Welcome back to our new feature “Dance Blog Spotlight” where we will be highlighting some of the best dance blogs on the web! Last month we turned the spotlight on Tendus Under A Palm Tree, and this month we have Henrik, the author/creator of Tights And Tiaras – another one of my all-time favorites!
1. Can you tell readers a bit about your background in dance?
I have been dancing all my life. When I was a kid, my parents tell me, I was running around the house doing all sorts of movements all the time, and I told my mother I wanted to be a dancer already when I was three years old. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds, I was born with a severe hip-displacement, and went through extensive surgeries when I was about 6 to 8 years old. After a recovery-period, I finally started dancing ballet at a local studio. From there, it’s been a bumpy road, but always heading for the same goal I set out as a three year old: I’m going to be a dancer. And a dancer I became. Today I have been working professionally with ballet and dance since I graduated from ballet academy several years ago.
2. When did you begin your blog—and why did you start it?
I started my blog in January 2010, basically because I felt I had a lot to give, and I wanted to “enlighten” the world a little on the world of dance, and especially male dancers. From it’s very small beginning, Tights and Tiaras slowly grew into a hobby of mine, I started spending more time with it, learnt how the blogging world works (HTML coding is a pain in the buttocks), and slowly built up a certain readership, which I am still doing today, about a year and a half later. I am very proud of the blog, I believe it has lots of good information already, but I still have huge plans for the future 🙂
3. What does your blog cover?
My blog basically covers the life of a professional dancer (that’d be me), and what it means to live like I do. I want the world to get a bit more aquatinted with our art, and I believe us artist giving of ourselves is the best way to achieve that. In the end, Tights and Tiaras is ‘an insight to the life of a male professional dancer’.
4. What has been the best part about participating in the dance community online?
The online dance community is something I discovered first after I started writing my blog, and it’s been a great resource the whole way. There are lots of great blogs and sites on dance, from all perspectives, and it gives me both inspiration and information all the time.
5. What other dance blogs do you read?
Surprisingly few at a regular basis. Besides working as a dancer, writing and editing my blog and maintaining somewhat of a personal life as well, there is not much time left on my schedule. I do check in on a site called The Ballet Bag quite often, though, they have endless info up there, and I often use them as a resource. Otherwise, there is 4Dancers of course, and I have to mention two ‘late beginners’ that has been great inspiration to me – DaveTriesBallet and AdultBeginner, both with their own style and tone. There are a huge number of blogs and sites up on dance by now, and I find great articles on other sites regularly that I enjoy a lot. Twitter has been a great tool for finding and sharing such posts, and, like I wrote in a post a while back, it and still remains my number one source for info on anything dance.
Find and follow Henrik online at:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Tightsandtiaras
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Tightsandtiaras
BIO: Henrik Lamark is a professional ballet dancer from Norway, and the author behind the site TightsAndTiaras.com. He holds a degree in classical ballet from the Hungarian National Ballet Academy, and has been dancing for and with companies in several countries around the world. His list of roles span from classical princes, through the modern repertoire to more contemporary works with upcoming choreographers. He is currently working with the renown Győr National Ballet of Hungary.
His blog, Tights and Tiaras, is his way to share a unique insight to the life of a male professional dancer. Awarded the “Top Dance Blog of the year 2010”, it has become a popular site on dance online, and is continuing to provide dancers, students and audience a ‘peek through the keyhole’ into the until recently mysterious world inside a ballet theatre.
