Tag: dance
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Reuniting with Dance Friends by Jennifer DeLuca
I don’t know what it is about 2025 but all of the people that made me who I am keep showing up and I am so here for it! I shared a conversation with a friend recently asking why this coming together feels so good and I think we both realized that in high school,…
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Dancing With My Children
When my daughter was small enough to fit on my lap – able to hold up her head and sit up but not yet walk away from me – I would play music and move her legs and arms up and down to the beat. I wanted her to hear the rhythm, to feel it…
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Imagine You Are a Dancer
Do you know where you are? Can you feel your backside pressing into the surface on which you are now sitting? Can you feel your head sitting on the perch of your neck, head swiveling gently so your eyes can survey your surroundings? What do your eyes take in? Can you see colors? Are they…
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Unreasonable Diets
Dancers, especially ballet dancers, have to be strong, flexible and (typically, for the aesthetic norms of the form) lean. Extra weight also provides added stress on joints (especially during jumps and on pointe) and can impede partnered lifts. For many dancers, particular during adolescent body changes due to hormones, this need to have low body…
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The Joy of the Unexpected
Dances are planned from beginning to end but they often end up somewhere unexpected. One can’t predict all the stumbling blocks, such as a misplaced stage light or a broken shoe strap, that lead to necessary workarounds. There are also unanticipated moments of surprise and joy, such as being able to hold a balance pose…
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Dancing in Music
Dancing in music is an immersion experience. It’s not reducible to either conforming dance movements to beats of time or a layering a visual component on top of an audible score, although of course it can be both of these things. Dancing in music is like swimming in a way that makes use of, or…
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Children Dance
Have you ever danced with a child at a wedding? Children who dance are wonderfully free in their movements and intuitive. They can mimic most non-complicated movements and they can feel rhythm. When my daughter was a baby on my lap, she would flap her arms when she was happy or excited and when there…
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The Security of Standards
Ballet lets you know when you’ve gotten it right. Within the various styles of ballet, such as classical, neoclassical, Cecchetti, and Vaganova, there are clear aesthetic standards for technical achievement. A penché should look exactly like two hands of a clock at six o’clock, for example – one straight line from the tip of your…