The Inner Life of Ballet™ Courses
Welcome to The Inner Life of Ballet™! These courses are a synthesis of my 25 years of experience as a ballet teacher and movement educator. Taught either as in-person or virtual courses, they are designed to support ballet teachers, movement educators, and dance physical therapists and bridge the gaps in dancer care.
This is a new approach to ballet that addresses the need for cultural changes in the ballet world as well as acknowledges the importance of dance medicine and science. The Inner Life of Ballet™ is about empowering dancers and teachers by improving access to information. Gone are the traditional pitfalls of standard ballet education that involve “old school” hierarchical approaches, replaced by the idea that every body type deserves access to the beauty of ballet.
These courses will teach you —
For Movement Educators
How to apply intelligent movement principles to classical ballet
Increase your confidence when communicating with physical therapists
Help dancers develop more sustainable technique
Teach dancers how to self-correct
For Ballet Teachers
Improve outcomes in ballet classes via more effective cueing
Develop an evolved understanding of ballet, from the inside out
Understand how to work with any body type and produce beautiful results
Learn new strategies for addressing archetypal issues that block development of artistry and technique
For Physical Therapists
How to bridge the gap between clinical care and the aesthetic demands of classical ballet
Learn new ways to teach placement and alignment
Train your eye to see the integration of breath, energy, and connectivity in the shapes and lines of ballet
Increase your confidence and skill set when evaluating a dancer’s technique
“Turnout from the Ground Up” — A New Paradigm
This course looks at turnout from both a functional as well as an aesthetic perspective. It explores the idea that turnout is supportive and healthy if it’s understood in an integrated instead of compartmentalized way.
You will learn:
How to teach turnout as a three-dimensional, energetic experience
Why access to turnout is unique to each body
How to see what the bones do during the turnout process
Why cueing is important
How to improve technical efficiency with anatomical cueing
Course length: 16 hours over 2-3 days
Cost: $495 — includes manual and wrap
“You don’t hold your turnout; your turnout holds you.”
Alicia Head
“Port de Bras — The Gateway to Artistry”
Essential for developing artistry as well as providing support for all aspects of technique, port de bras is often difficult to teach. Using an integrated approach involving breath and bone rhythms, “Port de bras - the Gateway to Artistry” introduces a way to teach port be bras that has both an anatomical as well as an energetic foundation.
You will learn:
How to see and teach the integration of breath, posture, and port de bras
Why an understanding of bone movements is important
How to teach both stabilization and mobilization of the shoulder blades
Why port de bras supports alignment
How to teach authentic artistry
Course length: 16 hours over 2-3 days
Cost: $495 — includes manual
“Your arms come from your back, but your port de bras comes from your soul.”
Alicia Head
“Arabesque from the Inside Out”
This course teaches arabesque as a process, not an event. Perhaps the most important line in ballet, arabesque needs to be both sustainable and beautiful. “Arabesque from the Inside Out” unpacks the components of arabesque, then puts them all back together again, adding layers of artistically-oriented cueing to create energetically expansive lines.
You will learn:
How to see whether an arabesque is compressed
Why it’s important to create an arabesque that can be both strong and beautiful
How to teach every body type to find their own arabesque
Why understanding the hip and pelvis is crucial
How to progress a dancer safely from low to high arabesques
Course length: 16 hours over 2-3 days
Cost: $495 — includes manual
“In order for an arabesque to look beautiful, it needs to feel beautiful.”
Alicia Head
Testimonials
“The Inner Life of Ballet™ represents a pivotal advancement in the classical ballet realm. Alicia’s pioneering blend of dance medicine with traditional ballet technique empowers dancers to comprehend their bodies fully and achieve their utmost artistic potential. Personally, I owe much of my long and successful career to Alicia’s unparalleled knowledge and expertise.”
Steven Morse
Soloist | San Francisco Ballet
“Working with Alicia completely changed my life and my dancing!
Her approach to turnout is so clear and allows each individual to access their full range of motion in a safe and supportive way. She views turnout as more than an aesthetic goal. She taught me how to use turnout as a tool to support my technique which also allowed me to access more freedom artistically. I felt so much more connected and confident on stage. Alicia's turnout course is full of incredible information and really offers a complete understanding of how to access and use your turnout more efficiently to improve your dancing.”
Lüna Sayag
Freelance Professional Dancer
GYROTONIC® & GYROKINESIS® Instructor
Certified Pilates Instructor
Owner | Lüna Vega Movement Studio
“Every time I take class, rehearse a ballet, or simply take a moment to breathe, I recall the wonderful period of growth I spent working with Alicia on port de bras. We began with breathing, and she taught me how to utilize my breath not only to move oxygen through my body, but as a way to physically support my movements as well. And those movements became my new and improved port de bras. Aside from my arms feeling like floating extensions of my back, the breathwork we had done created an elevated platform for my artistry. For though Alicia is a wizard when it comes to the mechanical aspects of the body in relation to dance, her passion for the art itself meant that my soul was learning along with my mind. I specifically remember one time when we were trying to watch the movement of Marianela Nunez’s ribs as she approached a pirouette in the Aurora Act 1 Variation, but kept getting distracted by Marianela’s grace and beauty doing the simplest movements due to the fact we are both ballet nerds. One could try to make ballet technique a cut-and-dried physicality, but it is so much more than that, and the intertwined nature of artistry and technique was always clear to me when working with Alicia. In addition, there are so many details she took the time to explain, entertaining my questions and curiosities throughout the process. Alicia is an amazing teacher and person, and whether you are working on port de bras or not, it’s a gift to work with her. She is my Yoda, and I’ll be forever grateful for that.”
Petra Johnson
Philadelphia Ballet II
“Alicia has been helping me with her incredible depth of knowledge and passion since 2009. She trained me in ballet and GYROKINESIS® classes when I had just started ballet as an adult. I attribute my success in becoming a professional ballet dancer largely to her. I sought out her wisdom throughout my career. Having worked with ballet coaches from around the world, none have gotten me to connect more deeply to my turnout than Alicia. Now I continue to learn from her as a movement educator. Her courses provide everything the world of ballet needs today.”
Minh Tuan Nguyen
Former Company Dancer, Louisville Ballet
GYROTONIC® & GYROKINESIS® Instructor
Owner, Spiral Studio Louisville
“When it comes to ballet, Alicia's that person you rely on to always have the answer - because she always does. Her understanding of ballet and movement is simply incomparable, and she has opened my eyes to the underlying mechanisms of crucial ballet axioms - such as turnout and arabesque - in ways no one else ever has. She has a natural genius for identifying the true root of a problem, and then fixing it in ways that produce real results. I saw this firsthand with one of my own students, who struggled with harnessing her hypermobility in a way that produced the ballet technique and aesthetics we knew she was capable of. Alicia helped us bridge this gap seamlessly, allowing my student to unlock her true potential and, most importantly, unlock the barriers that were holding back her technique. Alicia is truly a ballet/movement magician, and I will forever turn to her whenever I am puzzled over something related to ballet biomechanics.”