Good Balancing Exercises for Modern Dance

Modern dance sends you across the floor and through the air off-balance. Make that look effortless and the body becomes the music, a powerful and evocative image of lyrical grace and impossible angles. It's not easy, of course, and that's why modern dancers train like elite athletes to develop strength and flexibility. Iconic modern choreographers such as Lester Horton, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp developed warm-ups and workouts that let them push the boundaries of balance to spectacular effect.

  1. Basic Balance

    • Ballet barre and center work will help you to develop balance by learning correct placement in moves like plies and arabesques, and by always working both sides of the body. But you don't need a dance studio to enhance your balance. Try something as simple as single leg balance exercises -- stand on one foot, hands on hips, and bend the nonsupporting leg back at the knee. Hold the position for a count of 30, then extend the lifted leg forward without brushing the ground. Increase repetitions as your balance steadies, and always do both sides. If you're rock solid, challenge yourself by standing on a pillow or ground-level balance beam, or perform the moves with your arms extended fully overhead.

    Appalachian Abs

    • Modern dance pioneer Martha Graham centered her choreography and her training around the breath. She used inhalation and exhalation to develop a contract-and-release style of movement that strengthened the abdominals and diaphragm. This control allowed her dancers to heighten a tension between opposing forces as they balanced for long pauses on sharply angled pieces of scenery in dances such as the masterpiece, "Appalachian Spring." Graham class uses a lot of core contraction to increase stability in her weight shifts and height changes, and dancers learn to imagine a center line running from the head, down the spine through the supporting leg and foot. Use yoga as well as Graham technique to master her moves for modern dance. Seated twists like Half Lord of the Fishes pose or Bharadvaja's Twist energize and stimulate the core. Standing poses like Extended Side Angle or Half Moon pose strengthen your ankles and legs as they stretch your torso and work your abs.

    Horton and Ailey

    • Horton technique creates dancers who are long and strong, with fluid, stretched spines and hamstrings, rock-solid cores and powerful muscles. Studying Horton -- progressing from beginner level through advanced -- is one of the best ways to develop balance in moves like Lateral Ts, in which the body forms a squared T shape, supported on one leg. In Coccyx Balances, the entire body weight is balanced in a V shape on the tailbone. Leg Swings and Parallel Stags challenge balance even more with angled and back-and-forth moves while standing on one leg. Elementary Balance is a sequence of rapidly changing balance shifts that are performed on relevé by experienced dancers. Alvin Ailey studied with Lester Horton and used Horton's technique to train his own company and to create such legendary works as "Revelations" that showcase the delicate articulation, poise, steadiness and commanding control of Horton dance.

    Breathing and Balance Balls

    • Break out your Pranayama breathing to relax unconscious tension that stiffens muscles. You need to be supple to remain balanced in modern dance moves. Deep, even breathing in class or performance will steady you in extended reaches, strong backbends and weight shifts. Work out with a balance ball to engage all the muscles that help you to remain stable as you perform crunches, pikes, tucks and bridges. Balance balls constantly engage the core and reinforce a habit of maintaining equilibrium while focusing on executing specific moves. Try for 12 to 15 repetitions of each exercise and do two to three sets several times a week.