RESPIRO E MOVIMENTO®

DISCOVER YOUR REAL POTENTIAL

BALLET DANCERS

Dancing and Empathy – Does dance Training Make You ‘Feel’ More?

By · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

electronic-zakharova-560x673

A paper published last month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that dancers, with their finely honed control over their bodies through which they can express emotion, are more sensitive than most in perceiving such emotion in others. Or, as The Washington Post summed it up: dancers are more emotionally sensitive than the rest of us.

The study’s abstract puts it in a somewhat more technical way:

Results showed that motor expertise in affective body movement specifically modulated both behavioural and physiological sensitivity to others’ affective body movement.

One of the researchers was Julia F Christensen, a research fellow in the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit at City University London. She told the Post,

The very cool thing about this study is that the dancers not only recognized the emotions better, but their bodies would also respond more sensitively to the displayed emotional movements. Dancers’ bodies differentiated between different emotions that were expressed in the clips, where the controls didn’t.

(via)

What Life Is Like At The Royal Ballet School

By · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Royal Ballet School

How do aspiring dancers juggle training and academic work at one of the world’s top training institutions?

It’s that time again: September is suddenly here and the school holidays are over.

But for aspiring dancers at The Royal Ballet School, the hard work continued throughout the summer break. Though the school year ended in July and students returned home from term-time boarding, summer for a dancer allows for no vacation from their vocation.

While other students blew off steam at festivals and on the beach, young dancers spent their long summer days training.

‘It’s less intense than when we are at the school, but you have to keep at it’, says 17-year-old Rowan Shone, who begins his third and final year this September. Shone’s summer was spent at Sadler’s Wells – where he attended the Russian Imperial Ballet Summer School.

‘It’s a good way to maintain the work we’ve done throughout the year at school’, he says.

(via)

20-hour World Ballet Day Live to set new Facebook live-streaming record

By · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Royal Opera Ballet

The Royal Opera House is to link up with Facebook on World Ballet Day 2016 for the longest broadcast ever shown on the social media platform.

For World Ballet Day Live, now in its third year, the Royal Ballet will broadcast live rehearsals and classes alongside pre-recorded footage including backstage preparations.

The event, which is live-streamed continuously for 20 hours, is a collaboration between five leading international companies, including the Australian Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet, alongside the Royal Ballet.

Photograph by Tristam Kenton.

(via)

A Ballerina Steps Out — as a Choreographer

By · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

A ballerina steps out as a choreographer

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Lauren Lovette surveyed her dancers before sliding into a split — one of her go-to positions when she’s contemplating a step — and rose suddenly to move through a dynamic passage in her new ballet. She calls this part “soft serve.” In it, dancers line up along a diagonal and pirouette away as their arms swirl above their heads like curlicues topping a dip of Dairy Queen. She made some tweaks; her dancers peeled away from the line with more refinement but no less verve.

“I think that’s going to work,” she said, half to herself. “I believe it.”

Ms. Lovette, a principal with New York City Ballet, frequently uses that phrase when assessing her choreography, which, like her dancing, is lush. “That’s when you know it’s good,” said Indiana Woodward, one of the leads in Ms. Lovette’s new work. “Because she believes whatever you just gave to her.”

This fall, Ms. Lovette, 24, is working from that place of conviction. Ms. Lovette, one of two women who will unveil new works at City Ballet’s fall gala on Sept. 20 — the other is the choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa — is under some pressure.

A New Sylphide at RDB

By · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

La Sylphide

La Sylphide may be the name of the ballet, but the story does not belong to the Sylph. This is the story of James, a young man who is destroyed on his way to adulthood, to quote the legendary Danish dance critic Erik Aschengreen. In a company renowned for its extraordinary male dancers, James is a coveted role and, this time, three young principals were taking on the part: Ulrik Birkkjær, Alban Lendorf and Gregory Dean. I had the pleasure of seeing the last two (with Alexandra Lo Sardo and Amy Watson, respectively, as their Sylphs) when I visited Copenhagen. Lendorf has performed the role in Hübbe’s previous production, and he is an outstanding James. His dancing continues to be out of this world – those jumps! – and his acting is superb, with a highly individual passionate rawness.

(via)