Prep for Battements & Pirouettes: Beginner Jazz Dance Lesson Plan #1

Welcome to week #1 in my Beginner Jazz Dance curriculum! The first week is dedicated to introducing and preparing for battements, pirouettes, and other foundation skills. This material is intended for dance teachers to utilize and adapt for their classroom.

Battement Preps

Before you can even start teaching battements, students need to have a solid grasp of degages. Without that foundation, they tend to not brush through the floor or square their hips.

I start by having dancers go to the barre, and I’ll explain tendus and have them practice tendus to the front, side, and back (in jazz parallel). Once they can do the tendus with straight knees and pointed feet, then I will move onto explaining degages. The main thing to look for in these degages is brushing through the floor as they go through parallel first, and straight supporting legs. Some dancers tend to “buckle” their supporting knee as they learn degages and battements, so we want to address that habit quickly!

After the dancers feel comfortable with degages at the barre, you can progress to center floor. When doing the degages en centre, I suggest keeping your hands on hips, or in a strong “T” position if you want to build shoulder strength.

Finally, you can take these degages across the floor! This exercise involves brushing through parallel to degage to the front, alternating right and left legs. This essentially resembles a typical across the floor battement exercise, just with legs at a lower level.

Overall, teaching degages before full battements is a great strategy to encourage proper technique over the height of the leg.

Here is a little sneak peek into the overall progression of teaching battements throughout the year in beginner jazz:

1. Battement Prep: Tendus and Degages
2. Battements at the Barre
3. Battements Across the Floor
4. Floor Battements

Pirouette Prep

For a new dancer, the stages of a pirouette can feel like a complete random set of movements. For memory purposes, I find that teaching the entire skill as 3 steps/motions is best. We number them so I can just start counting “1” and they know to tendu to second with their arms out. It’s a matter of repeating the following:

• ONE = Tendu to second. Arms in “T”
• TWO = Plie in fourth. Arms in “L”
• THREE = Posse. Arms in circle

I typically worry about the feet first, then arms later. Once they have the foot work down, we practice balancing and holding our posse on flat. After that, you can move on to releve if the dancer is ready.

It will take several weeks before they have enough stability and strength to move from a balance to half or single turn. Focus on control of the upper body, tucking in derrieres, and high, connected posses for the first few weeks.

Lesson Plan

Activity	Description	Notes
Cardio warmup	Jumping jacks 4 x 8 counts	Use an upbeat and energetic song to get the class excited to dance!
	Run in place 4 x 8 counts
	High knees 2 x 8 counts
Stretch	Butterfly, stretch forward 2×8 counts
	Straddle, reach right left and center 2×8 counts each
	Pike stretch, pointing and flex toes
	Alternate pointing and flexing one foot at a time, roll ankle in circle one at time
	Cobra stretch, stretch feet towards head
	stretch wrists/shoulders
Leg extensions on the floor	Starting in butterfly, grab the inside of your right foot	Make sure they don’t lift their hips off the ground
	Extend to the side, hold for 8 counts
	Repeat with left side
	Repeat with both legs
Battement Prep: Start at the barre	Practice tendus to the front, side, and back	Watching for squared hips, straight knees, and pointed toes
	Explain the mechanics of a degage
	Practice degages to the front, side, and back
Battement Prep: Move to center floor	Moving to center floor, keeping hands on hips.	Same notes as above
	Practice degages to the front, side, and back
Center: Pirouette prep	Tendu to the side, plie in 4th	Working on the pattern of tendu>plie>passe. Can add releves once ready!
	Push up to passe (en flat first, then releve)
Center: Pivot Turns	Break down skill. Practice right side repeatedly then left side	See this lesson plan for a breakdown of how I teach pivot turns.
Sassy / Jazz Walks	Sassy walks across the floor, one at a time	Objective is to grow their confidence and performance quality!
	Can give them direction or freedom on arms, head movement, etc
Across the Floor: Pirouette Prep	Set 3-4 dots out across the floor. Have the dancers jazz walk to each dot and do their pirouette prep to posse	No turns yet! Just posse balance on flat or releve, depending on the class’ level
Across the Floor: Degages	Practice degages and brushing your foot to the front through parallel, alternating right and left legs	Focus here is to actually brush through the floor. Keep hands on hips or in a “T” for stability
	Repeat exercise facing the back, brushing the legs behind you

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