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World Ballet Day

Oct 03 2018

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Some of the countless reasons why figure skating remains such a beloved sport include artistry, elegance, and grace.  However, these attributes are not always attributable to skating itself.  In academics, mathematics is foundational for the sciences.  In the arts, ballet lies behind all great figure skating.

 

Skating never taught me that a dancer’s posture is beauty itself.  Skating never taught me how to move my body with such precision and freedom.  Skating never taught me that one sweeping motion of the arm feels like motion lingering through time and space.  Ballet instructed me in the quick snap of a jump; ballet taught me to esteem both strength and flexibility.  Ballet instructed me its rich artistic history, its gorgeous lines, its movements, and its passion.

 

Ballet taught me in a way nothing else ever could to communicate the emotion of my soul in the motion of my body.

 

In celebration of World Ballet Day, I would encourage you to continue in ballet or sign up for your first class!  Ballet will not only mold you into an artist and increase your sensitivity to the feelings within music, it will also help develop your flexibility and strength (especially your core and static strength).

 

If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out this clip of my favorite ballerina in my favorite ballet by my favorite composer:  Svetlana Zakharova and Denis Rodkin in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.  Also watch this rehearsal video from the Royal Opera House where Fumi Kaneko and Nehemiah Kish dance the Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux from The Nutcracker.  (I have fond memories of watching The Grand Rapids Ballet Company’s version of this as a child in their production and it is still one of my favorites!)

 

Happy world ballet day.  May you jeté all day.