ballet dancer’s makeup should accentuate and enhance the NATURAL three dimensional shape of the eye. This allows the audience to follow the ballerina’s gaze. As her eyes and head follow through each position of her dance the audience needs to know if her eyes are open, closed, looking in a certain direction or at a specific character.
Dancers Can Take a Cue from Fall Runways
Whether you are a dance student or dance teacher, you can have fun with your class attire and incorporate your own style with what’s in this season. Here are some of the biggest trends from Fall 2010 New York Fashion Week and how you can take them from the runway to the studio.
Bessie’s Back
Undoubtedly, the most exciting moment of the evening was Ms. Sexton and Mr. Mizrahi recognizing the ensemble members of Paradigm with a Bessie for “(bringing) into vibrant focus the essence of what it means to dance.” Honored were Artistic Director Gus Solomons Jr. (who called for the tripling of the size of the Bessie committee, to be able to include more works in the selection process!), Carmen deLavallade, Dudley Williams, Valda Setterfield, Michael Blake, Hope Clark, and Keith Sabado.
Teaching Tap Improvisation: Exercises for Beginners
Begin with a very structured 4/4 song that does not have any strange segues or extra measures. Have all students beat their hands on their legs, clap or snap to the beat. Continue their time keeping, but have them now count out loud – “1..2..3..4”. Be sure you do not have them count “5..6..7..8”. This is a cardinal sin in the music world, as you’ll find out if you dance with live musicians! Explain to your students that each set of four counts is a measure, or a bar. I often use this with my elementary students who are learning addition and/or multiplication.
Presenting Hip Hop In a Positive Light
![[Photo] Dancers from World Hip Hop Championship in red and black](https://www.danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/HipHop-International2-300x200.jpg)
Back then, hip hop wasn’t about derogatory comments, threats, and how much money you made. It was about family and belonging. It was about taking your world and making sense of it…through dance (b-boying), through music (DJing), through art (graffiti), through words (MCing). THAT is where your philosophy needs to come from.
Insight Into ABT’s National Training Curriculum
Deb describes her own productive and exhilarating summer adventures as a participant in American Ballet Theater’s National Training Curriculum program in wonderful detail. “The Training is organized as week-long intensives; candidates are asked to obtain certification in Primary Level through Level 3 of the curriculum before being allowed to continue certification in Levels 4 and 5, and then 6, 7, and Partnering (taught as two separate intensives).”
