Holding Onto The Air By Suzanne Farrell

When I was four years old I was introduced to a tall, petite, beautiful ballerina who spun around the room with elegance, and effortlessly captured the crowd with her stunning abilities. As a little girl, I sparkled with admiration and was inspired to be all she was, it was from that point on, that I ventured into an unknown world of art, strength and expression. Now being eighteen years old with about fourteen years of experience in the dance world, I have learned and developed the norms, values and practices of the culture, and the conflicting theory within it.

In accordance with today’s standards, every serious ballet dancer should have ‘dancing en pointe’ in their repertoire. Yet there was a time when dancing en pointe was a mysterious and mystical practice that one young woman brought on stage for the entirety of a ballet, changing the dance world forever. Marie Taglioni was a trailblazer in many aspects of dance, including technique, style, and costume. Her legacy lives on in the romantic ballets of yesteryear, still performed today for thousands of audiences worldwide.

The first experience of watching a ballet, for me or any little girl, can be fascinating and exhilarating. Wondering how a dancer can be so steady on her toes as she spins in circles and leaps through the air. Watching a ballet, there is a feeling of wanting to be graceful, as well as the warm sensation felt by a little girl as she slips into dream land. My mom had taken me to my first ballet when I was 11 years old. When we returned home home, she signed me up for classes at the local dance center. The expectations to become a prima ballerina would involve much hard work and concentration. I knew when I started it would take years of steady practice and commitment. Learning the history of ballet and the famous

As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.

Marigolds have always been her favorite flower. They reminded her of the stages she onced performed on. Staff members would decorate the stage with summer-bloomed dahlias and bright sun-colored marigolds, and tie silk ribbons to the bark of trees during celebrations. Crowds were surrounding her, cheering and watching her gracefully move her body across the stage. The light hue of her pink hair shined as the sunlight struck her like a spotlight center stage. She wore a pure white, flowing dancer’s garment which allowed her to move the way she wanted to. Her arms would stretch out as if she was reaching for someone’s palm, and her legs move as if they were made of the wind. Sometimes, there was a special someone; a pair of eyes that could see through the heart of her dance,

A Native American girl was gifted with the ability to dance. At four years old she started lessons on ballet. She was determined to be a great ballerina. Everyone in her tribe saw her as “naturally gifted”. She saw herself as a typical Indian girl and spent part of her childhood on an Osage reservation in Oklahoma.

Casey Brown has always wanted to be a dancer. When she was little, she took dance classes once a week every Tuesday. Casey loved it and rocked the stage every year at the dance recitals at the Williamstown High School. As she got older, she took a break from dance but came back after a few short years. She took a modern class and her teacher would always tell her to take a ballet class. So the next year, Casey signed up for ballet. Right away her teacher noticed that something about her.

On February 2, 2017, I was given the opportunity to view Innovative Works, performed by Charlotte Ballet, and created by Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, in the Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance. Charlotte Ballet has been around Charlotte, North Carolina for twenty-five years as a professional company. Bonnefoux created the performance to announce the passion and intensity of each movement the dancer’s performed along with assistance from Mark Diamond, Sasha Janes, Sarah Harkins, and David Ingram. Before viewing the performance, the Dance Department of Coker College was given a tour around the building. During the tour, information was provided about how long the company has existed, we were able to visit the costume design

Introduction Life in Motion, a New York Times bestseller written by Misty Copeland, is a memoir of her journey to becoming the first African-American principal ballerina at the distinguished American Ballet Theatre. I chose this book because I was inspired by Misty’s courage, hard work, and persistence to become a successful ballerina. My personal interest in this book would have to be the dance aspect, in relation to Misty; dance is a very big part of my life considering rhythmic gymnastics is built off of the same ideas as dance. When hearing that Misty had become a principal dancer, I was immediately intrigued to learn about her life and her endeavors to become such a historical presence in the world of dance.

The choreography of Danielsen’s life goes far beyond the corners of dance. Ever since the day she stepped foot into a dance studio, she has had big dreams and lets nothing stand in her way of accomplishing them. “I saw myself as a prima ballerina, but when I actually started to dance, my dream turned into being able to execute well and being able to perform in any

At a young age, she discovered her love for ballet and had wanted to become a dancer all her life. Her momentum was cut short when her mother had breast cancer and her brother developed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. At age 12, her situation caused her to become very insecure and yet she strived to become a professional ballet dancer.

In Margaret Fuhrer’s article entitled The Life of a Tutu, she said, “If tutus could talk, they would tell some pretty amazing stories” (Fuhrer). In today’s dance world, the popularity of a ballet tutu is bigger than ever and the industry continues to be an ever-growing one. The intricate work put into each one has mesmerized audiences and has helped to compliment the story of a ballet and a dancer’s movement for many years. As said by Victoria Looseleaf, “A tutu frames a dancer's movements, its construction supporting the physicality of ballet. Wearing a tutu generally marks a mature stage in a classical dancer's career, since nothing exposes the precision of classical technique as does the brief, jutting skirt with the snug-fitting bodice.

After her father’s death when she was 9 years old, her mother placed her in piano and singing lessons to help her overcome the tragedy, for her and her father were very close. Proving to have strong musicality, Wigman excelled. She was later sent to boarding school in Folkstone, England and Lausanne, Switzerland to learn English then French, respectively; This was custom for the upper- middle class families to do so. After striking out on her own in her adult years, Wigman studied ballet, yet only briefly, for “it suited neither her body or her temperament”. *Wanting to personally connect with movement without the restraints of music or specific movement vocabulary, the fantasies portrayed in ballet and stage dancing did not speak to her, for they were inspired by, past eras and illusions. Continuing her journey looking for an answer to solve the mystery of how she could express herself, Mary travel about dabbling yet again in music and singing. In 1908, drawn to a presentation of Dalcroze’s method in her hometown, she realized dance was her “way of expressing herself artistically”. Excited and eager to study movement and dance she signed up for a rhythmic gymnastics class at Dalcroze’s Institute in Hellerau. Impressed at first with the classes,

I wasn't what a typical ballerina looked like, as I was 5 feet tall, and I was slender and fragile. However, I had then created my own style of dance..... bent legs, and rigid feet, and even though I was critiqued, it soon became my own style. It was in 1905 when I made my breakthrough performance. I had the lead solo in the Dying Swan with my elegant movements and intense facial expressions. Showing the audience how precious and fragile life really is. I inspired many little girls to become ballerinas as they watched in awe, just like I did when I was eight. The dance of the dying swan became my signature role. When I was only 20, I was promoted to prima

The word ‘Ballet’ stems from the Italian word “Ballo” deriving from the Italian verb to dance. The use of the Italian term ‘ballo’ (referring to dancing to varied rhythms) instead of the Italian verb ‘danza’ (to dance) did not only represented the inclusion of Italy into the ballet history timeline, but also it indefinitely transformed the culture of ballet as it was known until that time in the mid-thirties of the seventeenth century (Greskovic, 2005, p. 6) The identity of ballet during its early development stages (pre twentieth century) shows how language can be used to enrich ballet.