A Sea of Ink

When I walked into my first ballet class, I was expecting it to be easy. I was not expecting the workout I received and I did not anticipate the sore muscles which followed. I was surprised at how something that looked so effortless could be so demanding on one’s body. I quickly learned otherwise. Although dance is not categorized as a sport but rather as an art form, ballerinas and their male counterparts are athletes. Few non-dancers understand the level of athleticism required to be a professional ballet dancer. Multiple myths suggesting simplicity surround ballet, perhaps as a result of the glittery costumes, stage makeup, and tights. However, a normal workday for a professional dancer, occurring 6 days per week, includes 10 hours of intense exercise, including evening performances. Outside work hours, dancers still make time to go to the gym and work on their upper body strength or do yoga and cardiovascular exercises to keep up their flexibility, strength, and endurance. It ta...

Creating a Holiday Classic The Moscow Ballet Nutcracker Behind the Scenes “I remember when I was little, really little, I would watch the NYC ballet every Christmas. I thought that was the coolest thing ever,” said 15-year-old Sophie Pickett, a dancer at Rising Star Tumbling and Dance Studio. “My mom had these pointe shoes for decoration in our house and they totally fit me at the time so I partied around in those during the Nutcracker, and that’s when I was like ‘I want to do this. This is cool!’” 29 Casper ballet students joined 40 professional dancers onstage December 7 th for a performance of the Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker. Following auditions with Moscow Ballet dancer Olena Nalyvaiko on October 17 th at host dance studio Beautiful Feet, the selected dancers were taught their choreography by Nalyvaiko herself, and then given seven weeks to rehearse. “It’s not just like one practice and its perfect, it takes so much work and time and dedication to this for...