Square, Squareness, Staying Square

Understanding Squareness

When it comes to ballet, while turnout might be the most important thing, squareness or being square is the result of understanding turnout in relationship to one’s body and the room or audience.

Squareness is usually generalized in the correction of alignment, but being square is can be more detailed within the idea of body parts and their relationships to each other in space and while moving.

Corrections that usually come around the idea of being square, are keeping the hip bones forward like headlights, or creating a square with your back, stabilizing your hips, or keeping your hips under your shoulders, and hip down. All are correct, it just helps to have the visual cues of squareness.

Squareness, is really like cube-ness. Because you have to worry about the plans on all six sides. If you visualize your torso has one cuboid, it will create stiff dancing, but probably the easiest to understand the start of squareness.

Dancing square, is the ability to stabile your core, and old your shoulders, back, abdomen, and hips in a very flat, very specific position in relationship to each other.

The more advanced you get, your top cube and bottom cube might start to twist on the center of gravity axis to create a longer line, or display artistry, this is really can be seen in epaulment.

But understanding when to twist, and when not twist, has to do with a dancers ability to hold the turnout while moving. If a dancer is on the weaker side, one shouldn’t really be emphasizing the twisting, while a more advanced dancer should be encouraged.

If a dancer starts to twist, or rotate the squareness of the torso, but can’t hold the hips square, it inevitably causes the body to turn in, especially the supporting leg. So while the leg might be high in arabesque, and turned out, if the body is open too much, or the spine and back are twisted too much, it creates a turn in usually on the supporting leg, or the hips to invert and twist to turn in.

Staying square really is emphasized in the hips, because it is the easiest to see. You can open your hip to create an un even diagonal line, or lift the hip to create a tilt in the pelvis, or tuck the hip and create a scoop or contraction in the spine. All distorting the idea of a square or neutral pelvis.