All posts tagged “Ballet”

November 21, 2014
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Injury Prevention

I get many questions about avoiding dance injuries. In a highly competitive and increasingly physical field, many dancers find it difficult to balance their desire to go hard with their desire to enjoy a lasting dance career. Advancements in sports medicine, physical therapy, stretching, and our understanding of technique have proven to be a double-edged sword: Dancers are now capable of movements that would have been impossible without these improvements, but such movements continue to increase the need for ever more advances.

Rather than committing to a cycle like that, the most effective way to avoid injuring yourself while dancing is to injure yourself doing something else entirely.

Why else would this woman, ostensibly charged with the physical well-being of her student, be performing such a stretch?

Alex_Davison_Boulder_Stretching rhythmic dancer

Obviously she is making sure that her student will never injure herself dancing by making sure that her student will never dance. What pragmatism! By preventing the problem before it ever has a chance to arise, this woman should be held up as a teacher who truly cares about preventing dance injury.

To be fair, she is far from the only one. Feel free to comment with stories and pictures of other teachers who are also highly motivated to prevent dance injuries by preventing dancing.

 

 

October 14, 2014
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A Good Attitude

I see a lot of students with bad attitudes. This is funny because right now dancers are imagining one thing while non-dancers are imagining another. You are both correct. I see a lot of students with bad attitudes and bad attitudes, and its time to address both. But I am only going to address one.

There is only one perfect attitude to have in class. In fact, cultivating this attitude will do wonders even outside of class. The perfect attitude looks like this:

Alex_Davison_baby_boulder_attitude 1

It can also look like this:

Alex_Davison_baby_boulder_attitude 2

 

And sometimes this:

Alex_Davison_baby_boulder_attitude 3

 

And definitely this:

Alex_Davison_baby_boulder_attitude 4

Just fill yourself with wonder and you will be all set.

‘But teacher, how can we fill ourselves with wonder about movements that we have done thousands of times already?’

Alex_Davison_baby_boulder_attitude 5

 

Obviously, this baby is not like the other babies. Do not fret. Everyone’s baby has wonderment inside just waiting to be discovered. Just let your baby be constantly amazed.

Difficult? Yes. But all you need to remember is that “Your attitude almost always determines your altitude in life,” meaning that no matter how impossible it may seem for you to master a specific concept, it is not impossible, because someone more advanced than you has already figured it out and boiled it down into a cute, folksy aphorism.

 

 

September 30, 2014
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Ready for auditions?

As we move into the Fall season, many dancers are buckling down and training hard in order to be ready for audition season in the Spring. Many of these dancers spend their time training hard, and yet still fail miserably in auditions. If only they had known that they were not fully prepared!

The fact is, these dancers are unprepared because they treat auditions like any other class. However, an audition is not like a regular class. It is a brief opportunity to show everything that you can do. The auditioners do not want to see you doing ballet. They are tired of watching ballet. Once you have shown that you can do plies and tendus, the judges know that you have a solid grasp on ballet technique. Now the real audition begins, and it is up to you to shape it in a way that shows you off. If you can sing, launch into your favorite medley. If you can act, you had better be able to whip out a brilliant monologue. If you can paint, your dance bag should contain canvasses and a wide array of colors and brushes. If you can meditate, sit down in the middle of the studio and do so. Everyone will be talking about you, and no one will forget you. And that is just what you wanted all along.

Once you have your talent down, and you want to know that you are physically ready for an audition, watch the following clip. When you can do everything shown, and more, you are ready. Until then, there will always be someone who is better than you. That is unacceptable, and should make you feel bad about yourself. And what better way to feel motivated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bskmdKM4aeM

 

September 9, 2014
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Dance in art

Dance is the best art form. This is why artists of other genres continually attempt to capture the incomparable beauty of dance in their own works. We see dance in paintings, sketches, sculptures, and masterful film documentaries like the contemporary ‘Black Swan.’

These various depictions of dance are alright. Of course, we can all agree that they are not as good as the dancing itself, but they are rather cute in their own little ways. Because of this cuteness, I am putting together a series of dance depicted in other mediums. To start with, I have the famed French impressionist painter Edgar Degas.

Edgar Degas Self Portrait

Edgar Degas looks vaguely annoying

(As a brief aside, Degas apparently rejected the label ‘impressionist’ during his lifetime. However, now he is dead and, like, every art book says he was definitely an impressionist, which goes to show that if people hear something enough it becomes true. This blog is fantastic!)

Degas, whose name is pronounced to rhyme with ‘Vegas,’ was unable to dance and so resigned himself to using his other talents to depict dance instead. All told, more than half of his works feature dance and dancers, pointing to a powerful obsession that Degas never overcame.

While it has been claimed that this obsession was simply with the beauty of dance, the benefit of looking back through history lets us see that he was actually grappling with an overwhelming bitterness towards the entire dance world. This is shown in his many paintings and sketches that depict leading ballerinas with silly port de bras, low extensions, and poor turnout.

What are they even doing, Edgar?

What are they even doing, Edgar?

Do not be fooled by those who maintain that Degas was faithfully portraying the level of ballet technique at the time. His brush with dance left him bitter and broken, and he was deliberately satirizing the famous dancers of the time. And in doing so, he captured the true power of dance.

September 5, 2014
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Drinking for Success

Dancers face the same choices as everyone else when it comes to what alcoholic beverages to drink. Unlike everyone else, dancers must make this decision while keeping in mind specific parameters (like waistline). On an average night, if you are a dancer and you are deciding which wine or beer to drink, you are drinking all wrong. However, if while your friends are deciding what bottle of wine to order, you are deciding what gin to order, you are doing it all right.

 

This is a bad idea

This is a bad idea

Drinking successfully is all about getting as drunk as possible in the shortest time span, while taking in the fewest calories. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They want to sabotage you.

Here is a rundown of drinks that release your waistline as well as your inhibitions:

Beer has calories. Even light beer has over 100 calories per 12 oz. Wine, meanwhile, also has calories: about 197 calories per 8 ounce glass.

Hard liquor has far fewer calories. Vodka has about 65 calories per ounce. Since one ounce of hard liquor has about the same amount of pure alcohol as 12 ounces of beer, you can get twice as smashed without ending up smashing your scale.

Uh Oh

Smashed

see what I did there

Also smashed (see what I did there)

 

 

                                 VS

 

 

Drink smart. Drink more. Feel better. And always remember to put your drink on the rocks, not your career.

Please comment with stories of successfully choosing hard liquor. Bonus points for naming the shot made with the liquors in the picture.

 

 

 

 

August 28, 2014
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Dance Anatomy

With constant searching, I have finally found a picture that clearly shows the primary muscles a dancer uses. However, I realized that some of the names for the various muscle groups were too technical for many students. Therefore, what follows is an explanation of each technical term.

As we see, basic dance anatomy consists of five primary muscle groups used by every ballet dancer. First, and most important, is the body sweater. The body sweater comprises all core muscles and keeps the dancer’s spine in alignment.

Dance Diagram

Next, we have the tutu, or pelvis. While not a muscle, the pelvis must be kept in alignment to dance properly. Further, it houses muscles that are essential in avoiding embarrassing accidents: the pelvic floor muscles.

Attaching to the pelvis are the tights, which in English we call ‘legs.’ The legs are used often in dancing, and must therefore be very strong.

Supporting the legs are the ribbons, or ‘ankles.’ Dancers must cultivate strong ankles in order to perform cool moves like relevé.

Finally, all of the dancer’s weight is often supported by the toeshoe, or the collection of small tendons and ligaments in the foot. These must all be extremely strong in order to give the dancer stability and control, but cannot be too tight, or the dancer will suffer pain and even toeshoe syndrome (plantar fasciitis).

 

August 28, 2014
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Claire Davison

Potentially more fun than being famous is being close friends with someone who is famous. This garners all of the status increase without any loss of privacy. To that end, I present Claire Davison. Claire is my sister and is currently dancing with American Ballet Theater in Manhattan. She is also killing it in Ballerina Project photo shoots around the city. If you have not visited the Ballerina Project, I highly recommend that you check it out. In phase two of the project, they aim to use the data collected from photographing hundreds of ballerinas to create one super ballerina with genetic enhancements.

Till then, we have a plethora of delightful pictures to enjoy, such as the one below. Please admire it and don’t forget that I’m her brother (Alex Davison). Enjoy!

 

Claire_Davison_1