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Elizabeth Fisch ballet arabesques have a slight stacking of the hips at and above 90, it is a myth that the hips can stay square.
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Siri Hammond I’m a ballet professional and I know how arabesque works and how to teach it. My 5-word sentence is just a summary. This or that dancer might rotate their pelvis at times, but that does not make it correct, nor is it how we think about or teach it. YES, the free leg needs to be turned out in the hip socket. NO, you are not stacking your hips. Arabesque is most fundamentally about a curve (“extension”) in the spine as you tilt the pelvis forward (and lift the leg backwards). That curve of the spine is what it’s named after and also what makes it beautiful… the ultimate height of the leg behind is secondary. We would rather see a beautiful and CORRECT arabesque below 90 degrees, than a twisted arabesque where the pelvis is tilted sideways for no reason other than to get the leg above 90 degrees.
A standard arabesque keeps the top of the spine vertical… the spine bends as the leg goes up. There is a limit to how high the leg can get while keeping the top of the spine vertical. That is where penchee arabesque comes in… first you go into the highest possible arabesque, then you tilt the entire body over the standing leg. (penchee = “lean over”). Most arabesque spiral positions we see in skating are most closely related to penchee arabesque, not upright arabesque. The biggest differences between what we see in skating vs ballet are (a) the standing leg is in parallel; and (b) the weight is further back because you would fall over your toepick if you put your weight as far forward as is done in a ballet penchee arabesque.
It’s also important to remember that a skating “spiral” is any position held for a long time… so long that you start slowing down and spiraling inward on your edge. The “spiral” is the tracing you make on the ice, not the position, and historically they have been executed in many positions. While there is (basically) one correct way to do a ballet arabesque, there is not one correct spiral position; and not even one correct spiral position with the torso out front and the leg up behind. The ballet arabesque has influenced modern spiral positions… but the world champions in the 1930’s used a very NON-ballet spiral position. I believe ballet began influencing spiral positions more and more starting in the 1970’s, as figure skaters began studying ballet, led by Soviet Skaters (coming from a society that LOVES their ballet).