Oklahoma Festival Ballet Analysis

The nature of this performance is live entertainment. They complete their objectives by providing the audience a wonderful time and teaches all about collaboration as a group. Throughout the show, each dance shows the character of everyone. What I most liked about this performance was their unity in every performance, they would stick together and had the same rhythm to follow, while they were keeping their own sense of style.

While observing this dance ballet, there were many things that caught my attention. First, the theater itself was extremely large, and the stage itself was big, and the dancers had plenty of room to move across the stage and perform their routines. There were many dancers, and they all played various roles that ranged from Clara, Fritz, Herr Drosselmeyer, the Rat King, the Nutcracker, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, and many more. All of the performers wore vivid costumes

Some of the movements executed by the dancers are similar to those executed by dancers in a stepping performance and also in a tap dance presentation. This presentation falls into the group of the new trends of modern dance, in which the choreographer are taking more and more liberty with various dance combinations, and including strong messages in their work. I would definitely attend other dance performance, not only from this company, but also by other companies; and would also recommend this performance, especially to people going through a dark period in their life. This performance finished convincing me that dance is surely the most communicative of the art forms, and that a single presentation can convey more than one

Now the music filled our ear and the dancers rushed out to the center of the stage with kicks, jumps, and arm swings that gave it a hip-hop, jazz with a little ballet vibe that stood out from other dances. It felt as if you were in the big city at night. People are rushing back and forth creating an intense feeling with the music picking up pace as well.

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

I became a ballet student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2014. Being a high school student here gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons and take in as much art as I possibly could. During my first fall at UNCSA, I attended the Emerging Choreographers performance and was privileged to see works created by fourth year contemporary majors. These stunning works showed me the possibilities that dance holds to truly convey powerful and meaning messages. One work in particular stood out to me. It was a piece that showcased five dancers all dressed in pedestrian clothing. At first it appeared to be a casual street scene but a the music progressed one girl began making incredible sharp movements as if she was possessed. She made tiny movements of her hands and feet all the while moving a great distance across the stage. The others started going off what she was doing and all moved together as one giant body supporting the girl in the middle. She continued dancing in the most amazing way have many small movements combined with huge movements that made her seem a thousand feet tall. Intrigued I spoke to one of the dancers about the intention of the dance. She told me that the

On May 18 2016, I attended the La Costa Canyon Dance Recital, “A Night At The Movies”. The show was performed by the school’s dance team, Dance Mavs, and was well executed and rehearsed. The show provided an interesting interpretation of famous movies and their impact on the audience. Famous dances and themes were portrayed throughout the night, allowing for not only an entertaining experience, but an extremely memorable one. The amount of work put into the show was evident and allowed the audience to appreciate each dance with more respect and admiration. It is obvious these shows can take a toll on those performing, so it must be all the more rewarding when it turns out as great as the recital did.

The stage performance of Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma was a beautiful integration of book, song and dance. The three elements add richness and aesthetic quality in very distinctive ways. Dance is a form of expression using rhythmic movements of the body. Facial expressions and the use of body language through dance offer portrayals of feelings that compensate for dialogue. The choreography done by Agnes de Mille integrates dance into the lives of the frontiersmen (and women) of the Oklahoma territory. The 20th Century Fox film version released in 1955 had key differences than the current Broadway musical. One of the main differences other than a little extra dialogue was the utilization of dance. In the film dance was not used as a

The performance took place at the Harris Theatre. The whole point of Dancestry is to express dance through the ages and historically important tributes to dance. When watching this I was captivated at first. The atmosphere was set entirely in sync with the opening performance. The music built at the right moments, the lighting and effects were phenomenal as well as the costume. I found the dance itself very intriguing, because I had never seen someone dance so elegantly with such an oversized dress. The performer made it looks so effortless and simply beautiful. As it progressed I found myself getting bored with all the repetitiveness included in the dance. The beautiful flowing dress, the smoke, the lights, the experience that was new and exciting for me was

The powerful second act features the dancers in a large semi circle sitting on chairs, wearing suits that they slowly take off piece by piece, depicting powerful acts of (self-) violence to hard-hitting Israeli music. It made me think of Plisetskaya's Bolero. Several more very innovative dances followed. Then the dancers left the stage and entered the audience to pick members of the audience to join them on stage. This is where things went really wild. Each dancer had a partner, and they proceeded to do cha cha and swing dance all over the stage with the audience members, with the crowd going wild with delight. It's like the entire place became one big party. It was so much fun and there was so much positive energy in the building. When the piece finally ended, people couldn't stop clapping and there was an amazing buzz all

There’s always ballet in every scene and dances. There’s a lot of leaps and pirouettes in the dances. The dancers are very flexible and most of them can do flips. I also noticed that every dance movement they make, their toes are always pointed. They can also stand on their toes, which is very amusing for me. They also did a lot of sissones throughout the dances. Their movements are very smooth and they did it very gracefully. They move like they’re in the air and they feel like they’re free. They did some chasse’ across the floor, which keeps all the dancers moving around the stage. They also did some contact works, they were some weight sharing and some lifts in some dances. The dancers also did some symmetrical dance moves, that looked very cool. They did some plie’ to a jump and leaped across the

A powerful example of this function and adjustment of the structure is the choreography by Bill T. Jones for the original Broadway production of Spring Awakening. The musical portrays teenagers navigating burgeoning questions of sexuality and figuring how to express them. The choreography of Spring Awakening suggests “only their bodies...can express those feelings, for which they have no words” (Sulcas 1). This idea of the body being able to elucidate what words can’t heavily harkens back to the function of dream ballets. It is especially evident in songs like “Touch Me” and “The Guilty Ones,” which expressly deal with sexual feelings and acts of sex, in which it is really about the thoughts of one character, but Jones utilizes the bodies of the entire ensemble to express the urges the character is experiencing. The dances seem to “interrupt the actions rather than continue it” in order to place emphasis on the inner lives of the characters instead of the narrative plot structure (Sulcas 2). Although these dances do utilize lyrics in addition to movement to express these emotions, it is evident that the legacy of the function that dream ballets established lives on in musical

The Senior Dance concert, 9 o’ clock showing consisted of seven dance pieces. The first piece was called “Heavy Dew”, this piece was comprised of a six-person group dance. The backdrop was a blue shading. The sounds in this piece were waterfalls, and rainforest sounds. The movements made me feel as though the dancers were creatures in a wilderness or a rainforest, it was fast paced. For the first part of the performance the group of girls are dancing in front of the audience together, then as the music turns to be more serious and intense, there is just one dancer on the stage. Then, once all the dancers come back onto the stage, the music starts to soften and slow down again and the lights begin to dim for the remainder of the performance.

During “When We Fly,” the mood of rebirth and belonging sept through the audience. The piece started very calmly with the whole group of dancers doing jumps about the stage. As the piece progressed, certain people would leave the stage and others would go on stage. There were many leaps and jumps that were paired with dramatic sharp arm movements which became more impressive as the music grew louder. The dancers were smiling throughout the whole piece to show the sense of community they had, portraying themselves as birds in a flock. In “Dark Meadow: They Who Dance Together,” the music was initially staccato and intense, and the movements that the dancers performed were bold showing a mood of confusion. The dancers, as the song continued,

I liked the dance piece because the dancers were limited physically in their bodies, but their dancing was beyond limited and astounding. At first, I was a bit doubtful and sceptical before watching the dance because I thought the dancers were going to perform with very minimal and stiff movements. But to my surprise, the dancers moved gracefully on stage. The two dancers used quite a lot of space. The dancers used all levels of space from low to high. For example, the dancers executed amazing leaps, jumps and lifts in their performance that represented as high levels of space. The dancers movements were grand; however, they were also whimsical, sharp, circular, and clean. The dancers utilized most parts of the stage. The pattern of the space that performers used was more curved than linear. There were two dancers in this piece, the male dancer that had only one leg and the female dancer that had only one arm. The genre of dance that was performed was a ballet; though, in my observations the dance seemed to be more contemporary than ballet. For instance, the tempo of the dance was slower and had less rhythm than most classical ballets I’ve observed. Also, there were a couple of pauses and rests during the performance. The dance