balanchine – Page 4

Finding Balance: Dancing Through Summer

August 15, 2012 by 4dancers

The town of Minturn, CO taken on a hike in the mountains

by Emily Kate Long

2012-07-09 to -12 SSDI Fun & Classes 128 — Fun & Classes 128 Partnering class at SSDI (photo credit Susan Blackburn)

As I wrap up my summer travels, I’ve been working to identify a theme for the experiences I’ve had over the past two months. It’s been a summer of learning what to do and what not to do: in the studio as a teacher and student, onstage and in the audience, and in how I interact with other people and with myself. How do I take everything in during class while holding on to what I know works? What about carving out time for physical and mental rest and recuperation? How can I be an open yet critical audience member, and how can I more easily drop personal hang-ups and anxiety to fully experience each moment of performing?

To begin with, a great aid in approaching my physical needs honestly was Dr Linda Hamilton’s most recent book, The Dancer’s Way (St Martin’s Griffin, 2008). Hard science wrapped in compassion and empathy, The Dancer’s Way was a timely reminder that I’m not the machine I’d like to believe. My body—and everyone else’s—needs what it needs, period: fuel and rest. That means sufficient calories, macronutrients, and fluids every day. It means 8-10 hours of sleep each night. It means time each week for restorative activity. It means giving muscles a chance to forget about dancing for a little while and repair themselves every few months, and then giving them enough time to return to a full rehearsal schedule. Put simply, we are people first—physical beings with physical needs that must be acknowledged and met before we can demand anything more of our bodies or minds. The Dancer’s Way is the collection of information I would have loved to have when I was a student, and I plan on sharing a lot of this information with my students.

My strategy this summer was to avoid the trouble of getting back in shape by not planning any rest. Bad move. I would have avoided serious physical and emotional burnout, along with a lot of guilt and self-judgment, if I had just built rest into my schedule to begin with! It’s still a process, but realizing my body can’t take care of itself enabled me to relish being completely immersed in dance all summer.

Being present at two summer intensives (Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive and Vail Valley Dance Intensive) as both a student and a teacher allowed me to analyze every aspect of class. It was wonderful to take multiple classes per day and test endless hypotheses on myself and on others. On an interpersonal level, I got to observe and engage in many different communication styles, classroom organization strategies, and the particular learning processes of different age groups. Being in classes of mixed ability shone light on the importance of teachers’ knowing all the building blocks and progression of technique in order to accommodate students of different levels. [Read more…]

10 Questions With…Allan Greene

June 5, 2012 by 4dancers

Today on 10 Questions With… we have Allan Greene, a pianist that works in the dance world…

We would also like to welcome Allan to our contributing writer staff here at 4dancers. He’ll be writing a new monthly column appropriately titled, “Music Notes”…

1. How did you get started in music?

I started composing on my own when I was eight years old after I tired of copying songs from our third grade songbooks. The next year I began studying the cello at my elementary school, and the next year I began studying piano with the wife of one of my father’s electronic engineer colleagues. Things moved rapidly from there.

The cantor at my family’s synagogue recommended me to a Viennese choir-master who passed me on to an eccentric Juilliard-trained pianist. The intensity of the Juilliard training was too much for me and conflicted with Boy Scouts and after-school basketball. I moved on to a retired violinist / pianist who devoted his Saturdays to me, and presented me in recital several months before my 16^th birthday.

All the while I was composing on my own. At the age of twelve I was composing suites of atonal works, for various chamber music combinations as well as solo piano. My high school choir performed a setting I created of a poem by James Joyce. Stylistically, I was heading out the trajectory blazed by Charles Ives, inventing what I called “stream-of-consciousness music” analogous to Joyce’s literary technique: I created a musical narrative out of musical objets trouvés, using juxtaposition of styles and recognizable snippets to shape the drama. A generation later, due to the invention of sampling synthesizers, personal computers and audio production software, some of my ideas were independently showing up as common compositional tools in film and television scores.

2. What brought you into the dance world?

Accompanying ballet and modern dance classes was a work-study contract gig available at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota) in my freshman year. After a term washing dishes at one of the college’s cafeterias, it was a god-send. I found it easy, delightful to watch and participate in, and, importantly, made being a musician both quotidian and artistic. I’ve never liked having the spotlight trained on me, so this allowed me to participate and observe simultaneously. Accompanying dance became a laboratory for me to study the effect on collaborating artists of all kinds of music and all sorts of harmonies, melodies, rhythms and textures. It still is.

3. Where has your career taken you in terms of playing for dancers? [Read more…]

10 Questions With…Kelanie Murphy

March 5, 2012 by 4dancers

1. How did you become involved in dance?

My older sisters took dance classes at our local park district, and although I was only two years old I wanted to go too. I loved it from the beginning and was always dancing and dressing up in old recital costumes. After moving to a different town my mom enrolled my sisters in ballet classes at a more serious ballet studio and me at a smaller local studio because she thought being so young I would have more fun with less formal training. However, after seeing my sisters perform in the Nutcracker, I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing, and my mom let me switch dance schools. Once a week turned into twice, then before I knew it I was spending every day at the studio and loving it.

2. What are you currently doing in the field?

I am currently an apprentice dancer with the Minnesota Ballet.

3. What is the best advice you have ever received from a teacher or mentor?

The best advice I have received is to never be satisfied and to never give up. There is always more you can do and farther you can push yourself.

4. What is your greatest challenge in dance?

I am not naturally turned out or naturally flexible so making my body do what I want it to has always been my biggest challenge. I have learned to work with what I have but am always trying to improve.

5. What is your biggest strength as a dancer? [Read more…]

10 Questions With…Dalia Rawson

January 23, 2012 by 4dancers

I’m always amazed at the things I learn about dancers when I read these interviews, and today is no exception. Meet Dalia Rawson. Read her story. Be amazed. She’s one impressive lady…

Grad Ball — Dalia Rawson in "Graduation Ball", Photo by Marty Sohl

1. How did you become involved with dance?

The first time I ever moved might be considered dancing. I had been either very small or very still while my mother was pregnant with me. She says that late in the pregnancy she had never felt me move or kick. My parents had a season subscription to the Joffrey Ballet in NYC, and while watching the performance in the theater, my mother felt me move, apparently reacting to the music by kicking and rolling, for the first time. When I was a baby they called me twinkle toes, because I couldn’t keep still if there was any music playing. I was in local dance class by age two, a more serious ballet school at age six or seven, and San Francisco Ballet School at age nine.

2. What are you currently doing in the field?

Currently I choreograph and set ballets and I teach. I am the Artistic Director of The Rawson Project Contemporary Ballet, a small company I founded in 2010 for which I have created a small repertory of original works. I am also the Ballet Mistress of Ballet San Jose School where I teach all levels of the professional division, and Rehearsal Assistant for Ballet San Jose, for whom I run rehearsals and re-stage works.

3. Would you share a special moment from your career with readers? [Read more…]

Dance In The UK: NYCB’s Nutcracker Production

December 10, 2011 by 4dancers

by Jessica Wilson

There’s an extremely Christmassy privilege heading to the UK on 22^nd December, in the form of New York City Ballet’s brand new production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, with tickets priced at just ten pounds. This multi-million dollar production includes a forty foot Christmas tree which weighs a staggering one tonne, seventy ballet dancers, fifty children from the School of American Ballet – the official school of NYCB – and a sixty-two piece orchestra. It is ultimately described by the New York Post as “the Christmas show of all Christmas shows”.

NYCB has an unparalleled active repertory of more than 150 works, many of which are considered modern masterpieces. The Company was established in 1948 by choreographer Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, joined by Jerome Robbins in 1949 as associate artistic director. Now under the artistic direction of Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, the company performs an impressive annual 21-week season in New York, the longest home season of any dance company in the world.

The production’s defining feature is its vast scale, described as a ‘virtually live performance’ to be screened in cinemas all over the UK. This will ultimately provide mass audiences with the chance to view such an iconic and prestigious work by Balanchine, who is generally argued to be the father of modern ballet. This great accessibility is proved unhindered by the extremely limited run, due to the fact it is the ‘golden ticket’ of ballets for all dance lovers, available nationally. [Read more…]

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