4teachers – Page 22

Review: Michael Jackson, The Experience – XBOX 360 Kinect

July 15, 2011 by 4dancers

*Note: This XBOX 360 game requires a Kinect sensor in order to play

If you love Michael Jackson’s dance moves, now you have the opportunity to learn them. This XBOX 360 Kinect game, Michael Jackson, The Experience, features his actual choreography, as well as the chance to sing along with the music if you are so inclined. One of my favorite parts of this game was the stage backgrounds for the different songs. They were fun!

There are plenty of great MJ songs here to choose from, including Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal and Bad. To me, one of the things that makes this game is the fact that you are actually on-screen with the group, thanks to the advances with Kinect technology. It never ceases to amaze me how far we’ve come these days.

This game is a good one to play with friends, as there is a multi-player option, and other cool features include the opportunity to star in your own Michael Jackson video and “Michael’s Dance School”.

I’d be hard-pressed to say whether younger dance fans would find this game as fun as I did, since they are so used to this type of technology…but I enjoyed the chance to try my hand at the “King of Pop’s” moves. I’ve long been a fan of his dancing and thought the game was a good time. I will say that I had no difficulty picking up the dance steps, but hesitate to make a blanket statement about them being simple since I have a dance background.

The real value in this XBOX game is the fact that you can learn the actual choreography. Michael Jackson had some pretty smooth moves, and I always loved to watch him dance. It was cool to break the movements down and do them myself.

If you’ve played this game, I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Review copy courtesy of Ubisoft

CD Review: Music for Ballet Class III

July 13, 2011 by 4dancers

Mediaphorie has added another excellent ballet class music CD to their lineup with their latest – “Music for Ballet Class III” (Musique pour le Cours de Danse Classique).

It’s lovely to have original music to use, and this collection fits the bill. The tracks are expertly played by pianist and composer Ellina Akimova, who plays in France for the Ballet School of the Paris National Opéra, as well as the CNSMDP, at the CND, and at the Danse school of the conservatoire of the XVIIe district of Paris.

There is nothing quite like taking class with an accomplished pianist providing accompaniment, and if you can’t have live music, this is the next best thing. The phrasing is perfect, and the musical choices suit the exercises in a way that only someone who knows ballet well could choose, with perky music for tendus and a pretty selection for plies. Everything is well-matched.

The complexity of some of the tracks here make me lean toward recommending this CD to teachers with more advanced students. Some of the slower pieces may be a bit difficult for brand new students in terms of using the phrasing properly for movement. Advanced students will appreciate the opportunity to get into the spirit of things and practice their musicality. Akimova’s Russian roots shine through in her music, making the selections all the more beautiful.

This album features repeated tracks for easy instruction at the barre. There is a complete class here–barre and centre, with music for pointe and for tracks geared toward men.

This is what happens when you have an expert pianist at the helm–I can recommend this CD easily for ballet class. It would make a great addition to any teacher’s collection. The cost is $30, and you can find it, as well as other ballet music on Mediaphorie’s site.

10 Questions With…Summer Templin Culp

July 11, 2011 by 4dancers

This week 10 Questions With… features Summer Templin Culp…

1. How did you become involved with dance?

I grew up in a small town (less than 2000 people) and when I was young, there were not any dance teachers or studios in the area. My father took me to see dance concerts whenever they were nearby, but although I loved dance very much and would dance in my own living room or back yard, I was never able to take classes.

When I was 14, a dance studio opened in a town that was about an hour and a half away and I enrolled in every class that I could on Tuesdays and Saturdays – my parents would take turns driving me to dance class and I was able to take 8 hours of classes per week in this manner. When I turned 16, my parents moved across the state, to a much larger town, and I was able to enroll in a conservatory training program, dancing 6 days per week.

2. What are you currently doing in the field?

I currently teach ballet and modern to ages 4 – adult. I have just recently moved, but prior to my move I was dancing with an aerial dance company and a modern dance company. I am looking for additional performance opportunities in my new community.

3. Would you share a special moment from your career with readers?

The first person I remember seeing on stage as a dancer has been an incredible inspiration to me throughout my life. In college, I asked her to be a part of a choreographic project in which she collaborated with the director of the ballet company I danced for and one of my modern teachers to create a cohesive piece of choreography which displayed my talents as a dancer and performer. The experience of being able to work with three of my mentors at the same time was absolutely awe-inspiring. I wish everyone would have such an opportunity!

4. What is the best advice you have received from a teacher or mentor? [Read more…]

Pairing Up

July 10, 2011 by Kimberly Peterson

Art forms are always political in what they choose to explore and what they don’t. Even the lack of making an active choice – is still a choice. Bodies especially, carry this weight of political choice because it is difficult, I would argue impossible, to separate the actions and emotions of a performance from the physical body in performance. In this way, the bodies you use are indeed political statements, the movement itself is a political statement, and the genders of the bodies you use are also political.

One of my biggest disappointments with the format of SYTYCD is the idea of Male/Female partnerships. While I understand that many styles are often best served with Male/Female partnerships in smaller groups and that the format of duet story-lines tends to revolve around relationships, there are several disconcerting connotations with this kind of coupling.

First, it’s very heterosexually oriented – excluding other kinds of relationships and sexualities. Secondly, it’s very gender normative – in that the roles of traditional “men” and “women” are reinforced through story, movement and the comments of judges. Finally, it’s limiting – not only in scope, but it limits the voters’ choices, it limits the choreographers, and it limits the audiences’ comprehension of dance as an art form. [Read more…]

I’ve Never Seen It Quite That Way – Leopold Group Meets Photographer Arn Klein

July 9, 2011 by 4dancers

By Lizzie Leopold

For a long time I was a rabid supporter of liveness, a performance purist. Dance happens on the stage, audience and dancer sharing space and time, communicating body to body.

Then I met Arn Klein. I was in a situation that lots of young choreographers find themselves in. I needed to save some money. I was premiering a new work and needed some press photos but couldn’t afford to hire anyone. In a last ditch effort, I blindly emailed the Chicago Photography Center – a former neighbor of ours when we were in residence at the Lakeview YMCA.

I introduced myself and explained simply that I was looking for someone, anyone, who might be interested in taking photographs of dance. My email was forwarded onto their instructors and in a week I had a response.

Arn Klein first visited our rehearsal in January. We talked briefly about trying to capture movement within the frame, as overly posed dance photographs are a personal pet peeve. I’ve seen one too many perfectly placed arabesques, beautiful and boring. He took the idea and ran with it.

The result was an incredible blur of colors, an abstraction and melding of the body and the dance. For someone who was completely new to dance, he was fearless and unbound.

Session number two was in June, adding photographer Matthew Gregory Hollis to the mix. He too is an instructor at the Chicago Photography Center and was anxious to explore dance. The results were night and day. The photographs are sharp, clean and precise, lit exquisitely. He seems to have captured the inhale, leaving the photograph full of potential and threatening to dance itself.

It has only been a few short months and we have already taught each other so much. I continue to learn about the power of the photograph, not simply as a tool for capture but as a dance-maker itself.

Natalia — Photo credit: Matthew Gregory Hollis and Arn Klein

My preference for live performance comes from the need for suspense and surprise. Live performance always has an element of “What will happen next?’ It is never the same dance twice. Arn’s photographs have brought that sense of immediacy and uncertainty to the still picture. Looking at his pictures show me parts of my choreography that I never knew existed.

In the coming months we will continue to explore choreography through photography and photography through choreography. The photographs will be shown at the Chicago Photography Center in late fall 2011. Visit www.leopoldgroup.org for more information and see the photographs.

(Arn Klein: www.picsimage.com)

(Matthew Gregory Hollis: http://theobsessiveeye.blogspot.com)

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