Thank you for visiting "The Wonderful World of Dance" web site. I hope that you have been enriched by the beautiful Art of Dance. This page contains additional links of interest for dance enthusiasts.
The lovely dancer in the top right corner is performing a fouette (to whip) turn. This turn is the high point of a solo dancer's performance to complete 32 fouettes is the goal.
CELEBRATE NATIONAL DANCE WEEK APRIL 25-MAY 4, 2003
DANCE MAGAZINES AND PUBLICATIONS
How important is reading dance trade journals? To a Dancer, Artistic Director or dance studio teacher/owner it is very important to keep current with what is happening in the industry. This is how they learn of auditions, where to purchase special flooring, costumes, stage sets, and more. One website out of the United Kingdom has links to over 25 different dance related publications. Some of my favorites are Dance Magazine and Voice of Dance. These publications cover everything from upcomming auditions, new dance reviews, dance scholarship programs, how to select a college with a decent dance program or how to mend a dance injury. Major Ballet companies have a link complete with updated news and history.
DANCEWEAR AND SUPPLIES
Equally important to the dancer is the dancewear and costumes, there are 3 names that have been associated with dance supplies for many years. Baum Dancewear and Costumes, is a 4th generation family owned business that dancers have depended on for over a century. Over 100 years ago Salvatore Capezio, who was born April 13, 1871 in Muro Lucano, Italy opened a cobbler shop in his new country the United States of America. Capezio became a cobbler in 1887 and opened a shop on Broadway and 39th Street across from the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. His sign read, "The Theatrical and Historical Shoemaker." Bloch Dance Supplies was started by Jacob Bloch who left his native Russia in 1931 for Australia in 1932 Bloch had made his first pointe shoes. With distribution and manufacturing in the USA, Australia, Canada and Europe, Bloch has been a shoemaker of choice for many major ballet companies.
Some sites are dedicated to dance costumes only like Ballet Costume.com, another site claims to have close out name brands,advertising leotards for $12.00 and tights for $3.00 - Danny's Warehouse is located in Culver City, California. Many reliable dancewear and suppliy companies can be found through the United Dance Merchants of America website.
Here is some trivia about the word "leotard"
A Frenchman named Jules Leotard invented the tight-fitting one piece outfit that still bears his name, in addition he designed the trapeze. Born in 1838, Leotard was the son of a gymnastics teacher and claimed that his parents often hung him upside down as a baby to stop him from crying. His father had hoped he would become a lawyer, but instead Leotard made a sensational debut in Paris at the Cirque Napoleon in 1859, swinging from a series of short horizontal bars suspended on ropes (the world's first trapeze and wearing a leotard-a sharp contrast to the showy sequined costumes sported by most of his fellow performers. Leotard soon became so popular that other acrobats adopted both his moves and his costumes, and he inspired the now-famous song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze." He died of smallpox in 1870.
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST
Learn more about a real performing arts high school, Fresno's Roosevelt School for Performing Arts.
*Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and other standard classic ballets what is the history of these great classics? Click on the classical ballet link at Art of Ballet.com also some cool photos, artwork and dance clip art available.
*Frequently asked questions like; What is a barre? What is a Tutu?....and why do they call it that?
*Called the "Russian Degas" view the artwork of Valery Kosorukov who now lives in New Orleans, LA.
*Learn more about my favorite composer and namesake Aram Khachaturian. Khachaturian is known for vibrant ballets like "Spartacus" and "Gayaneh". Khachaturian understood a dancer and what an audience wanted to see and hear.
"The art of dance should embody high humanistic ideals and themes of social significance, reflecting the life and struggle of nations, and the spirtual suffering of the human soul".
-A. Khachaturian
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