Gee, Priscilla - is that all you want? Competence? Consistency? Beauty? Anything else? Tis the season...... LOL

Hard skin on the bottom of the feet helps the modern dancer turn. Callouses are your friend. Sometimes a bit of medical tape wrapped around the ball of the foot too. A lot of modern dancers like a wooden floor, marly is not always so good for sticky feet. The only problem with this is that you almost always use marly in performance venues so getting used to it means less problems later.<P>I like to wear socks for the warm up and then go to bare feet for centre in modern. But I also like socks for ballet barre and then switching to shoes, I feel like my feet need to get warm by spreading out in tendus. <P>Multiple pirouettes are like any other trick, they're interesting once in a while but use them endlessly and they tend to lose their appeal. Anyway, it's the charisma of the performer that makes them work, Baryshnikov could make standing on his head look fascinating.

I had a friend once who was an excellent modern dancer and teacher. She also had a background in ballet. She choreographed a dance for the both of us once - all ballet steps - since I can't do modern dance, but she CAN do ballet. However, she did the dance as a modern dancer would and I, of course, did it as a ballet dancer would.<P>It was very interesting. We did the dance side by side at the same time. As we watched it in the mirror, we started on the same beat and ended at the same time. But, everything in between was different. Most of all her impetus was "grounded" - she went down to go up. All of my impetus was "up". It was almost as if it was two different dances completely - almost unrecognizable. Our timing only "touched" at rare points in the dance.<P>It was a fascinating experience.<P>------------------<BR>Approach life as a dancer approaches the barre, with grace and purpose.

Yes, Basheva, I figured it was the time of year for wishing!<P>Oh, and I think those little dance sandal-y things are pretty silly. Maybe they're useful, but I'm so turned off by them I just can't even be bothered to find out. I do know other people who like them though - very much about personal preference, and if you don't normally dance barefoot I think they're a good for before the all-important callous has been developed or for performance.

I find that with age, I too, seem to have less of that padding at the bottom of the foot. When I take a balance at the barre in ballet class - my balance is still very much on (I never had trouble with balance) but my foot is just much more sensitive and for that reason I don't balance as long.<P>I have never danced barefoot - what am I missing? <P>------------------<BR>Approach life as a dancer approaches the barre, with grace and purpose.