Kick Start

LIBERATION MOVEMENT: PAB dancer Philip Colucci finds that the strength and balance inherent in karate frees him up for advanced ballet techniques. : Michael koehler

How one local dancer, in a growing trend, keeps fit — physically and artistically.

by Lewis Whittington

Three times a week Pennsylvania Ballet dancer Philip Colucci hangs up his clingy tights for a bulky gi and heads for Ten Ken Kan at Sixth and Tasker for karate class. A brown belt, he's been cross-training in the martial art for five years and is about to test his requirements for the first rank (of 10) for the black belt.

The dancer looks completely energized after finishing an hourlong session with two sparring opponents. Colucci sees the yin and yang of tackling the physical demands of both dance and martial arts. As demanding as ballet is, many dancers make time to cross-train — not only to relax, but also to enhance their artistic and athletic skills.

Colucci changes into his street clothes in such a flash his sparring partners call out, "Dude, who are you, Superman?" He talks about his dual disciplines: Knife hands, knuckle punches, hammer blows, finger jabs and kicks are as much a part of Colucci's movement vocabulary as jetes, double tours and pirouettes. "All strength comes more from balance than just strength," he says.

"In dance you are vulnerable and open, you are projecting yourself to an audience, in karate you are closed and fortifying yourself. Actually, I see them as equal and opposite. In dance you are turned out, elbows lifted, stomach hard. In karate, it's entirely opposite to fortify yourself. Everything implodes — the legs are in, the elbows are in and you are breathing with your stomach forcing out. Everything is completely opposite, so it makes it the same to me."

For a simple demonstration of this, he locks his body into a perfect ballet turned-out position, and then collapses his working leg into a defensive stance of a karate pose.

Sensei ("master") instructor Khalid Newton, a seventh-level black belt, has been working with Colucci for five months. On this day, Newton instructs in Seito Goju-Ryu Karate-do, a sparring exercise adapted by him for Colucci and his sparring partners. An actual fight, Newton says, would not be similarly choreographed. "Dancers can adapt to martial arts very easily because a lot of it is choreographed," Newton says. "They have to stay focused like in dance. And they come in with body mastery." Newton says that Colucci's opponents were impressed by the dancer's strength. "They found out fast," he says with a laugh.

Dance teachers and physical therapists steer dancers away from certain activities; running, for instance, is hazardous to ballet dancers because it stresses the joints too much and can contribute to overuse injuries like tendonitis.

PAB physical therapist Julie Green says she encourages dancers to look at the bigger picture if they are nursing an injury or if something happens suddenly onstage. "Now we try to prevent injuries. A Pilates [developed specifically for dancers in the '20s] or cross-training class goes a long way in creating the knowledge that will prevent injury," she says.

Green finds that elite-level dancers are stronger and fitter than ever. "The envelope keeps being pushed. You look back to previous eras, that level of top dancer is nothing compared to what a dancer can physically do now." Green says that even though dancers are very flexible, some overdeveloped muscles can actually be "tighter than the average person's" from overuse, so she looks at cross-training in sports as a good thing.

"Most of the injuries for women are in the foot and ankle because of the pointe work. Lifting for the men presents more back and shoulder injuries. Of course there are traumatic knee injuries from jumps," Green says. "Because of a dancer's level of perfection and high pain tolerance and drive, I have a role in telling them when they could do permanent damage, because they will push themselves to that level because they have worked so hard."

Colucci studied dance at Juilliard and danced with the San Francisco, Boston and Pacific Northwest ballets. He also received the prestigious Princess Grace Award for dance in 1998. He apprenticed with PAB in 1999 and joined the corps de ballet in 2000. Aside from his athletic prowess, Colucci is a strong character dancer. Last year he pumped some blood into Ben Stevenson's otherwise anemic choreography for Dracula as the vampire's slave Renfield. Two other roles were unlocked for him by using a karate tactic of feigning instability; it's intended to throw off an adversary. He was flawless in Jerome Robbins' famous sailor number from Fancy Free, tossing off huge double tours that drop to a split, as well as steering his soused spurned lover while dancing to Sinatra's "One for My Baby" in Trey McIntyre's Blue Until June. Newton said they discussed these roles. "We don't call it drunken, but it's a tactic where you look like you are drunk, to draw an adversary into a trap."

Colucci has the technical recall: "If I was just too wobbly it would look too messy. In the beginning he was working with me on having that feeling of being woozy, but not being so loose you are a stumbling drunk. It was all about balancing the dynamics."

And just in case, he'll be ready for any back-alley brawl.