Lena Kolyadenko's Freedom Ballet

Dance is found in all cultures. It is considered a way to communicate without talking. During the Renaissance period, ballet was considered a Russian specialty. The highly qualified and sought after dance companies would tour the world performing in front of those who had never experienced ballet before. By exposing ballet to the United States of America, the Russians inspired and sparked a demand for legitimate ballet in America. It took place throughout the 20th century, currently known as the Russo-American Era.

Ensemble Vagabond’s debut performance of The Rite of Spring changed the history of Igor Stravinsky’s outrageous ballet. Arranged for Winds and Piano, Peter Facer has taken this momentous piece to an entirely new level. With the Callaway Music Auditorium at maximum capacity, Vagabond strode confidently onstage to roaring applause to give the performance of a lifetime.

The audience then became lost and frightened as there were no signs leading them to their next destination, once again forcing them to partake in the performance. This physicalisation not only successfully involved the contemporary audience, but demonstrated the necessity of physical composition to give audiences that real experience. This use of physical composition provided immediate reaction and emotional expression through action and contrast. These elements ultimately enhanced the mood and symbolism of the performance, allowing audiences to not only partake in the production on an intimate level but also on an emotional level. Another way in which mood and symbol can be created is through the use of complicité.

The New York City Ballet conducted a dance performance titled “New Beginnings” on the 57th floor of the Four World Trade Center in New York. The performance took place September 12th, 2013 and was intended to commemorate September 11th, 2001. A tragic event, such as September 11th, tends to leave a bitter taste in one 's mouth. The public is generally heartbroken, angry, and distressed. This performance seeks to influence the general US audience by using dance as a means of changing the perception of the aftermath of disaster. By following a narrative structure, the dance performance begins by setting the scene of New York City. The performance is then followed with analogies through dance designed to provide moments of action, climax, and resolution. The New York City Ballet uses pathos and an instance of logos through movements to enforce their attempt to alter one’s perspective. There is plenty of pathos used throughout the dance performance in order to motivate a change in thinking from the audience. I believe this strategy was extremely effective because by influencing how the audience emotionally reacts to the performance there is more likely to be a change in audience perception. The ballet incorporates inductive reasoning by taking the specific situation of September 11th and implying that, after tragedy, we will ultimately have a “new beginning”. I believe the logical appeal of this implication is effective because the audience is naturally inclined to believe if

The stage travels, and outbursts, many swirling, dazzling colors, followed by a stampede of footwork accompanying the sound of the mariachi. Envision it. Mesmerizing isn't it?

The premiere of Witnesse, choreograph by Rebecca Lemme bring the audience to a gloomy opening and extraordinary set of stage. From the dimmed light to the dark green costumes wore by dancers, there is a particular set of spotlights that were slowly drawn on top of each dancer as they were laying on the floor. From the moment that the spotlight was hitting on each of performers’ faces, I came into the thought of life. Moreover, spotlights are the representation of the sun and the color of green associated with

“Resonance: Alonzo King LINES Ballet and Bernie Krause” is a part of the Resonance series of musical performances at the Exploratorium. In this episode of the series, a dance piece is created from the collaboration between choreographer Alonzo King and ecologist Bernie Krause. The work pairs Krause’s recordings of wildlife from various natural habitats with contemporary dance of King’s LINES Ballet Company. The purpose of the performance seems to be the reconnecting of man to nature.

To prove everyone wrong, an interest was sparked in supporting ballet to show the world that American artists are just as competence as its foreign competitors. Unlike the Russians who have already established their mark in the ballet world, Americans were not commonly associated as talented ballet dancers. Thus, in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower set aside $2,250,00 to fund dance, theatre, music, and sports tours to showcase American talents around the world. One of the funded dance tours was a ballet tour by New York City Ballet’s in Western Europe and the Soviet Union in 1962 (Croft, p. 425). New York City Ballet was a company founded by Balanchine and Kristen so their ballet performances reflected the innovation style of American ballet while maintaining its classical grace. Before their tour in the Soviet Union, the dancers were prepared for criticism and even booing during the performance due to the tensions between the two countries. However, all political differences were pushed aside, as “three thousand Soviet ballet fans rose to their feet to celebrate

Eliasson’s use of lights panning over the audience cause its spectral image to appear on the stages reflective, coloured scrims, which in turn integrates the viewers with the happenings on stage. The artist’s use of several mirrors and reflective scrims make the audience question reality. Sometimes they will see the dancers in front of the mirror, but they soon realise that the ballet is in fact playing out in the mirror. In a sense, the dancers are simply helping the play – from the perspective of the mirror – to unfold. As with many of Eliasson’s past works, the idea of this set is to bring the audience to work. They’re not just looking, they’re also made to think and wonder, “Am I seeing the dancer, or the reflection of the dancer.” One would argue that this notion in itself is a very interesting exercise because the audience is not really invited to this ballet to consume, passively. They are put to work in way finding through, what is essentially an optical illusion. The advantage of this interactive engagement is that perhaps the audience will physically sit in a state of intrigue and curiosity. When one is emotionally engaged with a subject, the body is physically drawn slightly

Women play a very important in ballet. Just like George Balanchine said, “Ballet is woman.” However, as much as I love his choreography, I do not agree with what he said. Although Balanchine preferred female performance in his work, the type of women he like to use did not represented the real feeling of female. According to Catherine L. Tully, Balanchine preferred girls with small bones and small breasts, instead of mature and curvy women. Also, the choreography work women will have. It is obvious that Balanchine preferred the dancers to have characteristics that belongs to immature and adolescent girls. So the statement “Ballet is woman” is not true.

The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than

While watching the video “Ballet, Sweat, and Tears,” I noticed that the Ballet teachers in Russia are more strict and severe than the ones in America. The teachers at the Russia academy yelled a lot and physically touched the students, while here I America that is not allowed. In my opinion a difference that I saw was that the students over at the Vaganova Ballet were not lazy at all. The students from the Russian academy were more focused and traditional. Russian ballet also focuses on moving the body as a “whole,” their moves are more controlled and precise. They also tend to focus on flexibility and endurance as well as the positions of the arms. I also noticed that the students attending the Vaganova academy were more willing to make sacrifices. And example, would be the little girl that stated that she has not been able to watch television for over two months now. Now, the typical student here in the United States tends to be lazy and usually has a careless attitude. I know the students over here in America would not wake up at six in the morning just to keep practicing, especially in today’s generation. While, I also watched some ballet videos from the school of American Ballet I saw that the diet is not as firm as the one from the Vaganova Ballet Academy. Many people have also stated that compared to the Vaganova Ballet Academy the school of American ballet is a breeze. A major difference that I saw was the performance while the Russian ballet performance was precise

What is Capoeira exactly? Is it just another overvalued Brazilian sport like fútbol, or could we recognize it as an incredible art to be admired for its ingenious upbringing and artistic form? I recently attended a roda, a circle of people in which Capoeira is performed, hosted at a Capoeira school in Atlanta. Amazed after the spectacular event, I went to personally interview and ask one of the veteran Capoeiristas a few questions, regarding what she knew and felt about Capoeira. This was her response:

Have you ever wondered why dance is filled with spectacular entertainment with a dancer like Rudolf Nureyev?I believe that Rudolf Nureyev is the best dancer with spectacular entertainment. To start off, it's because he was successful throughout his dance career because he has learned so much with his past of dance by dance teachers and dancing with other dance partners with being able to learn his passion and share it and for the audience to feel his passion of movement when he does perform on stage or not on the stage. In Addition, he is a spectacular entertainment because he makes everything look so easy and that everybody can try as hard as him. According to, “The New York Times” it shows and tells how and which dance partners he has had and adjusted to someone he doesn’t really know but that helped him to be able to entertain the audience as well by having a good dancer like him be on the stage and share their connection with dance/each other. In this , Nothing could really get in his way of his showing people what it is like being able to make people happy with dance. Similar to, how he is dancing actually got him to perform in different areas and get important roles for sleeping beauty and other shows he was called in for or interested in.

In comparison to text-based performances, those of a non-text based nature can illustrate the unity between cultures with less difficulty due to universally understood practices and semiotics in an increasingly globalised world. Non-text based performances provide both beneficial and critical elements when compared to text-based performances and this will be analysed and demonstrated with the example of ‘performing the dark arts’. The will ensue performances of ritualised purposes, conjuring shows, illusionary performances, stage trickery and what is identified as ‘magic’ (more-so than supernatural phenomenon or witchcraft) in order to theorise how non-text based performance has shaped modern cultures, partially through globalisation,