The Simple Summary of Technique.

For a dancer to be capeable to try ballet they need some or all of a few things:

-Perfection in their movements

-Natural Musical Rythum

-Natural Flexibility

-Born with good turnout, feet arches, loose and bendy backs

-Dance Quality

-Good posture

-Confidence in performance

-Want to be Healthy, Fit and Strong

These are just a few things that most dancers need to grow at ballet.
All dancers have their problem in their body/performance technique and ballet is just one type of athletic excersise that you always can be better and work harder.

One of the main points in Ballet technique is turnout.
Turnout is how the foot turn at the hip away from the body.
It is how a dancer keeps their balance when moving so quickly.
It starts from the inside of the top of the thigh where you rotate the muscles outward. You then, using the inner thigh muscles, rotate the knee and the foot as far as they will 'turnout' naturally.
Flat turnout is the best turnout anyone can have and it is quite rare. It is when the foot is at 180 degrees to the legs.

Upcoming Dance Events.

Heres a few different links for Dance events coming up.
Both Ballet and other types of dancing shows around the world.

Ticketmaster .com

Ticketmaster .ie

Ticketsnow .com

Who?!

One of the most famous dancers in europe is Darcey bussell.

Darcey Bussell was born in London in 1969. She went to the Arts Educational School and then auditioned for the Royal Ballet School. She won one of eight places at the age of thirteen. The other girls had been in the school since they were eleven, so Darcey was behind. She would practise in her free time and when school had finished.
She went to summer lessons with Svetlana Beriosova, and She then got accepted into the Royal Ballet's Upper School in West London.

While she was still at school, Kenneth MacMillan gave her the leading role in his ballet 'The Prince Of The Pagodas', causing her to move to The Royal Ballet.

She has danced many dances, and obtained many awards but is now retired as a principle dancer at the Royal Ballet but is now a ''guest principal artist'' in the company. She Has different imputs in yoga and pilates also.

Why?!

So why was ballet started and why do is it still danced today?

Why Start?

It was used in the 1500s to entertain King Louis from France and was one of the most popular forms of dance ever since.

During the Renaissance, people developed a great interest in art and learning. At the same time, trade and commerce expanded rapidly, and the dukes who ruled Florence and other Italian city-states grew in wealth. The dukes did much to promote the arts. The Italian city-states became rival art centres as well as competing commercial centres.

The Italian dukes competed with one another in giving costly, fancy entertainments that included dance performances. The dancers were not professionals. They were noblemen and noblewomen of a duke's court who danced to please their ruler and to stir the admiration and envy of his rivals.

Catherine de Medicis, a member of the ruling family of Florence, became the queen of France in 1547. Catherine introduced into the French court the same kind of entertainments that she had known in Italy. They were staged by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, a gifted musician. Beaujoyeulx had come from Italy to be Catherine's chief musician.

Why Continued?

Today Ballet is still danced by people of all ages.
Children start when they are young as their parents want to give them fitness, grace and posture.
If the dancer continues from start (about 4 years old) to teens the dancing gets much more difficult and turns into a serious hobbie.
It is great fitness as you need alot of stamina and it uses all the muscles in the body. You gain flexibility and strength but also poise for when your older. You also gain a broader sense of music and how to dance to all kinds of different music.

Darcey Bussell - La Bayadere

Darcey Bussell - La Bayadere
Uploaded by guy-paul

Darcey Bussell in the variation of "Gamzatti" in the 2nd act of "La Bayadere". Natalia Makarova's version with the Royal Ballet of Londres.

Where?!

So where did ballet start?

It first started in Italy in the 1300, but it was not really very popular and it died down. It started up again in the 1500s to entertain King Louis from France and was one of the most popular forms of dance ever since.

Domenico da Piacenza (1390-1470) is credited with the first use of the term ballo instead of danza for his baletti or balli which later came to be known as Ballets.
The first Ballet is considered to be Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Royne (1581) and was a ballet drama. ALso in 1581 the publication of Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino (a technical manual on ballet dancing) establish Italy as a major centre of ballet development.

Ballet has its root in Renaissance court spectacle in Italy, but was particularly shaped by the French ballet de cour.
The 18th Century was a period of great advancement in the technical standards of ballet and the period when ballet became a serious dramatic art form on par with the Opera.

In the 19th Century, Ballerinas found new techniques, such as pointework, that rocketed the ballerina into prominence as the ideal stage figure, and teachers like Carlo Blasis codified ballet technique in the basic form that is still used today.

Ballet is found mostly in Europe, America and Russia.

(wiki.answers.com)

The Blog of Ballet.

Hey I'm Kathryn McGurk.

This is my blog of the Geography of Ballet.

I dance about 8 hours of ballet a week as my fitness and serious hobby.
I have done ballet since I was 4 years old and I am now 16.
I have pulled the muscles, danced in loads of shows, completed loads of exams.
I dance with the Goode School of Dance in different places all around Dublin since the beggining and i love it!

This blog is going to be all about how Ballet came to what it is today and how it spread around the world.
It's also about how it turned from a career in entertainment to a popular serious hobby.

There are loads of different ideas about where ballet originated.. From France, Russia, Middle-East and Australia.. i want to find out exactly where.

This Blog is going to answer the Whys, Whos, Wheres and Hows of the Geography of Ballet.