Flexibility

Some people may think being a ballerina its something easy but its no, its something you have to work for and even sometimes manage the pain specially for flexibility.

In every ballet video or presentation we see how dancers put their legs up and how they bend their backs and even if you don't notice it they have flexibility in their arms and shoulders. While we see them dancing it looks very delicate and easy but behind that beauty of the movement there are lots of hours of training and stretching, these movements are not something you can accomplish by stretching for a week sometimes people take months to do it and its all worth it. 

Ballet its what ballerinas love and for some its their life and what they depend on so all this pain its just and add to their dream, in my case its just a way to keep doing it, to keep chasing my dream, but still it hurts and its not easy but we love it. 

Russian Ballet

Russia has its own form of ballet, it practices the "Vaganova method". This style is known for focusing on the artist precision and flexibility rather than focusing on the technique and elegance such as in other styles of ballet. The most famous ballet companies representing this unique style are the Mariinsky Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet. These two companies tour the world and are well known and respected for the excellency. Some of the most notable dancers of the Vaganova method are Nina Ananiashvili, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Mezentseva and others.

Paris Opera Ballet

The Paris Opera Ballet its the oldest company of ballet in the world, it was founded in 1669 as the Academy of Opera and the dance didn't turn into an important part of this until 1673. It had its origins in the court of Louis XIV of France.
They perform in the Palais Garnier where they have been since 1875, they still are an extremely recognized company which have amazing dancers and costumes, and provides incredible presentation to their public.
Their dancers have ranks and they go from highest to lowest: étoiles, premiers danseur, sujets, corypheés and quadrilles.





In this video we see how good are  their dancers, costumes, music, decorations and everything so we can realize how they get to be a famous company.

Ballet Clothes

Ballet clothes have evolution in a big way since the beginning until now.

When the first ballet was created woman's wore dresses with long skirts and the pointe shoes didn't exist so they couldn't be on their points to make turns.

After a long time skirts got shorter and pointe shoes were invented by Anna Pavlova because she was vulnerable to injuries while dancing on pointes, besides she had others foot troubles.

In the actuality skirts are even shorter in some cases, pinte shoes are the same and at the time of representing a character the costumes are more creative and sometimes more colorful. 

It does not matter how long the skirt is or how colorful it is because in my opinion ballet costumes are extremely beautiful and at the same time sophisticated.

How dancers see ballet

I´m going to show a video of Rebecca Krohn a ballet soloist of New York City. In this video she talk about how since she started she wanted to be a good and famous and dancer, she also talks about the movements she have to do and how she have to make them look soft and flexible but at the same time strong. How while we appreciate ballet we can also be "going through a museum of modern art" when in every scene there are little details of past times.
Whe can see the passion of the dancer and how she said that its not only moving but also putting feeling to dance, so once again I say ballet its a way of expressing feeling and to let go of the world for some time.

Most recognized ballet

Romeo and Juliet, they fall in an impossible love because their families are in a constant fight, Frier Laurence secretly marriage them but this doesn't end their troubles,Romeo kill one of her cousins in a fight so he is exiled. Desperate Juliet ask him for help, so he makes a plan. Juliet takes a poison that will put her to sleep so her family and everyone would thing she is dead,Frier would tell Romeo and he would come for her and live happily ever after. But things went wrong.
The letter Frier send to Romeo did not get in time so when he hears she's dead he runs to see her, when he gets there she is still sleeping so he lay down with her and he drinks a poison to kill himself, some minutes later Juliet wakes up and see he's dead so she stabs herself.



Sleeping Beauty, when Aurora is a baby the Carbosse curses her. The curse state that when she turned 18 she would prick her finger and die, the curse turns weaker because of her Lilac fairy and know instead of dying she would fall into a deep sleeping for 100 years and be awakened by a handsome prince.
During her 16th birthday a mysterious guest give her a present, a lovely spindle and she prick her finger and falls sleep. Years later a prince is led to the castle where she is sleeping, where he battles the Carbosse and ten kiss her so she wakes up and then they get married in a beautiful ceremony.
Swan lake, when he was hunting prince Siegfried sees an amazing swam, when he's going to shoot the swan turns into a beautiful woman named Odette, she tells the prince she is under a spell ann during the day she must be a swam and in the night se can be a human, this spell can only be broken if a virgin prince offer her eternal fidelity to her.He happens to be a virgin prince and she tell him that if he refuses she must stay as a swam forever. He immediately falls in love with her, but because of a spell he proposes to another woman in a party thinking that is Odette.
Odette feels devastated so she kills herself and throws into the lake, the prince feels extremely sorry so he throws himself into the lake with her. In a beautiful moment they are turned into lovers in the afterlife.

Most Recognized Ballet

Giselle its about a girl who lives in a village and meet Albrecht a duke who says to be a normal guy and he hide his sword in the woods so no one would find it, he said his name was Loys. Hilarion is in love with Giselle but when he confess it to her she rejects him and choose Loys so he swear revenge.
Hilarion found Loys sword and unmask him and call princes Bathilde who is his fiancée and Loys take Bathilde and leave Giselle. She gets crazy and start dancing until she cross with a sword and fell in her mothers arm in front of a desperate Albrecht.
The music is from Adolphe Adam, choreography by Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli.

La Bayadere, Solor its a warrior that calls Nikiya the Bayadere of the town after he comes from haunting. Gran Brahman is in love with her but she reject him with the excuse that he is a priest of the temple. She met Solor and he promise her his true and eternal love, Brahman swears conjure the ira of the gods.
The Rajah of the province offer Solor the hand of his daughter, Gamzatti,and accept her even after the promise he made to Nikiya, Brahman told them about this promise and Gamzatti tries to suborn her to leave Solor but she doesn't.
 

La Sylphide, on the morning of his wedding a farmer named James falls in love with a vision of a sylph , then a witch appears and tell him he would betray his fiancée, he enchanted by the sylph he disagrees and send the witch away. When he is putting the ring on his fiancée he sees the sylph and run after him, then the witch appears again offering him a scarf that will let him catch the sylph making it impossible to run away from him.
He take the magical scarf but when he catch the sylph her wings falls and she dies, leaving him alone with a heartbroken to go back to his fiancée and see her getting married with his best friend.



The nutcracker, its christmas eve and the Stahlbaum family makes a party, they have to children's, Clara and Fritz. Clara receives a gift which its a nutcracker that everyone liked, Fritz get jealous and break it so Clara magically build the piece and fix him.
At midnight strange things happen and Clara turns into the size of the nutcracker, him and his army is taken by the mouse king, Clara throw her slippers to the mouse king and hit him in the head. The nutcracker turns into a prince and take Clara to the Land of Snow.
At the end Clara wake up at the bottom f the christmas tree hugging her loved nutcracker.

Most recognized ballets

Don Quixote, its based on the novel "Don Quixote de la Mancha", originally staged in four acts and eight scenes.This ballet its about a nobleman that becomes obsessed with ancient stories, so he starts using his imagination to pretend he is a brave night and he is going to save the lady of his dreams which is named Dulcinea. He sees imaginary enemies and starts fighting them.
It began in Moscu,  Russia and then run across the world.

Most recognized ballets

The 10 most recognized classical ballets are Cinderella, Coppelia, Don quixote, Giselle, La Bayadere, La Sylphide, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake.

Cinderella is usually known as a kids story and even though there are countless versions of this story in ballet is the one we all know, but still its a good experience to watch it as a ballet presentation because it gives different ways of understanding the play. Here I leave you a video of it:




Coppelia its about a mysterious inventor who has a dancing doll in real size, then Franz falls in love with her leaving his true love, Swanhilda, which in the second act tries to make him realize the other girl is a doll. This ballet is also know as stronger and deeper one.

Today´s ballet

In this video you can see the difference between today's ballet with the ballet of previous eras. Women wear shorter skirts and you can witness the dedicated development, but tiptoe, more laps followed and coordination. In this case you can see men on stage demonstrating their passion for dance.

Isadora Duncan

This video shows one of the dancers of the era's most recognized, Isadora Duncan who has a film in his honor, in this video we can witness the difference in ballet today. You can see that the dress is long and smooth and moves according to the movements of the dancer, the music goes with the sense of the dancer and all its steps, besides you can see how the person is fully connected to their dancing.

Presentation : History and origin of ballet

With this presentation I'm going to show a part of the ballet origins and history.

Historia del ballet from VivianaRodrigo

Ballet, more than little girls in tutus

This blog will talk about ballet as a passion and a feeling. Trying to also show from the beginning of ballet until now and all of it genres. For me this is an important subject because I would like to show that ballet is something deeper than just a dance is also a way to express oneself and even for some its a lifestyle.

Ballet is a specific form of dance with a specific technique. Depending on the time, countries or choreographic ballet may include dance, mime and theater. It was originated in the history of the Italian Renaissance (1400-1600), and the romantic ballet was in the nineteenth-century romanticism. The modern ballet is the most recent, it was created in 1929. Ballet is a dance that have different methods and positions.

The ballet has 6 genres that are recognized which are, courtly ballet, action ballet, romantic ballet, opera-ballet, Spanish ballet and modern ballet. Each genre has its own style, own clothes and technique, wanting to represent different things in each one of them.

Welcome!