Thursday, December 19, 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
BALLET POINTE PROBLEMS
Students attempting pointe work before being ready risk, at the very least, building bad habits which may take years to correct. More serious is the potential for injury or permanent damage to the bone or muscle structure of the foot, which far outweighs the risk of disappointment.
To avoid these problems, a teacher must consider several things in selecting students who are ready to begin pointe work:
Age -- No student should attempt pointe work before the age of 10. The pressure of the body's weight on the foot and toes, which are still soft and growing before that age, can cause malformation of the bones and joints. Many teachers prefer to wait until the student is 11 or 12 years old.
Training -- The student must have had at least two to three years of serious ballet training and be currently taking at least three classes per week. This is the minimum time and preparation needed for a student to develop sufficient technique and strength to prepare her for pointe work.
Bone Structure -- The structure of the student's ankle and foot is of great importance. The ideal foot has toes of nearly equal length which provide a "squared-off" platform on which to stand. Students having a long big toe may experience some difficulty and discomfort on pointe, since the entire body weight must be supported on just the big toes, but this type foot does not necessarily prevent the dancer from dancing well, safely, or relatively pain free.
Students attempting pointe work before being ready risk, at the very least, building bad habits which may take years to correct. More serious is the potential for injury or permanent damage to the bone or muscle structure of the foot, which far outweighs the risk of disappointment.
To avoid these problems, a teacher must consider several things in selecting students who are ready to begin pointe work:
Age -- No student should attempt pointe work before the age of 10. The pressure of the body's weight on the foot and toes, which are still soft and growing before that age, can cause malformation of the bones and joints. Many teachers prefer to wait until the student is 11 or 12 years old.
Training -- The student must have had at least two to three years of serious ballet training and be currently taking at least three classes per week. This is the minimum time and preparation needed for a student to develop sufficient technique and strength to prepare her for pointe work.
Bone Structure -- The structure of the student's ankle and foot is of great importance. The ideal foot has toes of nearly equal length which provide a "squared-off" platform on which to stand. Students having a long big toe may experience some difficulty and discomfort on pointe, since the entire body weight must be supported on just the big toes, but this type foot does not necessarily prevent the dancer from dancing well, safely, or relatively pain free.
Dec. 5, 2013, 10:55 a.m. EST
The Nutcracker: Beloved ballet or holiday ripoff?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-the-nutcracker-wont-tell-you-2012-11-24Friday, December 6, 2013
"The true dance is an expression of serenity; it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion. Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action; it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed, and it unfolds with a gentle slowness. The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.
The Dance - it is the rhythm of all that dies in order to live again; it is the eternal rising of the sun."
Isadora Duncan, The Art of The Dance, p. 99
Thursday, December 5, 2013
The HAPPIEST
of
To YOU
Jeannne!
DANCER PERFORMER TEACHER EXTRAORDINAIRE !
ex·tra·or·di·naire
ˌekstrəˌôrdnˈer/
adjective
informal
- 1.outstanding or remarkable in a particular capacity."memories of a gardener extraordinaire"
Lots and Lots of 
LOVE and Best Wishes,
your greatest fan, forever in your debt.
~ Rebecca ~
With thanks to those who blew the wind
and those who sailed the ship,
We sailed it tight against the tide
and I shall be forever in your debt. by kirk jones
and those who sailed the ship,
We sailed it tight against the tide
and I shall be forever in your debt. by kirk jones
- ISADORA DUNCAN QUOTE by REBECCA BACHAR IDMA TEMPLE STUDIO OF FINE ART To bring to life again the ancient ideal! I do not mean to say, copy it, imitate it; but to breathe its life, to recreate it in one's self, with personal inspiration: to start from its beauty and then go toward the future. (Duncan, The Art of the Dance, 96.)
- ISADORA DUNCAN LIFE HISTORY- Isadora's art was great symbolic art. Her stage was the wind-drifted border between flowering meadow and sandy beach on the margin of some nameless sea where the horn of Poseidon faintly echoes, and Kypris, the World's Desire, might be born of any wandering wave .... And she was the soul of man confronting nature and the enigma of life, brave and troubled and terrified among the mysteries ... Symbolic art ... [that] taps the very sources of joy and grief, and startles from their slumber those race-memories that live unnoted in the still places of the soul.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
Observations of Beethoven’s 9th
“Cognized” by Blake Overall
How ‘Bout That Beethoven!
There has never been any work of art in any medium close to this, before or since,
though of course there are a handful of perfect works of art extant in musical and other
mediums. After being totally absorbed in this work well over a thousand times, I have
concluded that it is indeed unfathomable. All I can do is try to understand why it is
unfathomable, and I think I finally understand at least that much. It is unfathomable
because in it, Beethoven has created a Living Being, a Creator God Itself, incessantly
probing and searching into Infinity, morphing endlessly into something else of equal
albeit different Grandeur, Divine Majesty and Power, morphing me with it. In this
untamable, tumultuous tornado of music swirl all the Devis and Devatas, all of the Divine
powers and forcers, everything—constantly bringing forth new beings and creations of
its own, the Causeless Cause. For starters, it’s all about the primordial powers and forces
that created the universes. I don’t find it very musical, really, more about infinite power
and infinite creative force. Never have I been able to completely penetrate this work-
-to get to the bottom of it. Now I finally know why this is impossible. And maybe I
have a clue as to the cosmic purpose of Beethoven’s deafness. Had he not been deaf, he
would not have been able to access and extract from the Unconscious, from the Infinite
Depths, this last and greatest of all symphonies, and the Late Quartets, the Holy Ground
of music. Bach and Mozart approached the Throne of God. Beethoven went up and sat
down on it, claiming the Christhood of music. With every listening we hear Beethoven’s
continuously repeated theme and variations of “I AM”. For these reasons, in my humble
estimation, in Beethoven we have the consummate artist of all time. If you or anyone
you know has any observations about any of this, I’d love to hear about it. WHEW! Just
3 more movements to go.
“The music roars and storms all about me until I set it down in notes”-Beethoven
“Cognized” by Blake Overall
How ‘Bout That Beethoven!
There has never been any work of art in any medium close to this, before or since,
though of course there are a handful of perfect works of art extant in musical and other
mediums. After being totally absorbed in this work well over a thousand times, I have
concluded that it is indeed unfathomable. All I can do is try to understand why it is
unfathomable, and I think I finally understand at least that much. It is unfathomable
because in it, Beethoven has created a Living Being, a Creator God Itself, incessantly
probing and searching into Infinity, morphing endlessly into something else of equal
albeit different Grandeur, Divine Majesty and Power, morphing me with it. In this
untamable, tumultuous tornado of music swirl all the Devis and Devatas, all of the Divine
powers and forcers, everything—constantly bringing forth new beings and creations of
its own, the Causeless Cause. For starters, it’s all about the primordial powers and forces
that created the universes. I don’t find it very musical, really, more about infinite power
and infinite creative force. Never have I been able to completely penetrate this work-
-to get to the bottom of it. Now I finally know why this is impossible. And maybe I
have a clue as to the cosmic purpose of Beethoven’s deafness. Had he not been deaf, he
would not have been able to access and extract from the Unconscious, from the Infinite
Depths, this last and greatest of all symphonies, and the Late Quartets, the Holy Ground
of music. Bach and Mozart approached the Throne of God. Beethoven went up and sat
down on it, claiming the Christhood of music. With every listening we hear Beethoven’s
continuously repeated theme and variations of “I AM”. For these reasons, in my humble
estimation, in Beethoven we have the consummate artist of all time. If you or anyone
you know has any observations about any of this, I’d love to hear about it. WHEW! Just
3 more movements to go.
“The music roars and storms all about me until I set it down in notes”-Beethoven
ISADORA DUNCAN QUOTE ON DANCE "The true dance is an expression of serenity; it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion. Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action; it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed, and it unfolds with a gentle slowness. The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.
The Dance - it is the rhythm of all that dies in order to live again; it is the eternal rising of the sun."
Isadora Duncan, The Art of The Dance, p. 99
ISADORA DUNCAN LIFE HISTORYBorn in California in 1877, Duncan's childhood was as chaotic as it was sublime. Her mother, Dora Angela Duncan, a self-educated cultured woman, provided her four children with classical underpinnings that instilled a love and respect for art and language and a reverence for the past. Her father, Joseph Duncan, a banker-aesthete, abandoned the family when Duncan was quite young. However, even in absentia, he prophetically heralded Duncan's formative concepts of a Greek sensibility through his published poem, "Intaglio: Lines on a Beautiful Greek Antique," in which he wrote, "Greece is living Greece once more." (Duncan, Art of the Dance, 144; quoting Bret Harte, ed., Outcroppings: Being Selections of California Verse. San Francisco: A. Roman, 1866).
Duncan's family moved often, eventually traveling across America and then to Europe. They arrived in London the summer of 1899, where Duncan, then age 22, immersed herself every day for four months in the vast holdings of the British Museum. (Duncan, Original Notebook from the Arnold Rood Collection, n.d., Special Collections, Theatre Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, without pagination. Courtesy of Barbara Kane.)
Thereafter, they left for Paris, where Duncan was introduced to the Louvre's collection of Greek vases and their iconography. In her autobiography, Duncan recalls that her brother, Raymond, sketched every red or black-figured vessel in that collection. Duncan subsequently danced from their inspired images, while Raymond photographed her. (Duncan, My Life, 67-68.) It was their self-proclaimed mission to attune themselves to the ancient Greek sensibility, its aesthetic and its ethos.The Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc. (IDII), co-founded in 1977 by Maria-Theresa Duncan and Kay Bardsley, is a global organization committed to the enhancement of education through movement and the arts, drawing from the ideals and principles of Isadora Duncan. The IDII is comprised of three divisions reflecting its triple goals: (1) Educational, consisting of the 'Isadora for Children' and 'The Isadora for Adults'
Jeanne Bresciani, M.A., I.M.A, Ph.D. is Artistic Director and Director of Education for the Isadora Duncan International Institute, an arts and education organization founded in 1977 by Maria-Theresa Duncan and Kay Bardsley. She is a solo performer, teacher, lecturer, reconstructionist, choreographer and creator of festivals, specializing in the dance of Isadora Duncan and myth and movement studies. In New York City, she directs Isadora Programs on behalf of the New York University School of Education and The Harkness Dance Center of the 92nd Street Y and two professional dance companies: The Isadora Duncan International Institute Dancers and the 'Isadora for Children™' Performing Group. A former Kress scholar in the History of Art from Williams College and Fulbright scholar in dance, she founded and leads three teaching and performance training programs at Tempio di danza in the mountain region above New York City, entitled The Certificate Program in Isadora Duncan Studies: I; The Advanced Diploma in Performance and Choreography II; and The Certificate Program in Myth, Movement and Metaphor, as well as intensives in choreographic research, entitled Movement in the Mountains and a study abroad program Sacred Topographies: The Body and The Land. Most recently she has lectured, taught and performed at The Duncan Center in Athens, The National Theater in Budapest, The New Parthenon in Tokyo and the British Museum in London.
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Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Risks of dance[edit]
There are various health risks of professional dance, as it can be very demanding. As well as sports injuries, repetitive strain injury, and chronic workplace stress, dancers have a higher than average risk of body image problems and eating disorders.[10] Dancers risk injury within the course of their career, many retiring from active performance in their mid to late 30s. Since dance is aperformance art with emphasis on aesthetics, dancers are also at a higher risk of body image problems and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia.
Injuries[edit]
| “ | ...compared to the 61 common sports, only professional [American] football is more physically demanding than ballet.[11] | ” |
Many dance movements, and particularly ballet techniques, such as the turnout of the hips and rising on the toes (en pointe), test the limits of the range of movement of the human body. Dance movements can place stress on the body when not performed correctly; even if perfect form is used, over-repetition can cause repetitive strain injury. Eighty percent of professional dancers will be injured in some way during their careers; 50 percent of dancers from large ballet companies and 40 percent from small companies will miss performances due to injury.[12] The practice of "plieing" (bending one's knees deeply) after landing each jump may seem innocuous, but failing to do so may result in shin splints or knee injuries. Overwork and poor occupational health and safety conditions, a (non-sprung) hard floor, a cold studio or theater, or dancing without sufficient warm up also increase risk of injury.
To minimize injury, dance training emphasizes strength building and forming appropriate habits. Also damage may result from having a student perform movements for which they are not prepared, care must be taken that the student is not "pushed" inappropriately. A dancer put en pointe at an age where his or her bones have not completely ossified may develop permanent damage; even past the point of ossification, ankle injuries can result if a dancer goes en pointe without sufficient strength.
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