Rhythmic Gymnastics: How You Can See the Benefits
The Thursday night performance of “Fuerzabruta” in downtown Manhattan was a sensory explosion—wind, mist, music, performers swinging, twisting and flipping overhead. About halfway through the show, the music switched to a relatively softer, more effervescent beat. From the ceiling, slowly descended a transparent-bottomed pool with female performers swishing and sliding through ripples of water. In slid one performer, Tamara Levinson, running, jumping, gliding across the watery world, now suspending two feet over the audience members’ heads. After each dive across the surface (think Slip ‘N Slide), she came to a pose with one leg to the side (nearly a split), peering through the clear bottom into the “audience world.”
Tamara Levinson was a rhythmic gymnast—an Olympic rhythmic gymnast. But this Tamara Levinson is a dancer and performer. She has transitioned smoothly, thanks in part to her gymnastics background and in part to her desire. There are many studios and gyms that offer rhythmic gymnastics and the benefits seem to go beyond just a gymnastics career. These skills are advantageous in today’s dance culture and audition circuit.
When watching a rhythmic gymnastics routine, there is a clear relationship to dance, especially ballet. The training is complimentary, and so is the gain. “It goes hand-in-hand with ballet,” says Anastasiya Buechele, artistic director of Dance Legacy in Denver, CO. “Students are required to take ballet during training. The flexibility and strength is the same that is necessary for ballet, jazz and modern. It’s formal dance, not a sport.”
Rhythmic gymnastics involves performing a floor routine using various elements: ball, hoop, ribbon, club and rope. It can be performed as a solo or in a group and is choreographed combining movements reflective of ballet and gymnastics.
Flexibility is not the key; it is the foundation of rhythmic gymnastics. It must be built upon with strengthening. “There is so much strength training,” says Annika Walsh, gymnastic director at Jersey Cape Dance and Gymnastics Academy in Cape May, NJ, where they offer rhythmic and contortion training. “You can be naturally flexible, you use flexibility, but you must use core muscles.”
Especially in contortion classes, strengthening the core and back muscles is necessary to the success and safety of the student. “Lots of people say, ‘Oh, she doesn’t have a backbone.’ But it’s training those back muscles to do these things,” asserts Walsh. Even kids who aren’t natural flexibility (Walsh calls them “gumbies”) can still learn and eventually progress.
Buechele points out that if you are going to move up through the levels of rhythmic gymnastics you must have natural ability. “When you watch it you should be like, ‘Wow! I can’t do that,’” she proclaims.
If you want to do rhythmic gymnastics then you have to take ballet. It is one of those facts of life. Not only do elements like pointing your feet and balance come from ballet, the lines and shapes of the gymnasts are clearly balletic.
“At age 6 they have to start taking ballet. Once the rhythmic gymnastics training becomes way more serious, you need to start learning the basics in ballet. Here in America ballet starts early, like age 4 when it’s creative movement. But age 6 you’re learning barre and center,” says Buechele, who is from Belarus and was a rhythmic gymnast herself for six years.
“If you are going to do rhythmic gymnastics then you have to do ballet,” says Tamara Levinson of her training and dance background. “I would sometimes take jazz or hip hop. It was really fun and a chance to release because I was like a machine.”
Unlike other forms of gymnastics, the connection to dance in rhythmic gymnastics is essential and there is no way of getting around it. “You have to point your feet and turn the hips out. With contortion it is so important and with rhythmic gymnastics it is so important,” says Walsh.
For teachers and studio owners with rhythmic gymnastic classes, it’s best to keep the groups small, give individualized attention and acknowledge the needs of your students.
When offering these classes (especially to students at a higher level) it is necessary to have the proper facility and, always, a well trained teacher or coach. “I started training in a gymnastics gym, but you need really high ceilings,” mentions Levinson. After moving from gym to gym, her father opened one in Maryland to accommodate his daughter’s needs. “The ceilings were always a problem.”
Depending on your flooring and equipment, extra insurance may be necessary. Jersey Cape Dance and Gymnastics Academy has an air track system, which allows students to practice and train using their own ability, rather than springs.
Finding qualified teachers and coaches is also essential, and can often be very difficult. “Check their background, education, how much coaching they have done. Never hire someone who was just a rhythmic gymnast. I wouldn’t hire myself,” laughs Buechele. “It is important to have teaching experience.”
Buechele suggests contacting a local YMCA or rhythmic gymnastics center to locate teachers, and Walsh mentions the competition circuit as one of the best ways to network.
A knowledgeable coach is often one of the best resources for the student. Trust is crucial in this relationship—especially when learning a new flip or trick.
Levinson’s coach, Catherine Yakhimovich, worked with her throughout her quick rise to the Olympic level. “She basically made me who I am,” she asserts. Placing 6th on the National team and then 2nd guaranteed her spot on the 1992 American Olympic team. Levinson mentions that it didn’t go well because she wasn’t mentally prepared—going from rookie to representing America. “It was my first international game ever,” she says. She went on to win gold, silver and bronze in various events at the 1995 Pan American Games and placed exceptionally well (especially for America where rhythmic gymnastics is not as prevalent) in other international championships. But after qualifying for the 1996 Olympic team, Levinson decided to quit.
With more than a background in gymnastics but a whole career behind her, Levinson decided to devote herself to the performance life. She moved to New York at 18 to find dance. “Rhythmic gymnastics has those qualities, even though it’s a sport, it has theatrical qualities,” she says. “[Gymnastics] is what I did, I didn’t know anything else. I went to New York to see what dance is all about. Everything came pretty quickly, everything kind of fell into place.”
Whether you want a serious career as a gymnast or additional skills as a dancer, the training rhythmic offers can be invaluable. “Rhythmic gymnastics can be extra curricular for a dancer. [Gymnasts] perform a dance, I look at them as performers not competitors,” exclaims Buechele.
Students striving to become professional dancers often need an edge when they are in a room full of other dancers auditioning for the same spot. “I have found that at auditions, the first cut they ask if anyone has gymnastic, acrobatic training, especially at Disney auditions and even on Broadway,” claims Walsh. “They ask if you can do a back hand spring and harness work. It’s taking over a lot of these auditions.”
Having made a successful transition from gymnast to performer, Levinson has mastered finding the perfect balance between them. “It can help and it can hinder,” she says about having a rhythmic gymnastics background. “It depends on what you do with it. It helps you because you can do all of these things, you have this flexibility that normal dancers don’t have, but being a dancer is about feeling your performance. It’s opposite of any competitive sport [where] you’re a machine. It wasn’t about your leg being higher than everyone, it’s expressing through movement. I was able to figure it out, how to make the two marry.”
Levinson has danced in three Madonna world tours, and performed with Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne. Working with creator/artistic director Diqui James on his previous project, “De La Guarda,” Levinson has been involved with “Fuerzabruta: Look Up” from the start when it was “nothing, just amazing ideas.” The show opened at the Daryl Roth Theatre in New York City in 2007 to critical acclaim and has been running its abstract, eccentric, energetic and seemingly improvisational antics five nights a week ever since. The show makes you feel like you’re at a nightclub—the craziest nightclub you’ve ever been to, and the cast performs with such gusto. It’s contagious.
Whether you’re a dancer, a gymnast, or both, the road to a blossoming career is not an easy one and it’s important to use all of your skills to help you stand out.
“At the end of the day tricks will sell you, but people will respond when you’re honest through your dance and gymnastics. I’m really honest with how I feel and that’s what people will remember. They will say, ‘That’s Tamara,’” advises Levinson. “Dance from your heart, that makes you who you are.”