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Summary: A saute arabesque in modern dance is a small jump with one leg extended behind. Do a saute arabesque with tips from a professional dancer in this free modern dance video.
Chell Garcia-Trias Chell Garcia-Trias has been dancing for 30 years. As a community scholar at Columbia College Dance School, she earned a B.A. in dance and acting. Garcia-Trias... read more
Hi, my name is Chell Garcia-Trias and I'm a modern dancer in Austin Texas, where I also am a modern dance instructor. I'm going to show you how to do sote arabesque's today, the way that I would do them in modern dance anyway. The way to do a sote arabesque, it's just a nice gentle little hop, not quite a big jump, but a hop and I'm going to push my back leg into arabesque as I do it. Really, going into arabesque is what brings me up off the ground, it's this up that brings me off the ground. If I'm going in arabesque, my feet are a little turned out so you turn your feet out, you bring your heels together, turn your feet out, and then I bring my leg up and I bend before I do, to have a little hop. I'm just hopping, mostly, off of my toes. It's nice to bring your arms in front of you, my left leg is extending to the back, and my left arm is extending to the front, and my right arm is extending to the side so I would just do a nice little hop. If I wanted, I could add a sote passe to that, where I would bring my hands in together, like this, and my toe to my knee. So, we'll do a sote arabesque, sote passe, sote arabesque, passe. Those are some nice gentle little jumps that you can do across the floor to really get yourself warmed up or to use inside one of your modern dance routines.