if you ever see the dancers in the banova academy you can see them doing like all the gymnastics things and their backs like Bend in half yeah but ganova has that really strong emphasis on this like perfect profile line yeah meaning turning the head all the way to the side I don't even know if I can do that more than this more than that even it has to be perfectly to
the side and usually way bad the whole purpose of that was to have the line of the head and the cheek and the neck follow one line and it just made a very open and elongated position additionally we have to address the classic Russi Fu I'm pretty sure the entire world does fues with the leg coming to the front as you relevate the leg is carried to the side and then you pull in and do the fting Russian is very different you skip the front Al together and you go directly to the side and then you p
ull it in and also when your leg is to the side you're in a paa so I had a little more of a accent down rather than and up in and up in it's just down and down and up and down and up so it has a different Rhythm a completely different look it is a different look I guess another thing you could note is their attitude line is a much more lengthened as everything is with vaganova very much lengthened and more open position I think it's a very beautiful position I just think it looks bigger and gran
der and I mean that was the point of vova she want everything to look very big and expressive personally I like it so where can we find some beautiful Russian trained dancers marinsky and bullsh is the first way to go there are a lot of Russian dancers that are also around the globe like Sova I believe she's with Dutch National Ballet Now Natalia marara was Russian trained Natalia oapa fana zakara Diana visha they're very very popular and well known I'm sure if you can just look on your home scr
een after watching our video you'll find some the banova style is the most acclaimed style and it seems to have like set the standard for ballet in a way in a way just because it's so big and it's so impressive and it's just captivating to watch know banova is definitely the popular girl of the ballet styles for everybody loves her she's pretty Glam pretty dramatic yeah very dramatic everybody adores her but she's also very selective with her friends very choosy with her friends so if you are lu
cky enough to know vaganova consider yourself blessed moving on to the English style more specifically the Royal Academy of Dance or rad style the board of rad was established in 1920 pretty recent comparatively to like 1661 R is sort of a big Melting Pot of like Italian like chetti some French some Danish even a little bit of veano a little bit Russian in there as well they took a blend of everything and we like you know let's let's put it all together and then that's the rad style they add a l
ot of free movement as they call it so it's not just Valley training so that the students have a chance to actually move and learn how to feel the music in the space instead of just working on class work until you have to perform Rad's Training Method features one set of exercises and you repeat that every day for the entire semester so you learn your bar exercises and your Center and you do that every single day it's just like your daily vitamins and that's for a few reasons and that is the pur
pose of having a certain step mastered before moving on to anything more difficult I feel like it's a very calculated Training Method it's really perfectionistic it has everything has to be so so so so perfect and analyzed down to like the smallest smallest details and then at the very end of the year all the students have to go through an R exam with an rad certified board member which is terrifying scary but that just ensures that the dance actually mastered the techniques of that particular s
yllabus and they're ready to move on to the next level one thing that really stands out to me about the red style particularly is how No Frills it is extremely academic to the point of where you know when you have to open your arms a second and then take it down usually you would have an L you can't see I'll do it which means you lengthen and turn the Palms down and then you float the fingers down and red they have like where that you just take the arm down or if anything you just turn the wrist
and you come down there is no breath there's no nothing it's very strict in that way and I think it's a good way to start so that the children don't pick up any weird affectations or something thinking that they're going to try and be a ballerina and they I guess it's subjective you could also very easily just kill someone's Artistry I think so but that's why they balance it with free movement I think that's why they have to incorporate that so you don't lose the Artistry Al together but they w
anted to make sure each was developed separately so technique is technique and then Artistry is artistry and then when you get to like the higher levels you eventually put them together we'll have a little bit more freedom to make it look like valet I like the rad training because they have two routes I guess we'll make this a small point but you have two routes a recreational route and they also have a vocational or more serious like people who want to go pro route you put the dancers depending
on their goals you start off the same like you go grade one two and three and four and then after that you have a split off for like people aren't going to take ballet like at the professional career they'll go on the recreational route which is 5 6 7 and 8 and then if you're going on a professional vocational route then you'll go into intermediate foundations intermediate and then advanced found and then Advance one and then advance two I think that's another graduate level yeah I think there
might there might be another even graduate level rid also sort of follows the chetti way in terms of they don't force you to have a complete 180 degree yeah you know yeah not in an unhealthy way of course they'll make you improve it in a very healthy and sustainable way again more putting Health First I think is one of the priorities I think another quality that you can see from like R trained dancers like once they graduate obviously you can really see the cleanliness from the previous training
come through everything's very placed everything is very technically sound they're strong dancers yeah honestly they're just they're just they're just wonderful to watch a lot of the royal ballet dancers are rad trained or at least started in like rad schools before joining the Royal Ballet school and it speaks for itself it speaks for itself it's a very methodical Training Method and when done right it can really produce some beautiful dancers R just gives like the mom friend for me yeah absol
utely she like carries a day planner with her she's very orderly keeps everybody in check Dependable responsible person yeah I feel like she's a little bit perfectionistic very particular but she's also very war and friendly and open to everybody this might be the most recent or one of the most recent training methods this is of course the balentin Training Method this one is also quite different than a lot of the other training methods there's a lot of differences in terms of like their the cha
racteristics of this training style so starting with obviously the facts founded by George balenine who was a Russian trained dancer I think he originally did dance with the marinsky for a few years and then when he came to America he founded School of American Ballet or sa and he even founded his own company the New York City Ballet he eventually gained the title the father of American Ballet kind of a big title and he kind of revolutionized the ballet technique and his focus is of course to ta
ke up more space in less time so again another one of those bigger is bigger grander is grander more is more mentality kind of like vaganova but like Balanchine obviously because of his Russian training you can see a little bit of that influence coming into his Training Method the defining characteristics of the Balanchine training and there are so many defining characteristics of so many first off I guess is just the overall look in the vibe I think the Balan training is definitely like a Russi
an training but more athletic and more temporary modernish not that it's not ballet anymore like not it's not a contemporary style but it just looks newer balentin dancers are known for their extreme speed balentin was known to push the speed if you look at any of his ballets chances are you're going to have some crazy fast choreography in there that was kind of the way to making ballet big in America was just that supersonic speed that virtuostic effect and that was obviously achieved by really
really pushing the speed and making it look like I don't know how a human is even able to do that that kind of effect also they're purs pet on the or usually you'd start from a fourth position in PA both KN are bent balenine was like oh we're not going to do this you know what we'll do we'll straighten the back leg because he thought it made a more elongated line Balanchine did like the elongated shapes and so all the Balanchine dancers if you watch them do their pure watchs the back leg is str
aight and it's in it's very long an arabest arabes position how could we forget the balentin claw the balentin claw I can't do it right the balancing training calls for a much more rounded hand position in most other styles the thingers are much more lengthened and the thumb is also kind of tucked in but it's the whole line is very much streamlined and very lengthened but in the baling training he wanted the Palm to be CED the thumb is away from the fingers and all fingers separated so you can s
ee every so you can see every single finger I can't do it right I'm not balancing train but we'll put up some footage here they even have students hold like golf balls in their hands to train that sort of round CED Palm shape when they're doing their classes that's crazy from the back of the theater you can still see their fingers so it works it worked another baling turning thing is that whenever they're doing turns across the floor like on a diagonal across the floor most ballet Styles you wil
l spot the corner or wherever your direction you're heading not so for Balan he preferred the dancers to spot so you keep connecting with the audience oh my God as you're going it's so hard to do hard to there are so many balentin quirks quirks and differences like the arms out of all the style I feel like the Balan is the most elongated like in their second position it's not a rounded position it's like pretty much straight and then the wrists are broken at the end same thing with their fifth p
osition it's very tall it's a very tall position rather than like rounded it's very tall with the wrists like broken as they say also he liked the open Arabesque line so instead of being very Square he prefer that feel because it just adds energy and extension yeah it does make a very big presence on stage when you have that open line also for balancing like when you're going through the middle from first to fifth you would never just go like this they always have like this cross situation I'm g
uessing arody Dynamics so you can move faster that's a very good hypothesis just like random guess I do say I love the dancers musicality so good because they're never struggling to to catch up to music so they're never late mhm it's that sort of athleticism and they're just like they can attack each step on the music it's so satisfying to watch Valentine dancer because you will know for a fact that they will they will be on the music at any given time the other thing about balancing this is a v
ery trademark balancing thing their attitude line they prefer to have it at the right angle for a lot of the time in the Russian training is very much opened but in Valentin it shortened yeah quite a bit aerodynamics bantin dance is also major in trick steps like if you if you want to see strong solid fues and like incredible Feats of humanity yeah you should watch balance they're all Turners and they're all jumpers they're all everything really all the trick steps yeah and like being able to ba
lance as well it it's it's crazy actually the stuff that they can do actually insane if you want to watch some Valentin valet obviously New York City valet origin of Valentin but also there are a lot of Valentin companies think P&B is one of them Northwest Miami city and also balentin ballets are performed everywhere balentin ballets are very popular yeah you can see jwes at the marinsky you can see you know sarod anywhere else yeah of course baling dances that you will all know and recognize an
d love Sarah Ms Tyler peek Ashley Bower all of those amazing beautiful dancers they're all so fabulous at what they do and they honestly look like they enjoy themselves every single time the balancing style I'd say is that kind of friend where you would go for a 3:00 a.m. snack run down the highway with the windows down with Stravinsky on full blast like that kind of thing a very spontaneous person probably the most entertaining charismatic person you'll ever meet for sure the one that you know
everyone just like just hangs out with cuz everyone gravitates towards this person that's balen that's baleni and that also concludes our Classical Ballet friend group [Music] well there you have it those are all of the different little ballet style characters that we got to introduce you today obviously there are a lot of other techniques and training methods and styles out there this is the tip of the iceberg but these are these are the most well-known and kind of like the core pillars of The
Classical Ballet Styles we hope you enjoyed learning about these different styles and hopefully you'll be able to recognize your favorite valet dancers training method and recognize and appreciate all the unique styles of all the ballets out there sort of disclaimer for the end these styles are definitely not solid hard boxes a lot of them were also trained in multiple Styles too that's true whenever you watch a dancer just know you're probably seeing a very unique blend of that dancer's entire
training and all the different influences that were poured into them if you like the video then like the video and please leave a comment which style you like the best which you like to dance which you like to watch cuz we're very curious to know which Styles speak to you the most and what qualities you love so leave your preferences in the comments we'll be happy to read them and make sure you share this video to spread the good Valley new Vibes if you would like some more nerdy ballet content
may we kindly direct you towards the playlist that we have above and below if you would like to learn more about ballet and level up your ballet nning skills of course if you want to see more of these videos and you haven't subscribed to the channel already the red button is down there at your disposal do with it what you will anyway I think that is all from us for now this is valy rain signing off until the next video bye ladies and gentlemen did I scare you it was just so you were [Music] like
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