I, like so many little girls at age four, donned the tulle and canvas slippers of a ballerina to pirouette and sashay across various studios and stages in search of happiness. Within a year, I had begun to immerse myself entirely in the art. I learned the production history of all of the canonical ballets; I mastered the French pronunciation of every position, ballet master, and dance step; I spent at least twenty hours per week in the studio and invested countless hours in ballet classes, competitions, and auditions. Dance became an integral, primary part of my identity and lifestyle, the one constant through the tumult of my adolescence. By my middle school years, dance was as large a commitment as school. Nonetheless, I was happy dancing and I took pride in the work ethic dance had instilled in me. Ballet demanded that I learned to handle immense pressure at a young age and I was made to understand the importance of self-motivation and responsibility.
All that time and effort had paid off. I was fantastic, and I took so much pride in being an elite dancer. I received larger roles, was accepted into prestigious ballet intensives, and trained with professionals from the very ballet companies I so idolized. I began to consider
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I had been eating poorly in my desperation to achieve the perfect dancer’s physique, and I felt often felt tired and unwell. Keeping straight A’s in school became unduly challenging after exhausting myself at late night rehearsals. I came home crying, defeated from the smallest of corrections after what seemed every ballet class. At this point, dancing threatened to overwhelm me entirely, and I realized how unlikely a career as a successful ballerina would be. I knew that the one passion that embodied all that I loved wasn’t a career path that guaranteed stability. In the end, I chose stability, and I stopped dancing
Ballet has been an art form since the late fifteenth century, but society did not truly see the impact of ballet until the nineteenth century. Modern day thinkers possess the idea that ballet began with tutus and pointe shoes, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that this opinion was observed. Ballet has come a long way. It has survived the turmoil of many wars and has changed itself by accepting new ideas and impressing the audience with its unique stylistic views.
Li’s passion for ballet shows on and off stage through his arabesques, flexibility, fouettés, grande jeté and pirouettes that were nothing less than perfection. I understood that becoming a dancer requires commitment, passion and having a great memory as there’s many moves, routines and ballet terms that you need to learn. When I was performing on stage, I felt free and that I could own the stage as it felt like it was my second home. I also felt complete within myself just as Li felt. To perform on stage, you need to be light and graceful along with connecting to the music using precise steps, poses and formal gestures. The film used dance, music, scenery, and costumes to portray a story characterised by Li’s dance. Classical ballet dancers require the utmost grace and I’ve found that you also need a tremendous level of concentration and memory. This portrays when his choreographer Ben Stevenson asked Li Cunxin to replace the main male role due to an injury on the day of the performance to memorise new dances and perform them in front of an enormous crowd. Many of my performances have been in a group where we all need to be in sync and work together. This film highlighted that in order to become a professional ballet dancer, you have to prepare to work extremely hard no matter how gruelling the schedule is in order to
When the performance ends, the dancers return to their regular routine of dancing five to seven hours a day, including both classes and rehearsal. During auditions, performances, and sometimes at random, it is not uncommon for a dancer to walk into what she thinks will be her daily ballet class and find a scale set up in the center of the dance studio instead (S. Gordon 42). These “weigh-ins” are arranged ahead of time but kept a secret from the dancers. A director from American Ballet Theatre explained that warning the dancers of the “weigh-in” to come would defeat the purpose. “A fore-warned dancer is a fore-starved dancer” (S. Gordon 43). Not only are the dancer’s weights recorded and compared but many times they are read aloud to the entire class. Famous choreographer George Balanchine was known to comment to his dancers, “Eat nothing!” and “I must see bones!” as he poked t...
The typical idea of a dancer is that they are tall, slender, full of energy, and lucky because they dance with all of the “stars”. Much of this is true, however, what many people do not think of are the many hardships that a dancer goes through in order to achieve their high status in the dance world. It takes much hard work and determination along with good direction to become a dancer. However, nothing good comes without a price. Dancers often times have many pressures put on them which can lead to physical and emotional damages. These damages occur through the pressures from the media, parents, teammates, and the stereotype that society has placed on dancers.
On March 23, 2016, I thought my life was over. It had been a long time coming of course, but once the day came, so did the realization of reality. I began to doubt everything I had worked so hard to figure out and the decisions I spent so long forming. Now, no one ever said it would be easy to leave gymnastics after 12 glorious years, but nobody warned me it could be this hard.
My entire body trembled as I walked towards the results of our auditions. I slowly paced myself while I examined the other girls full of different emotions after viewing the results posted. Numerous dancers gave instant brutal glares while flashing a fake smile towards my direction as I slowly walked down the paved sidewalk. It was then that I knew I was the new captain of our team. I took a deep breath and gazed straight, scanning for my name at the top of the paper. My heart stopped when I viewed the results that I had not received the title of captain of the dance team my final year.
Alexandra was a girl of 5 feet 6 inches weighing about 128 pounds. All her life she wanted to be something. She wanted to make people stop what they were doing and turn to her while she danced. She wanted people to know her name for her amazing lines and gorgeous leaps. She wanted to be the one all little dancers looked up to like how they did towards the Misty Copeland or Anna Pavlova. Ever since Alexandra was a little girl, she dreamed about being able to jump as high as the clouds. But right now, Alexandra was just a 14 year old dedicating her teenage life to the lifestyle of a prima-ballerina. She spent her whole week at her studio taking classes from mid-afternoon to late night. To her, it was all worth it. She was hoping she could attend the Julliard summer program by the time she graduated high school.
Most people think dancing is just a hobby and source of entertainment. But there’s so much more to dancing. People forget to acknowledge that dancing is a passionate form of art expressed through a person’s body movement. Dance “is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture.” It takes a lot of work, passion, and effort for a professional dancer to be able to learn a dance routine perfected to perform. Learning the skills and knowledge a dancer can learn and teach themselves through the movement of their body. The purpose of dance is to express the symbolic culture it presents. It takes many performance skills such as focus, body strength, musicality timing, flexibility, and passion. By developing these skills, can slowly piece together all the meaning of the movements in a dance.
During my sophomore year at Hotchkiss High School, I joined the Hotchkiss Varsity Dance Team. My dance experience, up to this point, was non-existent, but I was confident in my abilities of becoming a dancer. My love for dance was enough to feel self-assured. Our dance coach, Stephanie Neff, informed us at the beginning of our season that she had lost someone important to breast cancer. As a commemoration to her beloved friend, she wanted to dedicate and choreograph our state dance routine to raise awareness for breast cancer. Little did my teammates and I know, this routine would mean much more to us.
Dancing is not only a physical activity. It’s also a mental activity that makes you conscious about what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. I know that dancing comes from the heart and soul therefore, when I dance it’s like nothing else matters. I want to pursue this career and go farther with it. I want to become a professional dancer and I would love to know what are the steps to getting there. What education will I need? Where should I start my long career as a dancer? How much will my pay be? How long will I work until i can retire? Are there multiple jobs I can take as I progress through my career as a dancer? I plan to answer all these in the following essay so I can get an overview of what my future may look like.
As a child I always wanted to be in the spotlight. I was always the ham in family pictures, the one who had to excel past my brother, and be in the know of everything. When I was about twelve years old, I realized that entertaining people was what I was all about. Since I wasn’t any good at telling the jokes around the campfire or singing acappella, I thought about trying my dance skills. I liked dancing and I have always enjoyed music videos like Janet Jackson’s “Miss you much”, so I thought why not? What did I have to lose? With the support of my parents, particularly my mom, I went for the gusto.
Two years ago, I was supposed to start my college career at Sarah Lawrence. However, during that time my mother was involved in a severe car accident, and I decided to defer my place for a scholarship offer as a trainee at Joffrey Ballet School and later an apprentice position with State Street Ballet in California. I am truly grateful for these experiences because as a dancer your age limits your opportunities to get into a ballet company. Yet, after the two years ended, I was extremely excited to start schooling at Sarah Lawrence.
On the night of the DancePlus performance, I saw numerous little performances. There were six of them in total and the one I had most reactions and favors to is the last one of the first half, which is called Swampin. It was choreographed by John Evans with additional material by Oluwadamilare Ayoride, Jennifer Payan and surprisingly, the dancers. Usually what I would expect from a piece of dance performance is choreographers dominating the process of being creative on the grounds o f coming up dance moves. However, this time, it is nice to see how the dancer actually participating first hand in the creating process of the whole performance which would definitely benefit the quality of the dance, since the dancers would their own choreography
grew up as a dancer before transitioning into teaching with, “an approach to dance that
I could not be prouder of myself and my instructors who were able to bring back my passion for dance. I am forever thankful for what they were able to provide me with. Dedication, encouragement, and belief. Although I no longer compete, I continue to dance daily. I have even begun working as a dance instructor myself for little children at my instructors’ studio. Dance has provided me with the confidence to pursue my dreams and to continue to grow as an individual and a human