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Recommended: History of dance
A Rich and Expansive History Many people will insist that dance is not a sport, but they are wrong. Dance, though also an art, is an intense sport, especially ballet. Sports are physically demanding, require a commitment, involve being fit and active, and are competitive and enjoyable. Ballet fits every single criterion above. A professional ballerina attends class every day, including tests of flexibility, gracefulness, and strength. Ballerinas are also continually rehearsing for their performances, which involve stressful costume changes. Nevertheless, dancers love it. Indeed, ballet should be considered a sport by all. Ballet is an old art and intense discipline that has endured for hundreds of years with a long, complex, and remarkable history including famous men and women remembered to this day. “Ballet as an art form began in the late 1400s during the Renaissance, in the Royal courts of France and Italy” (Mitchell 6). The dancing at this time consisted of simple steps, small hops, curtsies, promenades and gentle turns. The dancing was kept simple for two reasons. First, none …show more content…
Ballet is beautiful, touching and tells an enchanting story or expresses deep emotion. There will always be people who love dancing and dedicate their lives to it, losing their problems in the magic of performing. There will always be people to continue choreographing ballets, those with expansive creative genius. There will always be people to compose music for ballets, whose fount of ideas never runs dry. Of course, there will always be people to attend a ballet performance; the seats will be filled with ballet lovers anticipating the spellbinding charm of the dancing. Ballet is always changing its costumes, portrayal, music, and dancing, but its purpose and goal still remain the same. Ballet’s rich history and background are always expanding and adding new dancers, choreographers, and composers to
Throughout the article, the author lists themes and characteristics of ballet performances to prove the extent to which ballet has to be regarded as ethnic. Providing support in form of statements about ritualism, flora and fauna that are often included in the performances, the author tries to demonstrate how wrong we are considering ballet to be out of culture. It has inevitable connections to the customs of nations that developed it. Thus, ballet cannot be regarded out of the culturally-historical paradigm, as far as it is deeply rooted in it.
Ballet traces back to the 15-century Italian renaissance court; Ballet is known as the mother of all dance due to its influence on any style of dance no matter how small. In the 15th century ballet was a form of entertainment for the Italian Renaissance court. These performances took place in balls and banquets. (“Ballet”) Ballet one of its first performances included aristocratic amateurs with poetry and song alongside the production. (“Ballet”) During the 15th century, France also became influence with ballet. (“A Brief History of Ballet - Illustrated by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.”) The influenced of ballet in France was because of Catherine de Medici in 1533. (“Ballet”) She married the French King Henry II which allowed from French and
By universal definition, "sport" is listed as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer and other primary activities have always been concretely defined as sports in society. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance requires a tremendous amount of training and creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports. These sports, however, do not possess an element of psychological health threats that some competitive dancers unfortunately must account for due to the emphasis placed on physical appearance.
Ballet is an athletic art form that utilizes muscle control, flexibility, and physical strength. It requires extreme discipline from the dancers and takes an extreme amount of mental concentration. This discipline causes dancers to have success throughout life and specifically in academic studies. There are many ways that dance can affect the success of a person’s life; however, there are two in specific that make dancers generally more successful. To begin, ballet causes dancers to be self-motivated workers; dancers cannot rely on others to push them to be better, but must have the drive within themselves.
The author of this article focuses on the art of dancing, specifically ballet. This ballet shares many plot elements with other
I can understand why people think that dancing is considered a sport. Yes, it requires physical activity, such as stretching, they go through 12 hours of dancing a day if they are professional dancers. Yes, in competitive dancing they may be competing for a trophy or an award, such as a competition. However, these things all contribute to why some people may consider dancing to be a sport, but dancers do not know what physical strength a football player needs to have or a soccer player. As well as competing for a trophy. Most dancers just dance for fun or as an hobby, but when a sport player goes out on a field they are always competing for a trophy or some
an important factor of sports, it’s presence in Ballet is not to be ignored. These reasons all lead
Learning about Dance: Dance as an Art Form and Entertainment provides visions into the many features of dance and inspires scholars to keep an open mind and think critically about the stimulating, bold, ever-changing and active world of dance. Learning about Dance is particularly useful for those who do not have a wide and diverse dance contextual, such as students in a preliminary level or survey dance course. This book consists of twelve chapters. Chapter one dance as an art form focuses on the basic structures of dance. Dance is displayed through the human body, it has the control to communicate and induce reactions. Dance can be found in many different places, it enables the participants and seekers to touch and knowledge the joy of movement. Dance is discovered as being one of the oldest art forms worldwide. Dance existed in early cultures was recognized in a sequence of rock paintings portrayed dance. Since this discovery of rock paintings, several other forms of art have been found that depict dance. People used rituals in order to worship the gods and believed that the rituals held magical and spiritual powers. During the ancient period civilizations sentient decisions began to be made with regard to dance. Other periods that had an impact on dance were the medieval period, the renaissance period, and the contemporary period. Chapter two the choreographer, the choreographer is a person who comes up with the movements created into a dance routine. The choreographer expresses themselves through choreography because this is their way of communicating with the audience. In order to be a choreographer you must have a passion for dance. Each choreographer has their own approaches and ways of making up a routine. Choreographers ...
According to Jennifer Homans, she describes ballet as “ a kind of freedom, and a focus on the body, purely clearing your mind.” Ballet is also a form of communication, instead of speaking, the dancer uses their body movements to speak to the audience. The real question is, how different is ballet from then to now? Ballet first originated in the Italian renaissance, occurring around the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. There are also many different types of ballet. One of the first being classical ballet, many of which originate from their country For example, French ballet, Italian ballet, or Russian ballet. Furthermore, George Balanchine created neoclassical ballet. It consist of contemporary ballet, and post-structural ballet. Another type of ballet is contemporary ballet, consisting of classical and modern dances. As for present day ballet, it still follows many of the rules, costumes that the dancers wear, and techniques. Back then, majority of the dances choreographers created contained plots and stories. As for today, many dancers dance to just music, meaning it does not have to have a story within every dance. It could be based off of expression, and movement instead. The audience has the decision to choose which types of dances they prefer to watch, it could a musical inside of a theatre or a dance recital. Speaking of techniques and positions, ballet still follows the five basic positions of movements in ballet. One of the many popular and known techniques of ballet is called the point technique consisting of five different positions. The ballet dancer weight is fully supported by the tips of their toes, while wearing a pointe shoe. Ballet costumes are also a important essential to a ballets everyday life style, practices, and routined dances. To begin with, they had just began shortening the skirts, and stopped wearing heels. Dancers began wearing skirts that were half away above
Is dance a sport or not? Some people in our world today consider dance just to be all frilly and fragile. Dance takes time, effort, determination and impeccable strength. I believe that dance is a sport because it has the same components as any other sport. In any other sport you need to work hard with a lot of effort, and that is exactly what dancers do. For example, most beginning dancers practice between five to ten hours a week. Although most people in our world today look at dancing as nothing more than tutus and twirling, a good dancer must have a mind mentally engaged, a body able to endure physical challenges, and toned dedication and skill.
Many young girls grow up taking ballet class, but there is a lot more to ballet than just little girls running around in tutus. Many people think that ballet is boring or isn’t their thing but there are many roles that go into putting on a ballet. A lot of work goes into doing a ballet. There are many famous ballets that without the story, the ballet wouldn’t be as interesting. There were many influential dancers and choreographers in ballet. There are many basic steps that frame the technique of ballet. Ballet is very physically and mentally demanding. Ballet is an art that many people misunderstand, but there is so much more to ballet.
As discussed during class, dance has always played a large part in society and political affairs. However, what we covered was largely before the nineteenth century. These more than one hundred years that separate what we covered and the Ballets Russes was a time of great artistic innovation. The commodification of ballet was also very interesting to me. Previously, ballet and dance were used in social gatherings, however at the turn of the twentieth century it morphed into something that could be bought, sold, and traded. Garafola notes that, choreographers like Fokine could receive top dollar for their efforts (Garafola 196). I found it very remarkable just how much Diaghilev’s success relied on outside sources and his ability to integrate the Ballets Russes into the era’s operatic marketplace. When looking at the interaction between society and dance from the other direction it is interesting to note that during the twentieth century, dance became much more cosmopolitan in terms of artistic styling. Dance arrived at the forefront of the careful balance between social and artistic behaviors within the academic culture of France, in which a majority of these undertakings were purely of commercial
Ballet is a popular dance form that originated in the 1500s around the time of the renaissance. It consists of many different forms that have evolved over the years. Some examples of these forms include French Ballet, Vaganova (Russian Ballet), Cecchetti (Italian Ballet), and Balanchine. Ballet forms and variations originated mainly from Italy, Russia, and France.
Despite the fact that ballet is a completely new challenge for me, I managed to learn the choreographies and movements. From the videotaped performance I was able to identify the dance technique aspects that need to be improved for further correction. Although several elements, such as turns, port de bras, spatial awareness, movement quality and dynamic range require work; there are also aspects that were improved through practice.
To many, dance is only an art. In reality, dance is much more. It 's an art, a sport, a way to express one’s self, a way to exercise, a way to get feelings out. Since the beginning of time, humans have used different types of dance to express themselves. There are many advantages to dancing, however there are also some disadvantages. Dance is one of the most physically and cognitively demanding sports.