Non-Oscar Nominated: First Position

Many people have claimed to have lost faith in the Oscars. Some made this claim after the documentary First Position was not nominated. This documentary fit all of the possible categories but it sis not make it. There are many reasons that it should have been nominated and those reasons are because of ballet’s historical significance, its continuous debates about gender, race, and sexuality, and ballet’s advocacy of talent, passion and drive.

The history of ballet travels back to the time of King Louis XIV. According to Dance At Court, King Louis XIV was known as ballet’s first star for his exceptional dancing skills and his power to turns people’s minds away from war. While at court, King Louis dances distracted everyone’s views of wealth, war, and land and focuses their attention on the beauty and charisma of dance and poetry. Dance shaped the world politically with King Louis XIV and his dancing. It also shapes the world culturally and socially with their different types of court dance. They are all different but ballet was the court dance of France, and other European countries.

Ballet, now, it presented to entertain the people who come to the shows to watch phenomenal dancers perform classical ballets as they always have been performed. However, it has changed. Ballet has been changed into different forms that people believe that are not true to what ballet was suppose to be. Dance forms such as neoclassical ballet, lyrical, romantic ballets and more. However, there places that contribute to keeping the true art of classical ballet in the world. Places such as the royal Ballet School in London, the Kirov Ballet School in Russia, and especially, the Paris Opera Ballet in France. Ballet is a historical art form that needs to be...

... middle of paper ...

... The talk of this production being gay was not helped in the fact that Matthew Bourne, himself was gay. Dance should be for everyone who is willing to move to a beat.

Dance is an advocate for those who need an outlet. Dance is for everyone regardless of who you are. Only when you decide to make a living from it does it become only for a few people who are willing to fight for it. If you have the passion for dance, the talent, whether it happened to be innate or learned, and drive to be the best, dance is for you. First Position should have received a nomination for an Oscar because it was just that good. If that could not suffice, this paper and the article by Rainsford Alexandra on the Huffington Post should be viewed. Dance continues to evolve with the times and addressing the great moments and the faults within this art will make it better in the future to come.