Modern Dance Warm-Ups: Feet Position

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Chell Garcia-Trias and I'm a modern dancer in Austin, Texas. I am going to teach you how to plant your feet the way we would in modern dance in parallel position. So first I'm going to find parallel position. I'm going to take my feet and put them only about an inch or two apart. I'm not going to let them turn out at all. They're going to be parallel so my toes are just a little bit closer than my heels. Now I'm going to roll to the front of my feet and to the back, to the front and to the back. I'm just going to keep rocking back and forth so I can feel every part of my foot connecting with the floor and then I'm going to let this slow down and come to a rest and I'm going to feel every part that I was pushing through pushing on the ground at the same time. Now I'm going to do the same thing again with my feet, rocking side to side. So I'm going to rock with my feet, one side and then the other side, one side, and then the other side and I'm going to gently let this come to a rest. So now I've felt every part of my foot rocking and now I'm going to push every part of my foot at the same time and you'll see my toes have splayed out a little bit, they're not so tight, they're really splayed out, they're really pushing out through the floor. I'm imagining that there are little roots all through my feet and they're pushing into the ground all at the same time so this is a great way to plant your feet into the ground in modern dance and we want to continue to have this sensation when we do anything in our modern dance."