Tuesday, January 22, 2013

One step closer...

Just registered with the state of Oregon the business "Steens Mountain Ballet"...Yay!

Monday, January 21, 2013

History of Ballet

Quoted From Wikipedia

Ballet is a formalized form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries. It quickly spread to the French court of Catherine de' Medici where it was developed even further. In the late 17th century Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) within which emerged the first professional theatrical ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet. The predominance of French in the vocabulary of ballet reflects this history. Theatrical ballet soon became an independent form of art, although still frequently maintaining a close association with opera, and spread from the heart of Europe to other nations. The Royal Danish Ballet and the Imperial Ballet of the Russian Empire were founded in the 1740s and began to flourish, especially after about 1850. In 1907 the Russian ballet in turn moved back to France, where the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev and its successors were particularly influential. Soon ballet spread around the world with the formation of new companies, including London's The Royal Ballet (1931), the San Francisco Ballet (1933), American Ballet Theatre (1937), The Australian Ballet (1940), the New York City Ballet (1948), the National Ballet of Canada (1951), and the Delhi Ballet (2002).[1]
In the 20th century styles of ballet continued to develop and strongly influence broader concert dance, for example, in the United States choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet, subsequent developments have included contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet, for example seen in the work of William Forsythe in Germany.
The etymology of the word "ballet" reflects its history. The word ballet comes from French and was borrowed into English around the 17th century. The French word in turn has its origins in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance). Ballet ultimately traces back to Italian ballare, meaning "to dance".

 We will be learning lots of French :)

Flooring Ordered!

This is an exciting process to convert half of our out building into a dance studio...We want to make sure we create an inviting and safe environment for our dancers. We are putting in a professional vinyl dance floor or "marley" floor as it is sometimes called over a sub-floor. This flooring gives just the right amount of resistance and has some give to it as well, with our sub-floor and the marley it will also be safe on joints. It is very specialized so no street shoes are allowed on the floor so that it can maintain the quality. I am so excited for it to arrive! Pictures to come...