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Review: A Strider’s Ballet

July 18, 2012 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

The story-poem “A Strider’s Ballet” by Joseph Curtin (Mustard Perceptions) begins as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ends as the Book of Revelation. Curtin tells a short tale of the wonders of nature, of spoiled purity, and of that transient and insubstantial place between sleep and wake in verse that is sometimes bouncy, sometimes fluid, sometimes stumbling, sometimes frantic, and always vivid and emotional.

In a nine-verse prologue, Curtin engages our senses with the sights and sounds of a secluded wood in what feels like late afternoon. The scene is romantic and rich with anticipation, and we are introduced to the ballerina, a water-strider, and her audience, a young man. “…In his ear, a charm she speaks!”

The tale that follows is related in a prelude, three acts, and a finale over twenty-five pages. Curtin employs biblical imagery and motifs of light versus dark and good versus evil with powerful effect. Many of his themes are those used traditionally in story ballets: the Strider as a ballerina in white like the Sylphide, Giselle, Odette, or Nikiya; dark, mysterious, and threatening strangers like Von Rothbart, Kotschei, Madge, or Abderman; and a young man admirer—James, the Poet, Ivan, Solor, Albrecht, Jean de Brienne, or Siegrfried. And of course, what story ballet doesn’t have a dream or woodland scene? In the protagonist’s subconscious are other places too—crowded and smoggy city streets, an unsavory carnival—where confusion and corruption threaten to destroy him.

Curtin’s verse is wonderfully illustrative both of the story’s setting and of the protagonist’s emotions and struggles. This story-poem is not just about a man in the woods or about the fear of loss but about how the purity, beauty, and goodness of art and love elevate us all to something greater. The protagonist says of the Strider: “A messenger of light, harbinger/ of peace…Dancing rejoicing!/ Tranquility of hope and love.” A Strider’s Ballet is an engaging and thoughtful read, and would make a tempting libretto for choreographers, composers, and designers alike.

Emily Kate Long, Photo by Avory Pierce

Contributor Emily Kate Long began her dance education in South Bend, Indiana, with Kimmary Williams and Jacob Rice and graduated in 2007 from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s Schenley Program. Ms Long attended Milwaukee Ballet School’s Summer Intensive on scholarship before being invited to join Milwaukee Ballet II in 2007. She also has spent summers studying at Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive, Miami City Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, and Ballet Chicago.

Ms Long has been a member of Ballet Quad Cities since 2009. She has danced featured roles in Deanna Carter’s Ash to Glass and Dracula, participated in the company’s 2010 tour to New York City, and most recently performed the title role in Courtney Lyon’s Cinderella and the role of Clara in The Nutcracker. Prior to joining Ballet Quad Cities Ms Long performed with Milwaukee Ballet and MBII in Michael Pink’s The Nutcracker and Candide Overture, Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadére, Balanchine’s Who Cares?, Bournonville’s Flower Festival in Genzano and Napoli, and original contemporary and neoclassical works by Tom Teague, Denis Malinkine, Rolando Yanes, and Petr Zaharadnicek.

Filed Under: 4dancers, Books & Magazines, Reviews Tagged With: a midsummer night's dream, a strider's ballet, albrecht, ballerina, giselle, kotschei, nikiya, odette, oseph curtin, siegfried, sylphide, von rothbart

A Studio Director’s Change Of Heart: Why Ballet Exams Work

June 7, 2012 by 4dancers

by Risa Gary Kaplowitz

I would have never thought that I would one day espouse the idea of examinations for the ballet students at my school. Certainly the studio in which I grew up, Maryland Youth Ballet, has produced dozens of professional dancers, and they never presented their students for exams. And weren’t the students at my own studio thriving and going on to pursue their own careers without ever having taken an exam?

I am far from the only studio director to have disregarded exams. Even as ballet exams are relatively common in Europe, especially at the world’s major ballet schools with their own training systems in Russia (Vaganova), France (Paris Opera Ballet), Italy (Cecchetti), England (Royal Academy of Dance, also known as RAD), and Denmark (Royal Danish Ballet), most American ballet schools, which generally offer a potpourri of the above curriculums, do not offer graded evaluations to their students.

An example of a typical American ballet teacher’s reaction to exams can be found in my thoughts several years ago, when I witnessed Paris Opera Ballet School students prepare for their exams (a perk of being a former famous ballerina’s business partner at the time). The students were going from one combination to another, which they had memorized.

At the time, my thoughts were thus: Didn’t we American ballet instructors need to keep our impatient students happy and their aversion to boredom at bay? And didn’t American ballet students need more diversity in their ballet classes than simple preparation for an exam in order to be prepared for an American ballet company where they could be dancing a Petipa variation one minute and a Nacho Duato piece the next?

This video shows young Vaganova Ballet Academy students’ incredible clarity. Surely this type of regimented single-curriculum training system couldn’t be possible in an American studio with varying body types and skill levels.

Or could it?

Enter American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum, which offered it’s inaugural training sessions to ABT alumni dancers in 2007. For the simple reason that ABT was my favorite company, I was curious enough to start to nibble on the ballet curriculum bullet. However, I never gave serious thought to presenting my students for exams, which were an optional part of the ABT training system. [Read more…]

Filed Under: 4dancers, 4teachers, Editorial Tagged With: abt, abt training system, american ballet schools, american ballet theatre, ballerina, ballet exams, Cecchetti, dance exams, nacho duato, paris opera ballet, petipa, royal academy of dance, royal danish ballet, teaching ballet, vaganova

Interview With Author Germaine Shames

February 15, 2012 by 4dancers

Today we are happy to share this interview with author Germaine Shames…

Author, Germaine Shames

What is your background in dance?

Like the protagonist in my novel I began taking ballet classes at the age of four with a teacher whom, my parents liked to boast, had studied under Martha Graham. Like other young girls, I dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina.

But I was not like most girls.  Shy, stubborn, I balked at following choreography and often found myself stranded alone on one side of the studio while the class, moving as one body, occupied the opposite side.  And then suddenly, before I had mastered a single step, it was time for my first recital.  A chorus line of us baby ballerinas was positioned center-stage as the towering velvet curtain slowly, slowly opened.  One look at the audience and I froze, mouth wide-open, hands clamped to my cheeks.

My parents removed me from ballet class and enrolled me again thee years later—with similar results.  There would be no more recitals.

Flash forward half a century…

I have ripened into, not a ballerina, but a writer with abiding creative and emotional ties to dance and dancers.  My forthcoming ballet-themed novel You, Fascinating You will be released within days.

The protagonist of my novel, Margit Wolf, begins the account of her life, “They say ballet chooses the dancer.”  Regrettably, I was not among the chosen.  How I envy those of you who are!

How did you become a writer? [Read more…]

Filed Under: 10 Questions With..., Books & Magazines, Dance Gifts, Dance History Tagged With: ballerina, Ballet, book, dancer, germaine shames, margit wolf, martha graham, you fascinating you

My Pointe Shoes – By Shannon Bynum

January 28, 2012 by 4dancers

Our focus this month is on pointe shoes and today we have Shannon Bynum from Ballet San Jose with us to share her thoughts on what type of shoe she wears–and why she chose them…

Shannon Bynum

At first when I was asked to describe how I break in my pointe shoes and prepare them for the stage I was perplexed. The reality is not much at all! Most ballerinas (including myself up until last year) have a very religious routine to what they do to make the shoe fit perfectly. Each individual dancer’s foot is so unique that no two dancers use the exact same process. Some glue the box and use shellac to make the shoe last longer. Others may darn the tip of the shoe for better balance, break the shank, sew the sides down… the list goes on and on.

I was one of those dancers until I was in New York one summer finding myself at a standstill with my shoes. I just couldn’t seem to find the right pointe shoe for my foot. I was discouraged and unable to find the perfect match. Many shoes may have looked beautiful yet I wasn’t able to perform in them, or they were great to dance in and just didn’t look right.  Some died more quickly than I could sew a new pair, had me preparing them daily, hurt my feet, didn’t look as beautiful, or were just the wrong fit.

While in NYC a teacher had told me that I should wear either Freed or Bloch.  The only problem with that was every pair of Freeds or Blochs I had ever tried just didn’t do me any justice. Nothing against Freed or Bloch as some of my favorite dancers bring so much life to the stage wearing them. They just did not work for me.

I needed a shoe that not only looked beautiful on my foot aesthetically, but was also comfortable enough to dance in forty hours a week and without dying after one class! I finally came across my match in Gaynor Minden. Some dancers don’t believe that this pointe shoe is any good. In fact, the topic between ballerinas, teachers, and coaches is very controversial.

I agree to disagree; this shoe has changed my career. Gaynor Minden pointe shoes are far from traditional. They are like Mac and PC. They do the same thing in the end but are just different technology. Both are computers and some people prefer one to the other. I happen to be a modern day American ballerina and I feel very proud to have the opportunity to grow in these particular pointe shoes.

Shannon in her Gaynor Minden Pointe Shoes

The pointe shoe is a ballerina’s tool, and are most important item in my dance bag. I came back from FHL and ATFL surgery on my left ankle in 2010 and needed a shoe that was extremely supportive yet supple enough to help me gain back my flexibility and line. I have fallen in love with wearing Gaynor Minden’s. They offer me everything I need as a ballet dancer. They are consistent and last a long time so I can spend more time perfecting my work and artistry while spending less time worrying about my pointe shoe.

I first started out wearing a stock Gaynor Minden shoe then a few months later they started making me a custom shoe made specifically for my feet and the specs that I needed to have the best line. All I have to do now is un-wrap them, sew on my ribbons, elastic, and I am all set.

Gaynor Minden pointe shoes are not like the traditional pointe shoe. They are a completely new technology and generation of the pointe shoe. If dancers are evolving like they are, then why not the pointe shoe? That’s exactly what Gaynor Minden has done. They were tired of how painful all the pointe shoes were and how they would die so fast. On an average pointe shoe, you get to a place where it is broken in perfectly and that moment lasts for such a short time. With Gaynor Minden, it is always the same. I know what I am getting when I put that shoe on. I love that my shoe has a consistency I can rely on, especially in a career where the rep demands are so diverse.

Gaynor Minden pointe shoes are made of an elastomeric shank and box, cushioned moisture control lining, and a flat free of pleats bottom. They are also made to be extremely quiet with Poron, “an impact shock absorption system”. I cannot say enough amazing things about this shoe. What I love most about the way I prepare my pointe shoes is that it is so minimal which creates less anxiety and more time for fine tuning what matters the most, which is what we bring the the stage.

Thanks to this innovative pointe shoe,  few stitches with a needle and thread and I am good to go! Simple, clean and a new take on tradition.

Filed Under: Breaking In Shoes, Gaynor Minden, Pointe Shoes Tagged With: ballerina, ballet san jose, breaking in pointe shoes, gaynor minden, pointe shoes, shannon bynum

Emily Starling: On Breaking In Pointe Shoes

January 11, 2012 by 4dancers

Emily Starling's Pointe Shoes

by Emily Starling

Pointe shoes are a type of shoe used by ballerinas across the world and they enable the dancer to dance ‘on their toes’. There are many different makes, some of the most popular being Bloch, Freed and Gaynor Minden. A ballerina chooses the shoe which best suits their foot shape and range of movement of the foot itself.

Like many other types of shoe, pointe shoes must be broken in before they are worn but, rather than for comfort, this is a must for dancers in order for them to be able to perform at their best.

There are many ways of doing this some working better for certain dancers than others but in my opinion there are two stages to this process:

Making the sole flexible.

Manipulation of the toe section.

The sole must be flexible so the ballet dancer can perform all her moves to the best of her ability as well as being aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The toe section must be manipulated so the whole foot can be used with ease.

I personally use my hands to make the sole supple, having had years of experiencing different types of shoe and how the shoe feels on my foot I know to which degree I can bend them in order for me to execute all my movements with precision. This for me is the quickest and easiest method.

Manipulating the toe section is more time consuming and requires the shoe to actually be on the foot. Normally a couple of nights before I will wear them I place them in a warm place such as the airing cupboard. Then the night before I put them on and walk around my house for 15 – 20 minutes on demi pointe and do slow rises until I am happy that I can get from demi pointe to full pointe and back again with ease. The enables my feet to move freely–as close to how they would feel in flat shoes as possible. Finally, I place them back in the airing cupboard overnight so as not to undo the work I have done with them.

About the dancer: Emily Starling is 20 years old from Essex, England. She has recently graduated from Bird College in Kent, with a Diploma in Musical Theatre. Predominantly ballet-trained, Emily has been a member of Chelmsford Ballet Company for 9 years, and has recently become an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance in London.

 

Stay tuned for more dancers talking about how they break in their pointe shoes as we continue our “focus on pointe” this month!

Filed Under: Breaking In Shoes, Pointe Shoes Tagged With: ballerina, bloch, breaking in pointe shoes, freed, gaynor minden, pointe shoes, toe shoes

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