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February On 4dancers…
Hello all and welcome to February!
This month on 4dancers, the focus is on health/wellness and injury. We are pleased to welcome back Jan Dunn, MS who will be posting on Dance Wellness, and Dr. Sinkoe, who will be sharing information about warts on the feet and toenail problems.
Emily Harrison, MS, RD, LD will provide a great healthy recipe you can make and offer up a post about hydration for dancers, and dancer Emily Kate Long will start her new column on “Finding Balance”…but that’s not all.
We’ll hear a bit about Dance UK and what they have done to support health in dance professionals, and learn more about the field of dance therapy from a practitioner in the field. In addition, we will take a look at a wonderful organization that does dance therapy programming for children and young adults with cancer.
You can also count on the usual mix of interviews and informational posts that you’ve come to expect from 4dancers. This is all part of our “monthly themes”–which we thought would be a fun way to present content to our readers. Next month…Adult Ballet!
Let us know what you think of our new format by leaving a quick comment below–and thanks for reading.
Catherine
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays
We’d like to take a moment to say thank you to all of our readers in 2011 and wish you a safe, happy and healthy holiday season. There are many new things to come on the blog in 2012, including:
- A dance wellness column, written by 4dancers new contributor, Jan Dunn
- January will focus on the pointe shoe–giving you inside information, tips, tricks and foot care info
- February will be our health/wellness/injury month, with content from physicians who have treated dancers, a nutritionist and more
- Fresh content from our wonderful contributing writer staff!
We look forward to serving you in 2012! Happy holidays!
Review: Dancing Keys 2 by Gill Civil
I recently reviewed Gill Civil’s “Dancing Keys” CD for this site, and I was fortunate enough to be able to listen to the next album she compiled–”Dancing Keys 2″.
Civil’s work is truly unique in that the tracks don’t sound familiar–they sound fresh. Some ballet class music can have a “typical” feel to it that just doesn’t add anything to the barre or centre exercises. This is not in that category.
The music here taps into emotion and feeling–something I think the good ballet music composers understand as necessary for it to be something dancers will want to move to. Teachers too find this type of music inspiring, and it can add a measure of creativity to the class environment overall to have such beautiful music.
The CD has a simple barre (10 tracks) and centre music (port de bras, adage, pirouettes, allegro, etc.) and a number of bonus tracks as well. You can listen to samples on her website.
As always, I appreciate the amount of effort that goes into creating original music for ballet class. Civil does it well, and this CD is a great one to own if you teach ballet.
If you’d like to own it, or listen to her other CD, visit her website.
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Music and Dance – An Introduction
Today we have John Nevin with us, with an introduction to his new column “Music and Dance”…
Dance does not require music, and especially for those whose lives and art are deeply involved in the world of dance, movement can be expressed in silence or with a simple and abstract sound design. Much more often, though, dance and music move together through the space called Choreography, and the opportunities and challenges of understanding how music works with dance — or fails to — is the subject of this new series, Music and Dance, at 4dancers.org.
The ideas that such a series could cover are bounded by two nearly opposite perspectives on music and dance. One perspective would see most clearly the contrasts and contradictions of two very different worlds, and different they are. The worlds of Dance and Music are culturally, economically and socially different in many ways, and in ways that make for important differences in how each art is inspired and expressed. Yet ultimately, in a truly successful dance performance, there is little or nothing to separate the two arts, because the movement and the music express together the same artistic vision. When does that happen, and more importantly, how does that ever happen? That’s the outline for this series.
There are artistic questions to explore, like talking about ways to choose music for choreography, and each artistic question leads to more practical questions. What are the best places to find that music? There are technical questions, like discussing how different musical selections can be arranged so that an audience is inspired, rather than distracted, by the changing musical panorama. Among all of these questions, the most pressing are probably those that have an immediate impact on creating, performing, and enjoying dance, and first among those would be a look at how — and why — music effects the artistic success of dance. That’s where we’ll start next month, but here’s a preview:
0Pointing the Left Foot in the Right Direction: Tips for The College Dancer
by Stacey Pepper Schwartz
Stacey Pepper Schwartz
Here are some essential tips and tools for college dancers looking for the best steps towards a dance future. These simple do’s will provide a solid foundation for the academic year as well as for many years ahead. (Since I write about college dance frequently, if I have repeated myself at all in this list know that I think it doubly important!)
- If you don’t know ask. One of the hardest things to do and most beneficial.
- Introduce yourself to the teacher/guest artist and thank them for the class. When a teacher knows your name that are more likely to pay attention to you.
- Find a mentor. This should be a person you can seek out for advice from what courses you should take to the best place to buy cheap leotards. Preferably a dance major a few years ahead of you so you can learn from his/her experiences.
- Have a dance journal. Write about what inspires you. Write about your dreams. Write about what you want to accomplish in the dance world as well as the world beyond.
- Don’t live, sleep and dream dance. Yep – take a break every now and then. Experience fun things outside the dance studio. This is necessary so you don’t burn out and because life is not just about one experience.
Coming Up On 4dancers…
This is just a quick post to let you know some of the things we will be featuring on 4dancers in the coming weeks…
Look for:
Ballet Class CD Reviews
New interviews
The first post by new contributor Lizzie Leopold
Hope you have been having a great summer so far!
Catherine
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About The Music…
A while back I had a comment on this blog by a musician who talked about what it was like to watch the dancers on the stage as they played in the orchestra. The comment stayed with me and I thought I would do a post today on what a big difference it makes to dance to live music.
There is something magical about hearing the instruments warm up as you walk through your steps backstage. It adds to the excitement. There’s a synergy that dancers and musicians have that is unlike anything else. One feeds off the other–creating what amounts to live art. It’s astounding.
This isn’t the only place that dancers and musicians cross paths however. Many times a ballet classroom will have a live pianist, which is a treat, as anyone who has experienced it knows. In my day I had several, and I remember them all quite well. First there was Edith. She drove a yellow Volkswagen and was quite a character. I also had a reserved, thin gentleman who was amazing at the keys, and a dark-haired woman from Russia who had the most fantastic, dramatic music I’ve ever heard. Hats off to them all–they made my classes wonderful.
Is there a particular musician or pianist who stands out in your mind? It would be fun to hear your thoughts on this too…I’m sure that I am not the only one who has been impacted by the gift of live music in class or on stage…
2Dance Chicago Choreography Awards
Dance Chicago, in conjunction with the Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, gave awards to several choreographers this year–including the Choreographer of the Year, Sam Cortez (Mexican Dance Ensemble). Mr. Cortez was selected based on the volume and depth of the seven distinctive works he created.
In addition to the Choreographer of the Year award, otheres were selected to receive the Dance Chicago Outstanding Choreographer (Body of Work) Award for their significant contributions to the 2010 festival, they are:
- Billy Siegenfeld (Jump Rhythm Jazz Project)
- Chris Courtney (Culture Shock Chicago, Chicago Dance Crash)
There were also awards for Outstanding Choreography (New Voice):
- Melinda Wilson (Curie Metropolitan High School for the Performing & Technical Arts)
- Jessica Deahr (Chicago Dance Crash, Independent Dancers)
And finally, The Dance Chicago Outstanding Choreography Award (Team Choreography) was awarded to:
- Trae Turner, Angelina Grima, Susan Skrzymowski (BOOM CRACK! Dance Company)
Congratulations to all of the participants and winners this year!
0Happy Holidays From 4dancers!
I’d just like to take a moment to wish all of the people who read 4dancers a very happy holiday season!
As you can see, 4dancers is building a new look for 2011. We will be featuring some new content for the new year–including video–so stay tuned.
I hope that everyone has a warm and happy holiday. Thanks again for reading.
Best,
Catherine
0Top Dance Blogs 2010 – A Request
Hello all! Nichelle from Dance Advantage has come up with yet another creative idea–a dance blog contest! She has started the voting for the Top Dance Blogs 2010 and I’m here today to ask for your vote–if you think I’m worthy…
If you have enjoyed this blog during the past year, I’d love your vote. All you have to do is comment in the section below to vote for 4dancers.
I’ve really had a good time creating this blog and developing sections such as “10 Questions With…” and taking on wonderful contributors, such as Matthew Powell (Post Curtain Chat) and Lucy Riner (read about all our contributors here). I hope to do even more in 2011!
Thanks much for your consideration–I appreciate your readership! (I won’t be giving my thanks out in the comments section, as I think that would be cheating…the amount of comments selects the blog for the next round of votes…) -Catherine
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