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How to Be a Graceful Dancer

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Whether you are taking formal dance lessons or just want to spruce up your moves for the club dance floor, you can become a graceful dancer by working on your dance technique. Being a graceful dancer has to do with acknowledging how your body moves, and connecting various dance steps such that the steps become one. Grace also has much to do with making the dance steps look effortless. Through repetitive practice and training exercises you can improve your technique so that you are graceful.

Perform balance work. Place a hardcover book flat on the crown of your head. Walk forward without allowing the book to wobble off. Being a graceful dancer requires knowing how to control the movements of your body, which is what this exercise helps with. When you can walk forwards, backwards and sideways with a book balanced on your head you have learned how to move steadily -- a quality to be applied to your dance moves.

Practice two or three dance moves at a time. Work on stringing the moves together so that they are fluid. A dancer with choppy choreography does not look graceful on the dance floor or on stage. Repeat the moves over and over until you feel comfortable moving in and out of them.

Learn to be light on your feet when you dance and move. As an exercise, walk on your tip toes across the room. By walking on your tip toes you get a feel for what it is like to not stomp around on the heels of your feet. Dancers with heavy feet look clumsy from afar. After practicing walking on your tip toes, try dancing your choreography on your tip toes or partial tip toes.

Lengthen your neck, arms, legs and back as you move. Imagine that you can extend these parts from the center, or core, of your body and make them longer. Maintain this visualization as you dance so that you look graceful.

References
  • "Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique"; Suki Schorer; 2006
Writer

Kyra Sheahan has been a writer for various publications since 2008. Her work has been featured in "The Desert Leaf" and "Kentucky Doc Magazine," covering health and wellness, environmental conservatism and DIY crafts. Sheahan holds an M.B.A. with an emphasis in finance.

Photo Credits

Aliaksandr Liulkovich/Tetra images/GettyImages