Ballet shoes

youngest actress on the set, Ava Grace Cooper. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with this 6-year-old actress, and I was overwhelmed with her enthusiasm and amazing talent. Why did you decide to become an actress? I started taking dance {ballet} lessons when I was about three. And I heard about this thing called acting, and I thought I would give it a try. I loved dancing, so why not act? How did you get the role of Opal in WCTH? I went into the audition room, and I said my lines. I…

The early Greeks developed order and form within dance that was called choral dance. It was a more communal form where the lines of dancers would move circularly or straight within ranks. These dances would be performed at events such as Athenian festivals and were accompanied by procession, sacrifices and games. The Greeks would also dance at religious ceremonies; they would perform fertility dances to ensure fertile fields as well as fertile women. They would dance in preparation for war and…

spaces are not a capitalist product so why waste your energy? John’s closet theory addresses two sides of the closet, clean and trash. Clean is an example of professional concert dance, ballet, lack of diversity in dance companies or exploitation of bodies. Clean is nationalism. In certain dance forms, such as ballet or commercial dance, the focus is to appeal and to entertain the audience. Many dancers are trained to believe that they must appeal to the primary, meaning they have to join a…

Being a dancer is not as easy as everyone thinks or as I thought many years ago. I started studying ballet at the age of three, but to study ballet to become a dancer was a hard way. To become a dancer, you must have certain physical aptitudes, you must sacrifice many things and feel a great love for dancing and art in general. Not everyone can become a dancer because they must meet certain physical requirements; the composition and body dimension is defined for the movement of the…

What do you think of when you hear the word ballerina? I know that I think of young women and girls that dance on their tippy toes. There special shoes that allow them to be able to do this are called a pointe shoe, and can be made for just one specific dancer. It’s not all graceful and effortless movements. If you are not trained for these shoes you can really get hurt. Today I will tell you the five major parts of them that all work together to make sure that the dancer does not get hurt. At…

George Balanchine is recognized worldwide for his virtuosic, neoclassical ballets. Balanchine has been claimed as the father of American ballet, due to his prominent contributions to the twentieth century ballet culture. From the almost hundred ballets he created throughout his career, I believe “Jewels”, which premiered in 1967 at the New York City Ballet, New York State Theatre, to be one of his most stunning works. Jewels is a full evening length performance, consisting of three acts. Each…

Mary Whitehouse’s first introduction to the concept of DMT was through seeing a picture of Marian Chace working at St. Elizabeths Hospital (Whitehouse, 1999). A student of both Mary Wigman and Martha Graham, Whitehouse performed and taught modern dance. However, Whitehouse was looking for something more and started to expand her idea of what dance was. Instead of seeing dance, she began to witness movement occurring in classes. As time progressed, Whitehouse developed her framework of DMT, which…

Painting and relevance: Jacques-Louis David’s “Oath of the Horatii” was painted in 1784 and it was commissioned by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on behalf of the Kind Louis XVI. The inspiration of the painting had to come by Corneille’s Play “Horace” which was being performed in Paris during that time. In 1785 the painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon. The painting shows a decisive moment of will as well as a great family tragedy resulting from political consequences. The…

Loie Fuller Marie Louise Fuller (1862-1928) was a significant dancer born in Fullersburg, Chicago, later to be known as Loie Fuller or “La Loie”. Fuller is known for her innovation and experimental cooperation with technology and multimedia techniques such as extravagant lighting and usage of mirrors during the twentieth-century in order to ‘hypnotize’ and capture her audience. Fuller’s innovations would inspire many various types of artists and intellectuals, including future modern dancers…

early 1800s, ballet, and classical music were iconic across the world. Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It is a very technical, rigid dance full with grace and intricate footwork. Its vocabulary is based in French and Italian, with a philosophy that is historically recognizable by almost all. Ballet requires years of training, which is often expensive. Most people who went to see ballet…