Tag: dance
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Inspiration
The word inspiration suggests the idea of being captured by a spirit within. “Let the spirit move you” is something people sometimes say in a variety of different contexts. In many religions the spirit is the Holy Spirit, a divine entity that is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-perfect, all-wise – the source of all creation and life.…
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Loving the Floor
I love to lie on a hard, wood floor. When I am alone, in my little wooden-floored room on the top floor of the house, there is a gleaming wood floor that is often warm from sunlight that comes through skylights in the room. I sneak up there when I am tense, anxious, cold, in…
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10 Years To Make A Dancer
There is an adage that it takes 10 years to make a dancer. I heard that while I was training to be a professional dancer. Based on nothing but my own experience this seems to be a rough-and-ready truism with some validity to it. It took me 10 years to go from beginner to advanced/professional…
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On Dancers and Athletes
Last week I finished Tori Murden McClure’s book, A Pearl in the Storm, in which she becomes the first woman to row across the Atlantic by herself in a rowboat, beset by hurricanes and in danger of death. Her rowboat was called The American Pearl. When she achieved this, Tori had already been the first…
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Butterflies — a poem by Kristin Boyce
Intro Years before I discovered a love of dance, I knew that I loved poetry. Poems that I wrote as a tween and teen are still stored in the pulse of my muscle memory. I’m sure they would be judged harshly by any objective measure, but my heart has never disowned them. By the time…
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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…