Instagram-accounts of dancers and schools that give free dance classes online
It all seems so easy. Quarantine. Loads of free time. And all those online ballet (or whatever you prefer) classes. All free! No need to commute to your dance studio (this might be a tricky one in Russia, with so much snow and rain). You can train in your old PJs or even in your underwear! Sounds like an ideal life, right?
It all seemed pretty cool to me too in the beginning of the pandemic and all this #stayathome thing. But the more I dived into it, the closer I was to the ugly reality. I had classes where I couldn’t hear the teacher as the music was too loud. Classes with no music at all. Classes where the teacher was plain boring. The list could go on forever. So here I am, joining another class and waiting for another weird thing to happen.
It turned out to be extremely difficult to find a proper online dance class that would have a clear vision and sound, and a teacher with a lesson plan and minimum unnecessary small talk.
I had to go through a lot of Instagram accounts, YouTube channels and websites to find those decent ones. And I did find them.
Below is my personal list of Instagram accounts, that stream (or give access to) quality and free dance classes. Not all of them offer full-length classes, but 100% of them are worth trying.
Here they are.
Evgenia Obraztsova. First soloist of the Bolshoi.
Evgenia is a first soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. She doesn’t give regular online classes but recently she filmed a series of 4 full-length ballet classes for her Instagram: 1, 2, 3 and 4. You can find them in her IGTV. To be honest, her classes really stand out out of all the rest you will find on Instagram. Clear sound, well articulated explanations, talking straight to the point, excellent picture, easy to remember but at the same time quite challenging exercises and a couple of useful insights.
HostBkk. A dance school in Bangkok, Thailand
I live in Bangkok and HostBkk is a dance school where I go. They do live streams of ballet, African contemporary and regular contemporary classes almost every day. They’ve even added a specialized fitness class for dancers a couple of days ago. The coaches come from all over the world: Switzerland, Brazil, Africa, Thailand. Their schedule is not 100% set: some classes repeat each week and there can be also new ones added (depends if the school agreed with a new dancer).
Madame Olga is quite a special character. In reality she is.. not real! Madame Olga is a character invented and performed by Michael Cusumano, and american ballet dancer. Madame Olga is an ex-ballet star from Russia, dressed in vintage clothes and teaching with a true Russian aplomb. The classes are streamed approximately twice a week in her Instagram, and are announced several days upfront. All classes are just hilarious, with all those jokes, exclamations and funny faces that she makes. Definitely worth a try!.
Dance Secret. A Russian ballet studio for adults
To tell the truth, Dance Secret school is a true gem among all those online dance classes. Their founder and teacher — Ilya Kuznetsov — is not just a professional dancer but also has a teaching degree. He has been teaching ballet to adults for more then 10 years and knows by his own experience, what works for adult dancers and what doesn’t. He has deep knowledge in methodology. His classes are tuned to fine detail, his explanations are witty and accompanied with jokes, his tone of voice is calm and easy to listen to.
Dance Secret is the biggest and the most professional database of adult ballet knowledge there is at present. On their Instagram and YouTube channel you will find full-length ballet classes, short videos full of adult ballet life-hacks (straight ballet back, turnout and many more topic). The best part? The Bolshoi theater soloists are sometimes invited to certain classes: Vladislav Lantratov, Vlada Zakharova, Mariya Alexandrova.
I personally cannot recommend Dance Secret enough. All their content is in Russian, but they do put English subtitles sometimes.
Maria Khoreva, Mariinsky theater ballerina
Maria Khoreva dances in Mariinsky theater and is a Nike ambassador. She puts full-length ballet classes on her Instagram and YouTube channel. Certain classes are fully dedicated to learning a variation from a famous ballet, like “Sleeping Beauty”. She also does real workouts for dancers (sponsored by Nike), where the goal is to strengthen all those muscles much needed for ballet. You can do them when you get a bit enough of ballet (yep, that does happen)
Tiler Peck, New York City Ballet soloist
Tiler Peck doesn’t give full-length classes, but has short IGTV streams where she focuses on training one ballet exercise at a time. She says herself that she loves digging deep into the nuances of the technique of exercises and is happy to pass on her knowledge to a big audience in such difficult times. She always does it together with other prominent dancers of the american ballet. One of those streams is filmed together with Misty Copeland.
Author — Evgenia Budrina. I am a dance enthusiast from Russia.
I started doing ballet at 32. In my blog I write about and for those who started dancing as adults and take it seriously. Personal stories, failures, life-hacks and thoughts.
My Instagram — @kick_ass_girl_.
