Hi, All the guys please answer

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

I am just wondering how did many of you guys get interested in Ballet? I got interested after I saw Billy Elliot, and after that I kept watching Ballet related movies, such as Center stage and Save the last dance. I got caught up in the midst of it all. seeing them was like watching angels dance on clouds, a pure form of electricity, a raging fire that will never cease to exist. I did tap since I was 3 and I signed up for ballet last year and this is my 2nd year. I must say I love it and since then I have never been so free. I just wanted to meet all the guys who have a passion for ballet.

 

Also to me ballet is it's own form of lyricism and the stage is the music. yea like that to me thats the definition of Ballet.

 

So if you want please share your story and share what ballet is to you. Girls are also welcome.

[Mel Johnson]

I didn't have any one inspiration, except for perhaps Martyn Green and the d'Oyly Carte Opera Company who could all DANCE! I loved Gilbert & Sullivan (and still do) and saw ballet as a means to learn part of how to do the operas "correctly". I started, and before a year was out, ballet had become a goal in itself.

[Guest tdancer]

i got interested in ballet when i was 6 after i saw some ones(not sure whos)production of the nutcracker. there was a guy who was a candy cane and i really wanted to do that, and i have been dancing ever since.(lo and behold 10 years later i still have not been a candy cane. sadly for me, my schools nutcracker does not have a male in that role )

[Mel Johnson]

Let's face it, tdancer, you and I are pretty much alike - we're both hams who love to be the center of attention onstage.

[Guest DancingBoi]

Hmmm, I'm not sure what made me want to start to take dance. I have always been attracted to dance and it wasn't until high school that I began to take part in musicals and dance and that just added fuel to fire. I'm just glad that I found dance... or dance found me!

[Paul Parish]

Guys you are so lucky to be able -- or to have been able, Mel -- to start ballet when you were young.

 

I have always loved to dance, but the only kind of dancing available in my community was square dancing, and then rock and roll -- actually, when I was a kid we still did may-pole dancing on May Day. Which WAS fun.

 

I was a passionate rock and roll dancer, and since the new dances changed every few months, I learned to shake my thang lots of different ways.

 

Luckily, rock and roll was great to dance to, Little Richardwas my favorite, Tutti Frutti is a great dance song -- and the dances were all of them hella fun, multi-centered and polyrhythmic, actually wonderful fun. 50's bop had neat footwork and lots of pretzel turns, the cha-cha was -- is -- a wonderful rhythm, the flourishes were almost like flamenco, you could arch your back all you wanted and lunge deep, the twist and all its successors were really intoxicating. The pony and the mashed potato were my favorites (in the credits to Hairspray, they're doing the mashed potato -- that boy who's always at the edges of the frame in the group dances and outdances EVERYBODY else gets a solo in the credits doing the best mashed potato I've ever seen, but I was really really good myself.)

 

By the way, if you've never seen the movie Hairspray, don't wait another MINUTE -- It's ALL about wanting to dance so bad you can't stand it. Wonderful movie -- rent it. I know it almost by heart, better than the Red Shoes.

 

Didn't start ballet until i was in my 30's, but I'd been dazzled by it when I studied overseas in England and saw the Royal ballet (and indeed, I'd asked my folks to let me take ballet when I was in high school, but it was a 30 mile drive to Vicksburg, and "we can't afford it." Which meant they were afraid I'd be gay. They compromised and let me take piano, after I took my savings and bought the piano. I loved piano -- and indeed, we could NOT have afforded it, since I'd have wanted to take class every day)

 

Sorry to go on so long, but it sounded, tilltheendoftime, like you wanted, really wanted to hear some personal history. Good luck to you. I hope you'll try other forms of dancing, too -- and not just get caught up in technique, and BIG JUMPS, and pirouettes -- For me, the fun of having technique is that it lets me DANCE, and that means listening to the music, and moving poetically, in fantastic ways.

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

It's great to see so many people interested in Dance. To me if it wasn't for dancing, I'd be a full time producer and rapper, either that or dead. As a kid I used to dance so much all the time, I am pretty famous for it in my hometown. . Once I stopped for 2 years I was hanging out with Gangs and living the gangster lifestyle. Thank god I got out of that and found dance again. So to me my post prized possesion is the stage I dance on. I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO SEE BILLY ELLIOT, BOOTMEN, SAVE THE LAST DANCE, AND CENTER STAGE. ALL FANTASTIC WONDERFUL MOVIES. If anyone else has any other movies they want to list go for it I want to know if there is anymore.

[Mel Johnson]

Hang in there, and wait for The Company, Robert Altman's take on the ballet world.

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

The Company? Mm, I have never heard of it. But I am going to check up on it though. I also forgot to mention Dirty Dancing and speaking of Dirty Dancing they are making a second one OMG I am in love with that movie. The second one will take place either before or after the time period around Dirty Dancing 1. This time its going to be like a type of hispanic dance genre I wanna say salsa. Regardless I am going to see it.

 

Also Major, could you help me figure something else since you've been doing Ballet for like ages. Please. There is a song called "When were dancing" by P.Y.T. its on the Center Stage Soundtrack. Go listen to it and tell me if its possible to make a Ballet dance to that song? It'll be fast I know that, but I want to star in a Ballet that will make people take a new approach to Ballet thinking its not just classical music I am going to ask my teacher to use this song. This song has energy in it to me its amazing. If you are open to all kinds of music you'll love it trust me.

[Mel Johnson]

I don't have to listen to it, I remember it. It's choreographable. Remember, the ballet idiom can use all sorts of music, as long as the steps are at least based in classical vocabulary, no matter how loosely. And you shouldn't have too much trouble in finding info on The Company. It opens in NYC on Christmas Day. It "stars" the Joffrey Ballet!

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

OMG my computer was being so retarded in the past few days and I spend 2 hours this morning saving my lyrics of songs and poems and notes to my musical productions. Then to top it off I could not gain access to my internet because of my computer's retardedness, so I could not save this sites link to my computer. So I was devestated so anyways I restarted my computer back to its factory condition, and reloaded the important stuff first, Norton's, McAfee, and the INTERNET!!! Later I am going to load up the other stuff. Thank God I could remember the young dancers forum, so I got on google.com and typed in Young Dancer 16-22 and thank GOD I found it I am so happy .

 

Thanks Mel I am going to ask my teacher tommorrow to see if she will do it. I have a feeling if she does she will make it so amazing that I will play the tape over and over again and show it to everyone I know .

They record the shows because she likes to keep the videos to see what she did and which dancers did that and this so she doesn't repeat anything.

 

So you have heard the "When were dancing" song? I love it. Well anyways I have to get to my doctors and get my immunization checkup information, so I can give it to the college so they know I am safe to go there.

 

Also Mel, How do I practice jumping higher I mean Saschar in Center Stage jumped like he defies gravity. Ok yell at me I don't know the names, I am very very bad with names I am more of a visual person than I am a name person. I learn through my eyes, because ever since I was 3 I was deaf due to the DPT shot from the doctor. So since then I've learned through my eyes. Don't get it wrong. I can still hear I lost 90% of my hearing and I still have 10% left, but with me being able to hear until I got the shot, it benifited me in a good way, I already have learned to use my hearing and already have begun to talk, so I can do both and no I do not know any sign language unless you count the middle finger.

[Mel Johnson]

Sascha Radetzky jumps very well, because he jumps correctly. He takes advantage of a good deep demi-plié with his heels on the floor and takes off from there. When the leg straightens, he continues pushing the jump by rolling through his feet, using every muscle in the feet down to the ends of the toes. And when he comes back down, the process reverses, so that he has an ample spring for the next step, whether it be jumped or not.

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

Wow, Then I admire him. Using all he has to leap indefinitely. I can't wait till later to take my class today. I am in love with it. My sister will be joining me today in the class, I am a bit paranoid because of her remarks at the end of the class due to my tights.Oh well I'll get her back by sayin stuff about her tryin to keep up with us. Oh well I may not even direspect her I may encourage her to keep coming and doing better. She is the only family member I get along with besides my mother (mainly on the fact I was raised by my mother), So in other words I have more respect towards women than I do for men.

 

I am definitly signing up my niece when she this coming summer so she can start her training. She loves to dance and spin, so I figured she'll like Ballet better than tap and hip hop. My sister wants her to do hip hop and I am like um no she is too young and it's all fast paced.

 

Also Mel, why do people generally think Dansuers are gay? For the longest time I've tried to figure that out? . It doesn't bother me I have friends who are gay and they are people just with different interests. Why did men get labled gay if they do ballet?

[Mel Johnson]

People believe that male dancers are gay largely because there are a number of gay male dancers. There are also gay actors, singers, directors, and so on in the arts. There are also a number of gay lawyers, doctors, soldiers, mechanics, and any job that you can name where men work.

 

There are also some very straight arrows in all these jobs. I believe that most of the propaganda about male dancers got started in the middle of the 19th century, when male roles in ballet shrank to nearly nothing, and the ballerina was everything. The men were paid notoriously less than the women, and so it became an urban legend that no man worth his trousers would be a ballet dancer. Indeed, there was a period when all the roles in ballet were danced by women, a curious turnaround from the beginnings of ballet, when all the dancers were MEN! Try jumping around in a 200-pound costume from the Late Renaissance! Plus having the King be an enthusiastic ballet dancer (Louis XIV in France) made it an occupation of choice. But times change, and things change.

[Guest Until The End Of Time]

I just got back from class, I so love that class. She is so proud of me she compliments on me being hard working and so observative. Today was the day I said screw it on worrying about my package situation while wearing the d - belt and tights I was comfortable. . I forgot to ask her about the song mel but I think she has something else planned. because I did a piece of a part and the girls did too, but theirs comes first and mine second, IS THAT BAD? if I could I would take ballet all day everyday. But I can't due to work and soon college. Once I leave my job on Dec. 20th I hope I can find a part time job at the college. I also have a script in the works about a dancer who is a gang member and he is ripped apart to choose the trap of being in a gang or the freedom of dancing, but instead the thug life catches up with him and kills him. I want a movie that can be eye opening and I am writing it.

 

I gotta feed my two airedales so I'll check on later ttyl.