The Sequel

Welcome, I write this post as a continuation of the last one. Recently, I've briefly spoken about the differences in modern dance and ballet. Now  I'll show my favourites modern choreographers.

As I told I'm a big fan of contemporary dance, not olny when  it comes to the movements but also regarding the performances. Generally, people prefere classical performances and it is understandable; the  point is that classical ballet is more like a fairy tale. There are fairies, princes and princesses in pretty, colourful costumes. Futhermore there is a story. Sometimes it last a bit to long- it has  three or four acts and infinity number of scenes, but classical performances contains simple plot,  and that's why they are nice to watch.

Modern choreographies can also have an essence but mostly they are just uncomprehensible.
The choreographers usualy create abstract performances, which are often connected with emotional and mental sphere. They give us chance to our own interpretation and reflections.

Above I put a fragment of "Six dances" in choreograpfy of Jiri Kylian, the most popular modern choreographer. In this one, he connected
contemporary dance with classical movements and gave a  hilarious climat.  I think it's obligatory to reccomend.

The film below shows creation of my favourite choreographer- Angelin Preljocaj. This is part of performance "Ceci mon corps", which actually has no story; it shows pure movements with no special meaning. The thing that I admire the most is the unity and harmony of company and also a good exploitation of the space.

And what do you think about it? Write in comments!

Martyna

Ballet vs Modern Dance

Hi! This time I want to tell you something about modern dance.

In my school, ballet wasn't the only one technique of dance that I was learning. The other one was modern dance which is much more close to my heart in every possible respect. Besides that ballet is physically more exhausting than modern dance, the most difficult thing to achieve in the first one was the technique. In ballet it is not enaugh if you are musical, or if you dance with grace. The most important is precision of doing exercises, which is strictly connected with body build; for example flexible spine- you just have to be born with it. 

The specificity of the classical dance consist in the strict rules- there is no free choice in the moves.

Contemporary dance is very young in comparison with ballet; it appeared in the middle of  the 20th century to break each of this inflexible principles, and that's why I love it! For example the precursors preache that you have to "make friends with the floor". It means that you can jus sit down or lie down in the choreography, roll on the flor and do other strange things which are of course unacceptable in a ballet. Moreover modern is more natural; in ballet every moove is schematic and the gesture is conventional. Contemporary dance is a good way to express your feelings and emotions.

This is my opinion, and how about you? Write in comments.

Martyna

"Swan Lake"... any others?

Hello! This time I will tell you about my favourite performance.

Not everyone is a big fan of ballet. It is rather obvious why; nowadays we have TV and generally if we have to make a choie, where to go out on Friday evening, more often we choose the cinema than the opera house. Well, this  kind of performances isn't as popular as it once was. About one hundred years ago, the ballerinas, especially the russian dancers were the greatest stars. Now the situation is quite different.

When I ask people about the ballet they know, the majority of them say "Swan Lake". There are a lot of other, more beautiful and touching ballets, and actually I just don't understand the phenomene of "Swan Lake". My favourite one is "Bayadera". It tells a sad story of indian temple dancer, who is called Nikija, and her lover- very brave warrior named Solor. Unluckily he betrays Nikija; he marries beautiful princess Gamzatti, who orders to kill Nikija. I love this ballet on account of the story, but also when it comes to the stage decorations and costumes, which are very colourful and capture the atmosphere of the indian culture. However, the element that won my heart is wonderful and catchy music, written by Ludvig Minkus.

If you have a chance to see any ballet, I recommend you this one. I assure you won't be dissapointed! I'm looking forward to your comments.

Martyna

Please, give me more chocolate!

Hello everybody! I write  this post to dispel the biggest myth of the ballet world.

As you suppose, this one will be about eating. Each time I talk to someone about ballet, the first thing they usually ask me, is if I'm able to make the splits, and the second one- if I had to keep a diet. It is common knowledge that the dancers have to be skinny, but everybody thinks that we don't eat at all, and we starve ourselves. Nothing could be more wrong.

The truth is, that against the stereotypes, in the ballet school you can find the biggest gluttons in the world. I remember a lot of funny situations when fople Iwas passing through the corridor with a bar of chocolate and all of sudden I had to hide because my ballet teacher or the director was also there.
I was always laughing that the most common phrases you could hear among my classmates were: "I am hungry", and "does anyone have anything to eat?".

Of course I know some instances when a person were so ambitious and wanted to be as thin as possible, or just was under preassure of a teacher. Sometimes it could lead to the problems with anorexia. Anyway, the exception proves the rule. I would like to know what do you think about it, so please, write the comments.

Martyna

Dream of a kid

Welcome again. I would like to tell you about my expectations and reality check when it comes to the way I have chosen.

Let's start from the beginning. I had been dancing since I was six. When I was ten I went to the ballet school- that was my biggest dream. Actually this is the thing that every little girl dreams about- to become a ballerina and dance in nice, pink tutu with tulle. In my case was exactly the same...

 I knew ballet is a hard work, because everybody repeated it to me several times, until  I was blue in the face. But the through is that you'll never know if you never try. So yes, I decided to try. During nine years I was spending few hours in the ballet studio each day, putting myselt through the hoops. Besides the pain in the muscles, legs, spain and other parts of the body (which appeared very often), sprained ankles and even broken legs, the worst part of it were the ballet teachers. They were telling you that you are fat and hopeless, and no matter how hard you tried, everything was wrong. It was discouraging, especially when I was younger, and I took to my heart every word they said.  At the beginning it was hard to accustom to this situations, but leater I learned not to draw my attention to this kind of comments.

However I loved it.  I like to complain sometimes for my school, but now I can also say that it have made me stronger, and actually I have a lot of great mamories from this period of my life.
I am looking forward to your comments!

Martyna

Why such an idea...

Welcome on my blog !

First you should know the reason I decided to write this blog. To be honest I had to do it as my task for english classes. It was hard to make a decision what do I should write about, because there are so many things I am interested in.  Finally I've chosen the subject which is the closest to my heart- a dance. The topic is very extensive so I will write something about the theatre, the differents styles of dance but especially I will fix  about me, my own experience and prefenrences as a ballet dancer. For sure I won't forget to mention  about specifity of the ballet school, and some funny rules that prevail there.

That was my short introduction. I hope you will enjoy reading the posts. Please, write the comments.

Martyna