1) Why did I choose this person or people and what were my thoughts about this person or experience before? (5-points) For this project, I chose to view three videos about professional dancing. However they were very different videos from each other. I chose videos that discussed race, pressure, non-verbal movement and expression, and dancing culture. I wanted to take a closer look into the lives of professional dancers. Before I watched these videos, I had the idea that dancing just came to the ballerinas naturally. I also did not understand the hours upon hours of which they spend rehearsing. I did not understand the incredibly high threshold of pain each of them possessed. I thought it was an art form that did not require as much endurance
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From seeing the videos, I saw how truly difficult it is. I saw Misty Copeland struggle with a fracture, yet danced any ways, and eventually had surgery to over come it. I saw Justin Peck struggle with his own injuries in the movie, but still continued to dance. In the Russian documentary I saw five young girls pushing their bodies to the breaking point to become the best, no matter what it took to get there. Dancer place themselves in difficult situations and push their bodies so far to accept pain. They are truly athletes of the greatest degree. Anna Aalten wrote in her journal, In the Presence of the Body: Theorizing Training, Injuries and Pain in Ballet, that humans were not made to stand on their toes, let alone dance. But dancers do it any ways. They push their bodies farther to become stronger, embracing their pain to be the best. (2005) To the untrained eye, the dancer looks like they are dancing at ease. But that is not the case. There is much pain and suffering that goes into making the dance flawless. Aalten said that dancers were so accustomed to pain that by her asking about it, the dancers merely shrugged off, because pain is as part of their lives as the pointe shoes they wear. Dancers swear by the fact that to succeed, pain will always come with the territory.
From seeing the videos, I saw how truly difficult it is. I saw Misty Copeland struggle with a fracture, yet danced any ways, and eventually had surgery to over come it. I saw Justin Peck struggle with his own injuries in the movie, but still continued to dance. In the Russian documentary I saw five young girls pushing their bodies to the breaking point to become the best, no matter what it took to get there. Dancer place themselves in difficult situations and push their bodies so far to accept pain. They are truly athletes of the greatest degree. Anna Aalten wrote in her journal, In the Presence of the Body: Theorizing Training, Injuries and Pain in Ballet, that humans were not made to stand on their toes, let alone dance. But dancers do it any ways. They push their bodies farther to become stronger, embracing their pain to be the best. (2005) To the untrained eye, the dancer looks like they are dancing at ease. But that is not the case. There is much pain and suffering that goes into making the dance flawless. Aalten said that dancers were so accustomed to pain that by her asking about it, the dancers merely shrugged off, because pain is as part of their lives as the pointe shoes they wear. Dancers swear by the fact that to succeed, pain will always come with the territory.