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Royal Ballet School: Healthy Dancer Programme
After four years of development after review in 2015, Royal Ballet School has released a film introducing their “world-class healthcare programme”. The Healthy Dancer Programme was founded on the belief that to best prepare students for the life of a professional classical ballet dancer, attention must be paid to their overall physical, mental, and emotional…
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How Pointe Shoes Are Made
The next time you wonder, “Why are pointe shoes so darn expensive?!” re-watch this video. It shows a behind-the-scenes look at the artistic process behind the pretty, shiny pointe shoes that ballet dancers often take for granted. From the initial sketches to the final touches, there is so much attention to detail and manual precision…
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Retirement from Ballet
Not long after hanging up my pointe shoes and cutting my hair to a chin-length bob, a friend asked me what it felt like having retired from ballet. Taking a few seconds to gather my thoughts, I responded, “It’s liberating. It’s liberating to not be defined by my job. I am no longer the ‘friend…
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Ballet Fan Practice
There are many props used in ballet, but one of the most iconic is the ballet fan used by Kitri in her third act variation in Don Quixote. Learning this variation is somewhat a rite of passage for budding ballerinas. During my years as a teacher, I have worked on Kitri’s famous solo numerous times,…
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Discover Ballet in Cuba
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has an online video series called The Local that focuses on the cultural offerings of their port destinations. This particular episode shares the story of Gabriel and her life as a student at the Cuban National Ballet School; she is dedicated to one day becoming a dancer with National Ballet of…
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Ballet Body Image
Ballet dancers are obsessed with having the ideal ballet body. But what does that even mean? And what if there were a way that focus on artistry and technique were always just as important as focus on “perfecting” our ballet body image? Most dancers owe much of this obsession to their self-inflicted struggle to be…
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Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta Dancing Don Quixote
Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta dancing Don Quixote is probably one of the best pairings of this ballet in…well, in ballet history. Here in the 1st Act Finale of Acosta’s production for The Royal Ballet, the individual finesse of each of these dancers is as exciting to watch as the trust they have in each…