I'll be having to teach one soon. No idea what to do because "lyrical" is a way of doing something not a style unto its self. Do you stick to lyrical jazz or lyrical ballet? Or alternate giving them different stuff depending on the music?

I've never taken a "lyrical" class before. I have done lyrical dances and even choreographed them but I have no clue what to do in a 'lyrical' class.

EDIT- Would you run it like a contemporary class?

If they are beginners in dance, you have to work on technique so you start teaching that.
If they are advanced dancers, they only need a warming up with some technique in it.

If they do several classes a week you probably don't have to do much floor exercises with them.
If it's their only class a week, you better get them on the floor.

I totally agree with your assessment, but that argument has been made for years... I guess no one will ever agree with us! =P

I would take a look at the program as a whole and what the students need. If these are recreational students getting one ballet class a week (if we're lucky), then I would teach the class as more of a ballet class (barre and center work to strengthen that technique.) If it's a strong ballet program to the point where students need "loosened up", then I would keep away from traditional ballet and use exercises that promote a different type of movement. If the students are getting good ballet and jazz classes, then I might focus on making the movement more modern based or simply more contemporary in style.

I think of lyrical class as the class that allows me to address the parts of the dance education that may be missing or need more improvement. That may help you direct your class.

Thank you!

I think they will be mostly beginners. This is for a brand new studio that before only had gymnastics. So, I suspect some of them will have had gymnastics others will have had nothing. Some of them might have had dance before but I don't know where from or what level they will be.

Also, the owners are wanting this to had a competition team (auditions in the later spring). I will be in charge of that. I have never done competitions...no idea. I'll need to do some research in this area as well.

Considering your update, I would make the class more ballet based. After you have the students in front of you, obviously you can do some tweaking, but having that solid ballet base will really strengthen their dancing.

We don't do lyrical at our studio, and it's not very popular in our area, but I've always thought it was like "contemporary ballet on bare feet." If I had a lyrical class, it would be very ballet based with a little modern and jazz mixed in.

It kind of depends on the music for whether our classes are more jazzy/ballet-y/modern-y.

We start out with a stretch, maybe work on some combos or across the floor if our teacher has something or other in her head she wants us to try out, go to work on the dance. She's really been feeling the modern lately (she's trained in modern as well, obviously), so this years dance has been kind of modern.

I always describe my technique lyrical classes as a combination or ballet and jazz technique. I vary my warm-ups but we do jazz based isolations and technique first, this part includes a alot of musicality and some contractions etc. Then we do balances and ballet technique in the center (sometimes at the barre) and I alternate months of plie and balance combos with "full" barre combos where we do tendu, degage, ronds, frappes, fondu, develope, grand battement, extensions/leg hold in the same combo. Every month I have a week where we work on our feet or we do a balance exercise across the floor.

Combos are very music based and I always include a jazz technique and a ballet technique in the same combo, so for instance they do a ball change fan into chaines into a turned out fourth prep and and inside ballet pirouette (not this exact combo but just for an example). We do some floor work but not as much and not as modern based as in a contemporary class.

We also work on emotion and connecting to the emotion of the words and the feeling of the song. I've done some exercises where we put the same combo to a few different types of music happy sad etc) and then try to do the same steps but with different intention and feeling.

Every once in a while we do some improv, but we also have contemporary classes and improv classes so I try not to focus too much on that.

Awesome! Thank you