The making of tutus for ballet dancers – exercise 2 – answers and notes
1 The dancer’s torso.
show off – display sth as a source of beauty, achievement or pride
2 As ‘a kind of plate of frothy net that sticks out from the hips’.
3 A very long time – definitely 3 weeks – ("definitely a 3-weeker!")
4 The Nutcracker.
The word ‘mirliton’ refers to the flute music played for a dance of shepherdesses in the Nutcracker, but now the dancer who dances the rôle of a shepherdess is referred to in the ballet as the ‘Mirliton’.
5 To hold a partner at arm’s length – you have to step back so as not squash the tutu.
6 Because if he can’t see her legs he can’t tell where her feet are or where her balance is going to be. It is the male partner’s main job to stop the female dancer getting injured!
7 In a dress rehearsal for Swan Lake in the 3rd Act.
8 In a backbend being held by a boy / man.
A backbend – position or move in which the performer bends backwards until the hands touch the floor:
to bend/lean over backwards is to try very hard to do something. Eg He leaned over backwards to help me, but I still couldn’t get the report done by the date he wanted.
9 Her intricate glamorous tiara.
Tiara – noun – a piece of metal in the shape of half a circle decorated with jewels which is worn on the head by a woman, especially a queen, etc., at very formal social occasions
10 To cotton on – it was a moment or two before her partner / the boy ‘cottoned on‘.
cotton on – informal phrasal verb – to begin to understand a situation or fact:Eg I didn’t cotton on (to the fact) that he’d paid the bill for everyone until after we’d left the restaurant.
11He wrenched her head-dress away from the tutu.
Wrench – verb – 1) pull and twist something suddenly or violently away from a fixed position – eg The door has been wrenched off its hinges. 2) twist part of your body badly, such as your arm or leg, and injure it: eg She wrenched her wrist when she was moving the table.
12 Finding makers capable of sewing a tutu, cutting the material exactly right and layering it. Most modern ballets do not use tutus – it is a feature of classical ballets.
13 They don’t want to make the base – they will do the top skirt and the bodice – the ‘fun part’ but not the hard work part.
We sometimes talk of people being willing to do the ‘fun bit‘ or the ‘fun part‘, as opposed to the dull, or routine, time-consuming or hard work.
14 The Black Swan one.
15 Because it really gets you into character as soon as you put it on – and it has a headdress to match. It is "such a contrast to the ‘White Swan’s."
To watch some ballet by the Anaheim ballet company – with no words to listen to! Or here – the company is based in California, USA.