So, what do we mean by “proper” alignment. (This was a word that
virtually every one of my dance teachers used when referring to
issues of placement.) I found the following definition in my
Encarta® World English Dictionary (© Microsoft Corp.): prop·er
adj 1. Appropriate or correct. 2. Fulfilling all expectations or
criteria. 3. Behaving in a respectable or socially acceptable
way. 4. Characteristic of or belonging exclusively to somebody
or something. 5. Strictly identified and distinguished from
something else. Think of the history of ballet and you come to
realize that proper alignment may have had less to do with
potentiating movement than it did with social mores back in the
court of Louis the XIV. Perhaps a better word to use in the
dance classrooms of today when talking about alignment or
placement would be optimal. Optimal alignment suggests the most
advantageous alignment—that placement in which the body is free
to move in any way, in any direction, without first needing a
readjustment of some sort.