Body Alignment

Gail Grant states "The direction in which the dancer stands in relation to the audience is very important.  If all the steps and poses were taken en face (facing the audience), the dance would be very monotonous."  She is completely right.  Facing different directions adds interesting angles in which to view the dancers.

This is not at all what I thought of when I saw the term alignment.  I was thinking about the definition that is found in Medical Terminology Complete! by Bruce Wingerd.  He states that "Body alignment is the optimal placement of the body parts so that the skeletal bones are efficiently used, so the muscles have to do less work for the same effect."  I have had many teachers refer to this definition in their classes, including myself, but I like to think about it as training your body so that its allowed to be lazy, or do less work.