Books & Magazines

Children’s Ballet Book: The Furry Princess

December 16, 2018 by 4dancers

Furry Princess

Today we have a special guest – Vicki Crain, author of the new children’s book The Furry Princess. This book is centered around dance, and because of her background and experience in the field, she was the perfect person to write it. Vicki was kind enough to take the time to share some thoughts about the book, the illustrations, and the process of bringing everything together with us here today.

Can you tell readers a little bit about your background in both dance and writing?

I’ve been a dancer and writer for as long as I can remember. I was a dancer and teacher for a regional ballet company in Central Illinois. I also danced with a small modern company in Chicago for a season and performed for many years with a Chicago-based production company. In 2009, I started a dance blog – Rogue Ballerina – which covered dancers and performances in Chicago. That led to freelance writing opportunities with CS Magazine, TimeOut Chicago, Front Desk Chicago, SeeChicagoDance, and Dance Magazine, among others and eventually lead to my current job as Marketing Manager at The Joffrey Ballet.

What made you want to write this book? How did the idea present itself to you?

I was talking with my friend (and boss at the time) and he asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I thought for a second and said, “Write children’s books.” I think I’ve always wanted to, but never realized it as a real possibility until that moment. He wrote “furry princess” on a post-it (that was a nickname for his dog) and said, “OK then, do it.” I went home and wrote the original manuscript that night and gave it to him the next day.

The storyline is a very inspirational one. Can you give our readers the basic idea of the plot?

Princess Sasha is a tiger about to receive her royal tiara. She’s got big feet, she’s shy and clumsy, and is nervous about being presented to the kingdom. Her best friend and her Mom convince her to take ballet classes where she finds self-confidence, becomes more graceful, and falls in love with ballet. She meets many new friends (all animals) and learns a big lesson by the end of the book.

What do you hope children will take away from this book?

The main theme is Believe in yourself. If you fall down, get up and try again. Of course, I hope they fall in love with Sasha and find inspiration in her personal journey.

You have a very talented illustrator for this book. Would you share a bit about him and how you two met?

Chris (Christopher Scott Bell Illustrations) is so talented! We met at a restaurant where he was working. I was a former employee and came in for dinner and the bartender introduced us and said he was an artist. We immediately became friends and started discussing making the book. Chris was so enthusiastic and had so many great ideas to add – it was a perfect match! He went to art school and received a degree from the American Academy of Art, fine tuning concepts and the artwork for the book along the way.

What was your process for creating the characters? Were any of them based on people you know, or how did you form their personalities?

Sasha just came out of me. Her family and some of the other characters were initially named after and had some characteristics of my friends and family, but much of the original manuscript got cut once we started the illustration process where we decided what could be shown verses what we needed to say in words. The original story would have been a huge book if we kept everything in. Chris added some new characters and really built the world Sasha lives in. The three main characters – Sasha, Cami the Crane, and Mona the Monkey – all have different little bits of my personality.

*Author Vicki Crain, photo by Cheryl Mann*

Every creative project has a few magical moments. Special things that happen along the way. Can you share one or two of these?

The biggest magical moment was when Chris finally found Sasha. He had been revising and tweaking her style for a while. I loved all of them, but one day, he said “I found her!” He was so excited, and she was perfect.

Another is the addition of Cami and Mona to the story. One of Chris’s school projects was to create a cover for a book. He added in a monkey (he just likes monkeys) and a crane as a nod to my last name. They were so cute that we had to add them to the story. Honestly, I initially wasn’t thrilled about going back and adding to the story, but we are so happy with the final product. I can’t imagine the book without them.

Of course, the most magical moment was when we opened the first box and held the finished product in our hands.

It’s often challenging to collaborate with another artist. How did you stay on the same page for this project?

Luckily, most of the time we were on the same page. There were a few instances when we had to talk through a change or addition. Chris can visualize what he wants, but I need to see it finished and then take time to think about it. For years, we met at least weekly (that’s how #tigertuesday started) and talked through every aspect of the story, the design, the text…everything! We took the book apart and put it back together to make it better many times. We really trusted each other and our talents and instincts.

What was the easiest part of this book project? What was the most difficult?

The easiest part, by far, was writing the story. The editing process was challenging mainly because it was so time consuming. Everything took much longer than we anticipated, but we wanted to take the time and make sure the final product was exactly what we wanted. That is the main perk of being self-published.

Can we expect another book from you?

Yes! We are planning to publish three books in this series. We are tossing around plot ideas and hope to begin working on the second book in 2019.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of this lovely book, please visit the website for The Furry Princess.

Book Review: How They Became Famous Dancers – A Dancing History

April 26, 2017 by 4dancers

by Catherine L. Tully

This lovely book was sent to us by Anne Dunkin (the author) for review, and it’s easy to recommend. Dunkin has assembled a very interesting resource that would serve as a great tool for those teaching middle school, or even to have on hand at a dance studio library. It’s also a good read, just to add to your own personal knowledge of dance. It tells the stories of 12 dancers (6 male and 6 female) from various parts of the world, focusing on their childhoods and rise to prominence as a dancer.

Many different places are represented, including Mexico, Japan, India, Africa, and the United States. Every chapter begins with the dancer’s background, and outlines their journey to becoming a dancer. The information is coupled with black and white photographs, as well as a “Create A Dance” section at the end of the chapter, which is designed to give children a feel for the type of movement that particular dancer was known for. The dancers that are included in this book span a variety of different genres, ranging from ballet to Bharata Natyam, to Modern dance. There is even a little map in the beginning that shows where each dancer was from for reference.

This unique and interesting approach makes the book an especially good resource for teachers, since material of this nature is often difficult to find. The chapters lend themselves to either being used in their entirety, or as rich material to add to a lecture. The dancers that are covered here include:

Louis XIV
John Durang
Marie Taglioni
William Henry “Juba” Lane
Anna Pavlova
Rudolph Laban
Doris Humphrey
Michio Ito
Mrinalini Sarabhai
Pearl Primus
Amalia Hernandez
Arthur Mitchell

I’ve been in the field for over 40 years, and I learned quite a bit from reading this book myself. Don’t hesitate to add it to your library!

Purchase from Amazon

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Book Review: Misty Copeland

February 18, 2017 by 4dancers

This stunning book of photos is something that every Misty Copeland fan would love. The photographer, Gregg Delman was captivated by the dancer’s poise and athleticism, and reached out to ask if he could photograph her, and the result is this – 95 color photographs that depict Copeland in a wide range of poses that not only beautifully highlight her incredible physique, but also show Delman’s artistic eye.

The photographer has had work published in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Elle, and a variety of other well-known magazines, and has worked with other notable celebrities, such as Katy Perry, Jack White, Robert Plant, and John Lithgow. The pictures he has made here reflect his ability to capture moods and moments that wouldn’t be possible to see during a ballet performance onstage. It’s a more intimate, indeed, almost vulnerable Copeland we see here. An interesting perspective, juxtaposed against the dancer’s incredibly toned, athletic body.

These simple, tasteful photos aren’t costume-heavy. They don’t rely on tricks or heavy editing to make them pop. They just feature a gorgeous ballerina through the lens of a photographer that knows how to make her look her best.

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Book Review: “The Ballet Lover’s Companion” by Zoë Anderson

April 11, 2016 by 4dancers

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by Lauren Warnecke

Ballet has been the topic of much debate among dance scholars and writers over the last decade. Authors, critics, and academics have questioned the relevance of an art form with more than 600 years of history, particularly given the fact that much of that history has centered around Euro-centric, imperialist, male dominated subject matter (or Euro-centric, imperialist, male-dominated stereotypes of non-Western themes). Ballet dancers, choreographers, and artistic directors have varying views on how to remain current and inclusive in modern society, with some companies focusing on preserving the classics, others re-imagining or somehow evolving older ballets, and still others trying to push the form into entirely new territory.

Published in 2015, The Ballet Lover’s Companion by Zoë Anderson is a brief dance primer on ballet, with each of its eight chapters dedicated to distinct periods throughout ballet’s long history. In fewer than 350 pages, Anderson sifts through 140 ballets, analyzing their context by examining the social and political eras in which they were created. It’s an exciting (context: exciting for dance nerds like me) update to the slew of western dance history books available in that Anderson actually digs into the late 20th and early 21st century, perhaps replacing Susan Au’s 1988 stalwart on many dance majors’ bookshelves.

The Ballet Lover’s Companion is essentially a less verbose, easier to read, more optimistic version of Jennifer Homans’ Apollo’s Angels; Anderson, a dance critic, is unafraid to infuse the facts with opinion and commentary. For this reader, those are the bits that allowed me to get all the way through the book as a recreational read, but a second, typo-free edition could easily complement a western dance history course given its interesting tidbits of history and thorough treatment of an impressive number of ballets.

That all of those ballets originated from Europe, Russia or the United States is a symptom of ballet’s history, and not necessarily the fault of Zoë Anderson. That only five of the 140 ballets surveyed were created by women (namely Bronislava Nijinska, Agnes de Mille and Twyla Tharp) might be more problematic given the scope of the book into the 2010s, but perhaps again indicative of a systemic problem, and not at all unique to Anderson’s book.

Unlike Au’s Ballet and Modern Dance, or Homans’ Apollo’s Angels, however, The Ballet Lover’s Companion doesn’t appear to identify a clear audience or position itself as a textbook, though it reads like one. One page offers an enlightened discussion on the radicalism of the Ballets Russes and the desire of early 20th century choreographers to abandon classicism for more meaning and authenticity, while the next page gives a definition of the word tendu. Unsure of its audience, The Ballet Lover’s Companion could be for everyone interested in ballet, or no one at all, but my guess is that pre-professional dance students and college dance majors have the most to gain from reading it.

Contributor Lauren Warnecke is a freelance dance writer based in Chicago, and regular contributor to SeeChicagoDance.com, Windy City Times, and Chicago Magazine. Lauren is the creator of artintercepts.org, a blog committed to critical discourse about dance and performance, and has written for nationally reputed sites such as Dance Advantage and 4Dancers. An experienced educator, administrator, and producer, Lauren holds degrees in dance (BA) and kinesiology (MS). She is a Certified Personal Trainer (ACSM), and holds specialty certificates in Functional Training (ACE) and Sports Performance and Weightlifting (USAW). Tweet her @artintercepts

Safe Dance Practice: What Is It And Why Do We Need It?

April 4, 2016 by Rachel Hellwig

Kai Downham photography: Instep Dance Company — Kai Downham Photography: Instep Dance Company

Aloha All 🙂

New dance medicine book to share! “Safe Dance Practice” is written by three British colleagues of mine in the dance medicine world, Edel Quin / Sonia Rafferty / Charlotte Tomlinson. All three are involved with IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine and Science), Safe in Dance International (SIDI), and are all MSc graduates of the Dance Science program at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (London UK). They have been long-involved in dance medicine and science, aka Dance Wellness, aka Safe Dance Practice (a British term), and have put together their invaluable knowledge and experience in writing this book – giving teachers and dancers a solid grounding for training healthy dancers who will be better equipped to dance many long years, in the best possible condition. The book is a great addition to your dance medicine and science library – Please pass it on!
Aloha
Jan

by Sonia Rafferty, Charlotte Tomlinson and Edel Quin

What It Isn’t!

The term “safe dance practice” often conjures up the vision of a checklist of boring, restrictive, and often unnecessary health and safety regulations. As dancers, choreographers, and teachers, we certainly don’t want to be held back in our artistic endeavours by recommendations that we think will limit our creative risk-taking capacity.

Fortunately, the upsurge of interest and increasing knowledge in safe dance practice will help us to do exactly the opposite. We can support artistic challenge by helping dancers to train and work at their best, but also heed the potential reasons for the high injury rate that has been observed in a wide variety of different dance styles.

Who Is It For?

Safe dance practice is important for dancers of any age and any ability. It is not simply for the elite “racehorse” of a dancer, at risk because of high-level demands, or the dancer who perhaps could be seen to be more prone to injury because of lack of technicality or physical ability.

Knowing how to work safely and effectively is relevant for everyone – for dancers themselves who can take responsibility for protecting and maintaining their readiness to dance, and for teachers who are trusted with instructing the dancing bodies. Add to that list the choreographers who use the expertise and abilities of dancers to create innovative and challenging works, and the artistic directors and managers who rehearse those dancers and organise their schedules.

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What It Isn’t!

Who Is It For?

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