SPECIAL MESSAGES:
PLEASE CHECK FOR OUR NEW Fall, Easter and Summer WORKSHOPS under the Ballet drawer Workshops!
Also we highly recommend to check the amazing variety of supplements and vitamins the Manhattan based and a century young WILLNER CHEMISTS is offering; ( http://www.willner.com ) their counseling and care is legendary, truly needed by dancers! (ask for Alen and mention Ballettoday for a quick service).
Luc Louis de Lairesse is a guest teacher for several international schools, Universities and companies such as the London based Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, the Rambert Dance Co, the Bejart Ballet Lausanne. In 1988, Luc founded the Dance Development Fund and later Ballettoday to promote classical ballet and the alternative arts connected to dance in his country and abroad. Luc continues to be a concerned guest speaker on health and awareness and a Juror at IBC.(Barcelona,Korea, etc.)
When Luc discovered ballet in the mid-sixties, male dancers were considered an oddity. Until he met Rudolph Nureyev in 1971, his dreams remained unexpressed. The Russian-born ballet legend introduced him to French choreographer/Ballet of the XXth Century's artistic director, Maurice Bejart who also directed the Conservatoire at the Brussels' Royal Opera House. At eighteen, Luc joined and made his stage debut one month later. He had asked for no less because his veins were boiling to "get out there".
At first, his youthful looks and many years of sportive training (he was a Belgian Rowing Champion in Junior, Double Skull) seemed an advantage. But he soon discovered how hard ballet was on the body of a novice. Wild demands as "lift that leg higher" were not met by any healthy approach or an explanation of how to use that body. How to develop a correct posture, how to use the full foot and the so necessary strengthening of each muscle: it was all absent. Several foreign schools only showed a variation on the same theme, but nobody went in depth. So like most dancers, he just danced and danced, often covering up an injury or denying I even happened. Four years later, in his first principal assignment, he was dropped on the head from an acrobatic lift. As such he discovered acupuncture, the tool that got him on stage at the opening night instead of into the hospital! Shiatsu and other massage techniques eventually followed, till in 1978, while guesting in Spain, he discovered Yoga and an alternative, more vegetarian way of living. It all helped him open his eyes.
While most teachers had emphasized the technical and artistic side, Luc had returned to his own heritage and like his father, he researched a broader spectrum: "why we do the things we do?". When, in 1975, he started teaching after replacing for two weeks his ill, (then) favorite mentor (Daniel Franck, a pedagogue with the Paris Opera School) in his own Academie Chaptal and then for a season at the Regional Conservatoire d'Orsay, 75 little beings taught him that they had a body they needed to be informed about. Eventually, during two decades, different styles in Yoga, Gyrotonic and a wide fan of alternative healing possibilities created a wealth of experiences this teacher wanted to pass on.
Now 36 years later, Luc is proposing within his already existing BALLETTODAY series, a new and exciting program of discoveries through an alternative way of offering ballet and the revolutionary teaching of Yamuna Zake's Body Rolling. The latter developed her technique in New York since the last 20 years (http://www.yamunabodyrolling.com). BALLETTODAY new website also promises to keep his readers updated of the latest news on a better health program for dancers (and non-dancers!).
