Ballet Steps Through History

From its advent in the pageantry of the Renaissance period of the 15th century, ballet has become an expression of your soul by dance. During the Renaissance period in Italy, Domenico da Piacenza, a master of the arts, taught nobles and others to perform in the court. These musicians and dancers performed for extravagant events such as weddings. With the introduction of the Ballets de cour, performances showcased dancers with beautiful costumes and voices for song. The art of ballet saw great development in the courts of France in the 16th century, when Catherine de Medici of France married Henry II of Italy. Catherine de Medici helped ballet flourish in France, thus most of the terms have French origin.

In 1581, Le Ballet Comique de la Reine was performed in Paris and told the story of a magical sorceress, Circe, being defeated by King Henry III. This was considered to be the first ballet and was staged by Balthasar de Beaujoyeux. He was an Italian composer, violinist, dancer and choreographer. He worked in the court of Queen Catherine de Medicis.

During the reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King) from 1643 to 1715, ballets of the French court thrived. Italian-french composer, Jean Baptiste Lully, and French choreographer, Pierre Beauchamp, created many of these ballets. Beauchamp is credited for documenting the five basic positions of the feet.

L'Academie Royale de Danse was established in 1661 under Louis XIV. Here professional dancing was born in a room of the Louvre. Initially, dancers were men until 1681 when female dancers performed in Le Triomphe de l'Amour.

Ballet began to evolve, in time. Elegant moves were displayed with toe dancing. The lines of the body could be better seen in tutus as opposed to floor length hoop skirts. This was evident in La Sylphide, a romantic ballet danced in Paris in 1832. La Sylphide is the story of a sylph (fairy) and a Scottish farmer named James on his wedding day.

A famous ballet, Giselle, followed in 1841. Giselle is a peasant girl, who becomes a beautiful sylph known as a Wili that dances in the Rhineland forest. The Wilis have met their fate by dying before becoming wed. After midnight, filled with a grudge, the Wilis descend upon human males who may happen into the forest, never to be seen again.

In the latter part of the 19th century, Marius Petipa, chief choreographer of the Imperial Russian Ballet, contributed to the brilliance of the ballet world with The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake (also choreographed with Lev Ivanov of Russia.) The score to these famed story ballets were by Tchaikovsky.

The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet which begins with the celebration of the birth of Princess Aurora. Unfortunate events occur when the King and Queen forget to include the evil fairy Carabosse who in turn casts a spell upon Aurora to die on her sixteenth birthday. The spell was to be invoked after Aurora gets pricked by a pin. The kingdom's fairy of protection, the Lilac Fairy, casts her own spell for Aurora to sleep and awaken 100 years later by the kiss of a Prince. A famed ballet virtuoso of the time, Enrico Cecchetti, danced the parts of Carabosse and the Blue Bird. The Cecchetti method of ballet, named for Enrico Cecchetti, involves strict technical training and the understanding of individual ballet movements to the body as a whole.

Set in medieval Germany, the ballet Swan Lake tells the story of Prince Siegfried and his love for the captivating Odette who is a swan by day, gliding in the lake of tears. From midnight to dawn, she lives in her human form. Odette and her companions have fallen under the spell of the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart. The only way to undo the curse is to marry a prince who is pure of heart. Through deception and storms, Von Rothbart tries to maintain his spell. However, his efforts were in vain, foiled by the true love of Prince Siegfried and the swan Odette.

The Nutcracker premiered in 1892. This famed work itself had a journey. Initially, the ballet was based on the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," by E.T.A. Hoffman and later revised by the French writer Alexander Dumas. Ivan Alexandrovitch Vsevolojsky, director of the Imperial Russian Ballet decided to make Dumas' transformation entitled "The Story of a Hazelnut-cracker" to a ballet. Marius Petipa and Pyotr Tchaikovsky again collaborated.

Unfolding at the annual Stahlbaum Christmas Eve party, Clara, a German girl, is given the gift of a nutcracker by her godfather Drosselmeyer. Her brother Fritz breaks the nutcracker which is soon repaired. Yet after the party, a worried Clara sneaks down to check on her beloved nutcracker and falls asleep. Magical dreams come to her of the nutcracker, a mouse king, a prince, and lands of snow and sweets.

In modern times, The Nutcracker was staged with the vision of George Balanchine. As a youth in Russia, Balanchine danced for the State Theater of Opera and Ballet. He also had exceptional knowledge of music having studied at Petrograd Conservatory of Music. With this experience and his genius, he became principal choreographer for the Ballet Russe. He later brought his expectations to the United States in 1933 and revolutionized American Ballet. Under Balanchine, The New York City Ballet Company performed The Nutcracker in 1954. The Nutcracker remains a holiday classic.

Throughout the centuries, ballet has become so refined in music, costumes and movements. Exquisite extensions are showcased from the point of the toe shoe to the aura surrounding the dancer. Ballet steps through history as art.

Learn more about the art form of ballet by visiting me at: http://ballet-steps-of-shannon.com/

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Four Simple Steps to Acting Success

I don't know if anyone would argue with the statement, "Acting is a career". If you want to argue about that, please post your disagreement below. For those who are still reading, the reason I point out that acting is a career is that maybe, just maybe it has something in common with other careers. The fact is if you look at the most successful people in the world, no matter what they do, they go through more or less the same steps before they can really be considered successful. Eventually I would love to create a full blown course where all the steps and everything in between are contained but for now, I'll just give away the basic secrets...

The Four Basic Steps to Career Success are:

Committing/Planning - if you don't have a target, you're not going to hit anything so it is crucial to outline at least a basic plan so that you can get a sense of where you are at any given point in your quest. The planning stage is where you delineate the steps you will take in order to achieve your dreams. They should be clear, specific, and actionable.
Training/Education - Once you know what you want to do, you have to learn how to do it. Find a training program that matches your personality and learning style and sign yourself up. While training, get involved in any industry events, activities you can to bring meaning and understanding to what you are learning.
Apprenticeship - After completing your basic training, seek out employment in your chosen field. If you are an actor, this could mean doing student/indie films or it might mean interning at a casting office/production company.
Continuing Education/Application - Now that you are ready to begin working, begin the application process. As an actor this means trying to get auditions, representation, creating marketing materials and working those industry contacts. Now that you are considered a professional actor, continuing education is crucial. This doesn't mean taking classes necessarily but gaining more and more knowledge of the process of film and TV production. The more you know, the more you can ensure your role contributes to the overall production, increasing the chances.

If you follow these simple steps, you can pretty much guarantee at least some level of success in your acting or any other career. The amount of success simply depends on how much work you put in.

Keep Hackting!

Hi, My name is David Patrick Green. I'm a working actor who you may have seen on TV and film. I also have an MBA so I'm applying business principles to acting to reduce the time and cost of having the acting career you want in Hollywood or any other 'wood.

Learn more about yourself and how you can accelerate your acting career success at http://www.hackhollywood.com/.

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Busking / Street Performing - 5 Steps for Creating a Show

The following notes are written from the perspective of putting on a Juggling show (as I am a professional Juggler) but they will still be of some use for other types of performance such as musicians, acrobats etc. Above all, the show should be car-crashable (people slowing down to see what is happening), fast paced with lots of things happening, and without any change of people getting bored (ditch the rubbish routines and any jokes or banter that isn't working!)

Your first decision when busking is whether to just perform your skills over and over again in the hope that people might stop and watch you for a few seconds and drop some money into your hat or whether you are prepared to put in a bit of effort and work on a show that lasts at least 10mins (but even better if it is for 20+ minutes) of their precious time. If you can create such a show using the guidelines below, then a sizeable portion of the audience you have gathered will give some money for being entertained when you pass round the hat at the end (as long as you have the right patter to encourage them to do so!)

5 Steps to Creating a Busking/Street Entertainment Show

Gathering an audience: I usually find that the best way to gather a crowd is to start laying out my props. This will get some peoples curiosity and alert them to the fact that something is happening! It may not bring them over, but they may just lurk in the background waiting till something happens before coming closer! If you can find enough curious people looking at what prop you are next bringing out your bag (and if your props are interesting eg binbags, parasols, rubber chickens, toothbrushes etc) to peak their curiosity, then you should be able to gather them when it is time to begin! If you want to mark an area that they must not step across, then use either a rope or a bottle of water (make a line out of water).
First Routine: This has to be good! It is usually your 2nd best routine. of the whole show (as you build up to finish with your best). There are some people who have already been hanging around waiting for you to start the show and you don't want to disappoint them! If you don't have a lot of confidence at speaking, then perhaps a musical number to show off some of your skills is appropriate? If the audience can sing along and be encouraged to clap then this will alert others that something is happening and create a larger crowd!
Middle of Show: Now that the audience have started to get to know you, this is the time when you can start letting them know that you will be passing round a hat at the end to collect some money. This is also the time that you might want to make some stars out of audience members by including them in some of your routines. Make the audience feel like part of the show as this will keep them interested.
Final Routine: Do something impossible or seemingly impossible. Say it's impossible. Make it look impossible. Build up to doing the final trick successfully by using as much Comedy and other skills as necessary, but don't let it drag out too long or else you will lose some of your audience! This is another good opportunity to use volunteers.You can make the trick look harder by deliberately dropping a few times to build up the tension (as long as you also have some fantastic drop lines to cover yourself and keep the audience entertained)!
Collecting Money: The hardest part of the show! You need to train the audience to not just disappear as soon as you have taken your bow. If you have made some good friends in the audience through your banter and picking volunteers, then they will most likely give you some money. You will need to develop some fantastic "hat lines" to help encourage the audience to willing part with their hard earned cash!

Other Issues

Volunteer / Audience Participation: Audience participation is usually the most memorable and funny part of street shows! If done properly, the volunteer should always be made to look like a hero and be able to leave the stage with a fantastic round of applause and cheering. If you can make the audience laugh and clap loudly, then this will attract more people to join them! You might even find that you have made some new friends who will be the first in line when you pass the hat round at the end!

Audience Control: If you have gathered a huge amount of people to watch your show, then you will occasionally need to stop your performing and expertly reign them in to allow for other pedestrians to go about their daily business. If appropriate, you may be able to get some kids who can't see at the back to make up a new front row sitting down. Using a bottle of water, you can draw out a line, and asking the audience to move right up to the line in one swoop is much better than picking on individuals. This becomes easier with practice, and if you can find entertaining ways of herding the crowds, then it can become an enjoyable part of the show and also help the audience to feel like an audience! The first row should act like a fence which should stop other people from walking onto your stage.

Stage: Leaving the stage area creates a mystery (but come back quickly and have a reason for leaving that is explained as soon as you return!) Bringing a volunteer on at any point in the show can renew the audiences concentration and energy. Jumping up high or doing some high tricks, as well as making full use of however large a stage are you have helps change peoples background and perspective.

Steve Thomson is a professional juggler based in the United Kingdom. He has an online juggling store (UK only) called Jugglingworld.biz.

He has written more articles on Busking, and his Jugglingworld Website has tricks pages and beginners guides for over 30 different skills-based props so if you ever want to learn a new skill, this is the place to start! Tricks Section.

Twitter name is @stevejuggler

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