Academic literature on the topic 'Dance, ballet (Children's / Teenage)'

Contemporary dimensions of acting are analyzed in the article. The problem of teaching acting has always been relevant. The complexity of the subject lies in the fact that it is at the intersection of dramatic and choreographic art. There is a lot in common between them, and in many ways, ballet theater draws on the experience of drama theater. However, certain aspects show the fundamental difference between ballet theater and drama. That is why teaching the discipline "Theory and Practice of Acting" imposes specific requirements on educators: it is essential to know and understand the purpose and specifics of the laws of directing and dramaturgy of the drama theater. Moreover, it is equally important to know and understand the specifics of directing and dramaturgy of the ballet theater. In our opinion, an acting teacher should be a director, playwright, choreographer, and performer with practical stage experience at the same time. Acting skills in ballet theater, folk and pop dance, contemporary choreography, children's play dance, etc. are of fundamental importance. Creating images, the ability to convey feelings, thoughts, states, interaction with partners, and emotional communication with the audience - dance cannot exist without all of this. After all, dance, like art in general, is one of the means of communication between people, a way of interacting with the world. It allows one to manifest and express oneself, thoughts about reality, and one's place in it, both in the dance itself and during the training of professional dancers. Â

ABSTRACTIn 1913, at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris, a controversial but highly successful ballet choreographed a circus-style pantomime to the music of Fauré's Dolly Suite. With its apparently incongruent relation of dance to music, the ballet displayed, as one reviewer put it, ‘criticisms in action’. This article investigates how we might conceive the production as an act of musical and cultural criticism, by examining its close relation with contexts such as early comic film, music-hall entertainment, the children's literature market, medical and anthropological theories, and surrealist thought. The ballet implicitly challenged conventional interpretations of Fauré's music as reflecting a particular perception of childhood – one which was rather too close to the sentimental attitudes vehemently dismissed in contemporaneous literature. The production was an important manifestation of an emergent understanding of the ‘childlike’ in early twentieth-century French culture – as a condition enlightened by irrationality, with important physiological traits.

Background and purpose In rhythmic gymnastics, a wide variety of musical works are used to accompany competition programs, so the use of dance fitness equipment becomes especially relevant. Purpose: application of the technique of combining children's and dance fitness in the educational and training process of gymnasts at the initial stage of training. Material and methods 12 athletes aged 6-7 years (girls) who train at the in rhythmic gymnastics of the Dnipro City Council, Dnipro. All participants and their parents agreed to participate in the experiment. The experiment was carried out from October 2022 to April 2023. analysis of literary sources, testing of physical fitness (jumping rope for 15 s, torso tilt forward from a sitting position, test "Bridge", mobility in ankle joint, shuttle run 2x10, torso lift in a sit for 30 s, test "Snake run", test "Three rolls forward"), methods of mathematical statistics. Results The exercises with elements of children's fitness, dance combinations and steps of Kid's Plastic Art and dance directions Zumba, Hip-Hop Body ballet, Afro Jazz, Latin aerobics in combination with the program of sports training of young gymnasts of the initial stage of training were developed and implemented in the training process. It was found that after the research the sportswomen of both groups confirmed statistically significant improvement of indicators of tests (p<0.05; p<0.01; p<0.001), at carrying out of intergroup comparison of results at the end of the research it was found in the experimental group indicators of tests are significantly higher in comparison with sportswomen of the control group (p<0.05). Conclusions The introduction of means of children's and dance fitness into the training process of young gymnasts has a positive influence on physical fitness and emotional state of sportswomen of 6-7 years old.

This article aims to describe strengthening character and love of culture as an effort to fight cultural amnesia through various forms of creativity of the younger generation in Paloh Naga Agrotourism. The research method is an ethnographic method with a naturalistic approach. Collecting data through participatory observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and archiving folklore. The data analysis technique used Spradley ethnographic analysis with a series of analyzes processed using ATLAS.ti software. The research results are; Optimizing the role of the younger generation in cultivating positive characters around Paloh Naga Agrotourism through participation in art training in music, dance, and traditional theatre. While in the field of education, through participation in the Lingkaran Community Learning Activity Center, the program consists of Character Education, Cashier Education (Coastal Children's Area), Taqsir (Taqlimul Qur'an for Coastal Children), Community Reading Parks, and teaching at the Rehabilitation Workshop of the National Narcotics Agency, Deli Serdang District. Furthermore, efforts to fight cultural amnesia in the aspect of cultural love by participating in various activities related to folklore, namely oral folklore performances in the performance of the Paloh Naga Legend ballet, partially oral folklore performances in traditional dance and game practices, and non-verbal folklore training in the course of product exhibitions and traditional cuisine. Furthermore, the regeneration process of the younger generation in fighting cultural amnesia begins with participating in character and art education after fulfilling the requirements to become a volunteer-based on qualifications. Finally, the forms of creativity displayed by the younger generation, include preparing various folklore performances, creating creative dances, playing traditional music and traditional games to strengthen social interaction and the value of creativity, and creating various traditional cuisines.

Background. Staging of rock opera began in Ukraine simultaneously in theaters of drama, opera and musical comedy in the mid-80s. The first drama and ballet performances were based on the works of Russian authors. From 1986 to 1993 Kharkiv Theater of Musical Comedy made stage production of rock operas based on the works of Alexander Zhurbin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alexey Rybnikov leaders of its repertoire policy. Since the 2000s, Odessa Theater of Musical Comedy has staged a dance-rock opera as a new modification of stage play with rock opera. The relevance of the article. Stage performances of dance-rock operas have not yet been sufficiently studied in Ukraine. Such Ukrainian musicologists as Olga Verkhovenko, Iryna Palkina, Halyna Filkevych fragmentarily have studied genre features and performance forms of dance-rock operas. In addition, some periodicals have covered these productions in their critical reviews. Methods. The work is based on a typological method, which made it possible to classify performances as a rock opera genre. The biographical method has also been applied to determine the artistic influences on the choreographer Heorhii Kovtun. The comparative method made it possible to separate the dancerock opera from other productions related to the genre of rock opera, as well as from apologetic performances that exploit already invented forms. When analyzing the performances, some elements of the reconstruction method were used. Results of the study. Odessa Musical Comedy Theater presented four performances in the genre of dance-rock opera, three of which were staged by Heorhii Kovtun. The first (and most successful) production with a new performance approach was the play “Romeo and Juliet” based on Shakespeare’s tragedy with music and libretto by Yevhen Lapeiko (Odessa). A new type of leading performers (selected at casting) appeared in the play. The type of rock opera artist represented by Kyryl Turychenko is characterized by freedom from musical comedy clich&#233;s. A pop singer with appropriate acting, athletic and dance training, he could sing when falling, climbing a two-story stage tower, or during a dynamic dance. Scenography by Stanislav Zaitsev showed a tendency towards brevity, constructiveness and simultaneous development of action in three stage dimensions. Other productions of Heorhii Kovtun – “The Canterville Ghost” and “Silicon Silly Woman.net” based on the works of Russian authors D. Rubin, A. Ivanov, O. Pantykin and K. Rubinsky developed rock opera principles invented by the choreographer rather than deepened them. The director of “The Canterville Ghost” did not quite clearly indicate the vector of the main idea. This led to the breakup of stage action into spectacular theatrical attractions with pyrotechnics and impressive stage design transformations. In fact, it is still not clear what the director was trying to recreate – a melodrama, a comedy with elements of satire or Guignol. The play “Tristan and Isolde” based on the works of the Ukrainian composer Alexander Nezhigai and playwright Serhii Piskuriov was staged by the theater director Vladimir Savinov. His ignorance of musical theater specifics contributed to the vocally and musically weak performance. Most of the action in the stage production was organized by the choreography of Anatolii Bedichev. Contrary to expectations, V. Savinov’s performance was also significantly inferior to Н. Kovtun’s performances in relation to libretto adaptation, stage design and tempo-rhythm of the performance. All rock-dance opera performances were aimed at teenage and youth audiences. Conclusions. Unlike rock operas of the previous decades, the production proposed by choreographer H. Kovtun is characterized by a synthesis of modern choreography, spectacular show, performance universalism and dynamс crowd scenes. As a choreographer, he did not pay much attention to the actors’ work on the characters. Vocally the singers gravitated towards the pop style (using microphones). Unlike earlier productions of rock operas in Ukrainian theater (with phonograms or symphonic jazz instrumentation of the theater orchestra), the troupe of Odessa Musical Comedy Theater performed rock operas with combined accompaniment (studio phonogram, theater orchestra, rock band). Further study of the multiple issues identified in the article requires a deep analysis of the repertoire, types of rock opera in the theater of musical comedy in Ukraine and the distinctive vocal and acting performance features.

The search for improvements in the quality of Physical Education teaching requires an increasing emphasis on teacher training. In this sense, this work presented the result of interventions with the theme of creative and recreational dance developed in a university extension course entitled: recreational games in early childhood and carried out by undergraduate students in Physical Education. For its development, study, research, planning and intervention activities were carried out with Early Childhood Education children aged between 4 and 5 years enrolled in a municipal public school in a city in the state of Tocantins, northern Brazil. The results of the action demonstrated that disciplines focused on the expression of body language are necessary in an attempt to deconstruct prejudices through factual opinions. It can be inferred that interventions with recreation and dance make it possible to stimulate the corporal and subjective development of children. For this reason, it is important that body language expressions are considered when developing public educational policies aimed at Brazilian municipalities.Resumo A busca por melhorias na qualidade do ensino de Educação Física exige cada vez mais ênfase na formação docente. Nesse sentido, este trabalho apresentou o resultado das intervenções com a temática dança criativa e recreativa desenvolvida em um curso de extensão universitária intitulado: jogos recreativos na primeira infância e realizado por acadêmicos do curso de licenciatura em Educação Física. Para o desenvolvimento do mesmo, foram realizadas atividades de estudo, pesquisa, planejamento e intervenção com crianças da Educação Infantil na faixa etária entre 4 e 5 anos matriculadas em escola pública municipal de uma cidade do estado do Tocantins, região norte do Brasil. Os resultados da ação demonstraram que são necessárias disciplinas focadas na expressão da linguagem corporal como tentativa de desconstruir preconceitos por meio de opiniões factuais e que intervenções com recreação e dança possibilitam o estímulo do desenvolvimento corporal e subjetivo das crianças. Por isso, é importante que expressões da linguagem corporal sejam pensadas no momento de elaboração de políticas públicas educacionais direcionadas aos municípios brasileiros.Resumen La búsqueda de una mejor calidad de educación física exige más y más estrés en la formación del maestro. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo comprender cómo los niños experimentan relaciones materiales y simbólicas que ocurren en momentos de manifestación del lenguaje corporal. Este es un informe de experiencia sobre intervenciones llevadas a cabo sobre el tema de la danza creativa y recreativa, insertadas en el proyecto de extensión universitaria: juegos recreativos para la primera infancia, celebrados en una ciudad en el estado de Tocantins, norte de Brasil. Es una investigación de campo descriptiva realizada con estudiantes de pre-educación en Educación Física en una Universidad Federal que formó parte del proyecto de extensión. Las actividades de estudio, investigación, planificación e intervención se llevaron a cabo con niños en edad preescolar en el rango de 4 a 5 años desde una escuela pública municipal que atiende a niños y adolescentes con un perfil de poder adquisitivo. Los datos fueron recolectados de informes preparados por académicos. El análisis descriptivo y los resultados se llevaron a cabo y mostraron que las disciplinas centradas en la expresión del lenguaje corporal son necesarias como un intento de reconstruir el daño a través de opiniones objetivas que pueden generar emancipación.Palavras-chave: Linguagem corporal, Recreação, Dança Infantil, Preconceito.Keywords: Body language, Recreation, Children's dance, Prejudice.Palabras claves: Lenguaje corporal, Recreación, Danza infantil, Prejuicio.ReferencesAWAD, Hani Zehdi Amine; SANTOS, Marcelo Grangeiro; BARBOSA, José Antonio Strumendo in PIMENTEL, Giuliano de Assis Gomes; AWAD, Hani Zehdi Amine Org(s) Recreação total. 1° ed. Várzea Paulista, SP: Fontoura, 2015.ATARA Sivan. Leisure education in schools: challenges, choices and consequences. World Leisure Journal. v 59, n°1, p.15-2, 2017.AUSUBEL, D. P.; NOVAK, J. D.; HANESIAN, H. Psicologia educacional. Rio de Janeiro: Interamericana, 1980.BARDIN, Laurence. Análise de conteúdo. 4. ed. Lisboa: Edições 70, 2010.BOBBIO, Norberto. Elogio da serenidade e outros escritos morais. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2002BOURDIEU, Pierre. A economia das trocas simbólicas. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2013, p.424.BRITO, Angela do Céu Ubaiara; KISHIMOTO, Tizuko Morchida. A mediação na Educação Infantil: possibilidade de aprendizagem. Educação, v. 44, p. 1-19, 2019.BROUGÈRE, G. Brinquedo e cultura. 8º ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 2014.CHEN, Xiaobei; CHEN, Lan. Memories of the Revolution Childhood and the Modernization Childhood in China: 1950s–1980s. European Education, v.48, p.187–202, 2016.COUSINEAU, C. Increasing Outdoor Recreation Participation Through the Schools: A Critical Perspective. World Leisure & Recreation, v.31, n°2, p.38–43,1989.FERNÁNDEZ, Jose Fernando Tabares. El ocio y la recreación en América Latina: una lectura desde los modelos de desarrollo. In: FERNANDEZ, Jose Fernando Tabares; MONTOYA, Arley Fabio Ossa; BEDOYA, Victor Alonso Molina (coord.). El ocio, el tiempo libre y la recreación en América latina: problematizaciones y desafíos. Medellin: Editorial Civitas, 2005.GOMES, Christiane; OSORIO, Esperanza; PINTO, Leila; ELIZALDE, Rodrigo. Lazer na América Latina/ Tiempo libre, ócio y recreación em Latinoamérica. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2009.GOMES, Silvia Cristina Costa; MARTINS, Cristina Amorim. A presença do pensamento de Froebel, Dewey e Montessori nas diretrizes curriculares nacionais para a educação infantil. Encontros Universitários da UFC, Fortaleza, v. 1, 2016.HUIZINGA, J. Homo ludens: o jogo como elemento da cultura. São Paulo: USP, 1971.LIMA, A. J. A. O lúdico em clássicos da filosofia: uma análise em Platão, Aristóteles e Rousseau. II CONEDU. Congresso Nacional de Educação, Anais..., 2015.MARQUES, Isabel A. Corpo, dança e educação contemporânea. Pro-Posições v.9, n° 2, p. 70-78, Junho de 1998.MONDEN, Masafumi. Boys at the Barre: Boys, Men and the Ballet in Japan. Journal Japanese Studies, v.39, n° 2, p.145-167, 2019.NASCIMENTO, Diego Ebling do; AFONSO, Mariângela da Rosa. A participação masculina na dança clássica: do preconceito aos palcos da vida. Reflexão e Ação, Santa Cruz do Sul, v. 21, n. 1, p. 219-236, jul. 2013.PIMENTEL, Giuliano de Assis Gomes. Lúdico o princípio de tudo. In: Teorias do Lazer, Maringá, Eduem, 2010.PIMENTEL, Giuliano de Assis Gomes; AWAD, Hani. Usos e significados da recreação na produção acadêmica. Revista de Educação Pública, v. 29, p. 1-18, 2020.SILVA, Débora Alice Machado; STOPPA, Edmur Antonio; ISAYAMA, Helder Ferreira; MARCELLINO, Nelson Carvalho; MELO, Victor Andrade. A importância da recreação e do lazer. Brasília: Gráfica e Editora Ideal, p. 52, 2011.SOARES, Marília Vieira. Ballet ou Dança Moderna? Uma questão de Gênero. São Paulo na década de 30. Juiz de Fora: Clio Edições Eletrônicas, 43 p. 2002.STORMANN, W. F. Cultural recreations and hierarchy: a historical interplay. Leisure/Loisir, v.34, n° 3, p. 223-241, 2010.STRAZZACAPPA, Márcia. A tal "Dança Criativa": Afinal que dança seria? In: TOMAZZONI, Airton; WOSNIAK, Cristiane; MARINHO, Nirvana (Org.). Algumas perguntas sobre dança e educação. Joinville: Nova Letra, p. 39-46. 2010.WINNICOTT, D. W. O brincar e a realidade. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Imago, 1975, p.13-44, 1971.e3923109

This article presents a description of the cultural and educational exhibition project in the country, dedicated to children’s fine arts in the context of dance art. At all times, the issue of education and enlightenment of young people has always been at the forefront. Such a task caused a variety of not only methodological, but also creative solutions, which were to a greater extent associated with evolutionary processes and the surrounding reality. Today, in the age of the Internet, being in one place, it is possible to attend several events around the world at the same time, including participating in competitions. The purpose of this article is to comprehend, analyze and describe the “Dance of the Heart. Flight of the Soul” republican exhibition, timed to coincide with the International Ballet Day and the 30th anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. To study the topic, the author used analytical and descriptive methods. The sociocultural approach seems to be productive for the study as one of the ways to determine the conditions and main characteristics of the creative environment among children and adolescents, the identification of which will contribute to the development of motivation for creative self-expression and creative competencies of children and youth. In order to comprehend the exhibition project, a review of sources was carried out and conceptual and practical approaches to organizing and conducting a children's creative project were formulated. Thanks to the analysis of the exhibition, it became possible to determine what methods can be used to develop children's and adolescent creativity, and to express of some internal, often unconscious intentions at a similar age.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (nicknamed "The Trocks") have been performing "serious" ballets en travesti since 1974. Acclaimed worldwide, the Trocks are on tour forty weeks a year. Last time they performed in New York, Time Out New York listed them as "pick of the week," in three categories simultaneously: best dance performance, best gay & lesbian event, and best children's activity (Chung). What does all this popularity mean, politically? Is it necessary to concede that the Trocks are merely another lovably harmless manifestation of drag, just as well assimilated as Mrs. Doubtfire and Dame Edna, or can we trace from their double heritage - edgy 1970's gay performance tactics, and those monumentally iconic Russian prima ballerinas - an underlying political strategy of activism and cultural relevance? In this article, I will argue that political motivation is embedded in each of these traditions, in a number of different ways. The strategies of resistance employed by the Ballets Trockadero draw on each of these inherited histories in order to mount a camp performance that confronts the tenets of gender identity, of classical ballet, of issues of race and class in the performing arts, of enforced theatrical illusion - and even of drag itself.

IntroductionClowns can be seen as enacting catastrophe with a small “c.” They are experts in “failing better” who perhaps live on the cusp of turning catastrophe into a metaphorical whirlwind while ameliorating the devastation that lies therein. They also have the propensity to succumb to the devastation, masking their own sense of the void with the gestures of play. In this paper, knowledge about clowns emerges from my experience, working with circus clowns in Circus Knie (Switzerland) and Circo Tihany (South America), observing performances and films about clowns, and reading, primarily in European fiction, of clowns in multiple guises. The exposure to a diverse range of texts, visual media and performance, has led me to the possibility that clowning is not only a conceptual discipline but also a state of being that is yet to be fully recognised.Diminutive CatastropheI have an idea (probably a long held obsession) of the clown as a diminutive figure of catastrophe, of catastrophe with a very small “c.” In the context of this incisive academic dialogue on relationships between catastrophe and creativity where writers are challenged with the horrendous tragedies that nature and humans unleash on the planet, this inept character appears to be utterly insignificant and, moreover, unworthy of any claim to creativity. A clown does not solve problems in the grand scheme of society: if anything he/she simply highlights problems, arguably in a fatalistic manner where innovation may be an alien concept. Invariably, as Eric Weitz observes, when clowns depart from their moment on the stage, laughter evaporates and the world settles back into the relentless shades of oppression and injustice. In response to the natural forces of destruction—earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and volcanic eruptions—as much as to the forces of rage in war and ethnic cleansing that humans inflict on one another, a clown makes but a tiny gesture. Curiously, though, those fingers brushing dust off a threadbare jacket may speak volumes.Paradox is the crux of this exploration. Clowns, the best of them, project the fragility of human value on a screen beyond measure and across many layers and scales of metaphorical understanding (Big Apple Circus; Stradda). Why do odd tramps and ordinary inept people seem to pivot against the immense flows of loss and outrage which tend to pervade our understanding of the global condition today? Can Samuel Beckett’s call to arms of "failing better” in the vein of Charles Chaplin, Oleg Popov, or James Thiérrée offer a creative avenue to pursue (Bala; Coover; Salisbury)? Do they reflect other ways of knowing in the face of big “C” Catastrophes? Creation and CatastropheTo wrestle with these questions, I wish to begin by proposing a big picture view of earth-life wherein, across inconceivable aeons, huge physical catastrophes have wrought unimaginable damage on the ecological “completeness” of the time. I am not a palaeontologist or an evolutionary scientist but I suspect that, if human life is taken out of the equation, the planet since time immemorial has been battered by “disaster” which changed but ultimately did not destroy the earth. Evolution is replete with narratives of species wiped out by ice-ages, volcanoes, earthquakes, and meteors and yet the organism of this planet has survived and even regenerated. In metaphorical territory, the Sanskrit philosophers have a wise take on this process. Indian concepts are always multiple, crowded with possibilities, but I find there is something intriguing in the premise (even if it is impossible to tie down) of Shiva’s dance:Shiva Nataraja destroys creation by his Tandava Dance, or the Dance of Eternity. As he dances, everything disintegrates, apparently into nothingness. Then, out of the thin vapours, matter and life are recreated again. Shiva also dances in the hearts of his devotees as the Great Soul. As he dances, one’s egotism is consumed and one is rendered pure in soul and without any spiritual blemish. (Ghosh 109–10)For a dancer, the central location of dance in life’s creation forces is a powerful idea but I am also interested in how this metaphysical perspective aligns with current scientific views. How could these ancient thinkers predict evolutionary processes? Somehow, in the mix of experiential observation and speculation, they foresaw the complexity of time and, moreover, appreciated the necessary interdependence of creation and destruction (creativity and catastrophe). In comparison to western thought which privileges progression—and here evolution is a prime example—Hindu conceptualisation appears to prefer fatalism or a cyclical system of understanding that negates the potential of change to make things better. However, delving more closely into scientific narratives on evolution, the progression of life forms to the human species has involved the decimation of an uncountable number of other living possibilities. Contrariwise, Shiva’s Dance of Eternity is premised on endless diachronic change crossed vertically by reincarnation, through which progression and regression are equally expressed. I offer this simplistic view of both accounts of creation merely to point out that the interdependency of destruction and creation is deeply embodied in human knowledge.To introduce the clown figure into this idea, I have to turn to the minutiae of destruction and creation; to examples in the everyday nature of regeneration through catastrophe. I have memories of touring in the Northern Territory of Australia amidst strident green shoots bursting out of a fire-tortured landscape or, earlier in Paris, of the snow-crusted earth being torn asunder by spring’s awakening. We all have countless memories of such small-scale transformations of pain and destruction into startling glimpses of beauty. It is at this scale of creative wrestling that I see the clown playing his/her role.In the tension between fatalism and, from a human point of view, projections of the right to progression, a clown occupying the stage vacated by Shiva might stamp out a slight rhythm of his/her own with little or no meaning in the action. The brush on the sleeve might be hard to detect in an evolutionary or Hindu time scale but zoom down to the here and now of performance exchange and the scene may be quite different?Turning the Lens onto the Small-ScaleSmall-scale, clowns tend to be tiny bundles or, sometimes, gangly unbundles of ineptitude, careering through the simplest tasks with preposterous incompetence or, alternatively, imbibing complexity with the virtuosic delicacy—take Charles Chaplin’s shoe-lace spaghetti twirling and nibbling on nail-bones as an example. Clowns disrupt normalcy in small eddies of activity which often wreak paths of destruction within the tightly ordered rage of social formations. The momentum is chaotic and, not dissimilar to storms, clownish enactment bears down not so much to threaten human life but to disrupt what we humans desire and formulate as the natural order of decorum and success. Instead of the terror driven to consciousness by cyclones and hurricanes, the clown’s chaos is superficially benign. When Chaplin’s generous but unrealistic gesture to save the tightrope-act is thwarted by an escaped monkey, or when Thiérrée conducts a spirited debate with the wall of his abode in the midst of an identity crisis (Raoul), life is not threatened. Such incongruous and chaotic trajectories generate laughter and, sometimes, sadness. Moreover, as Weitz observes, “the clown-like imagination, unfettered by earthly logic, urges us to entertain unlikely avenues of thought and action” (87). While it may seem insensitive, I suggest that similar responses of laughter, sadness and unlikely avenues of thought and action emerge in the aftermath of cataclysmic events.Fear, unquestionably, saturates big states of catastrophe. Slide down the scale and intriguing parallels between fear and laughter emerge, one being a clown’s encapsulation of vulnerability and his/her stoic determination to continue, to persevere no matter what. There are many ways to express this continuity: Beckett’s characters are forever waiting, fearful that nothing will arrive, yet occupy themselves with variations of cruelty and amusement through the interminable passage of time. A reverse action occurs in Grock’s insistence that he can play his tiny violin, in spite of his ever-collapsing chair. It never occurs to him to find another chair or play standing up: that, in an incongruous way, would admit defeat because this chair and his playing constitute Grock’s compulsion to succeed. Fear of failure generates multiple innovations in his relationship with the chair and in his playing skills. Storm-like, the pursuit of a singular idea in both instances triggers chaotic consequences. Physical destruction may be slight in such ephemeral storms but the act, the being in the world, does leave its mark on those who witness its passage.I would like to offer a mark left in me by a slight gesture on the part of a clown. I choose this one among many because the singular idea played out in Circus Knie (Switzerland) back in the early 1970s does not conform to the usual parameters. This Knie season featured Dimitri, an Italian-Swiss clown, as the principal attraction. Following clown conventions, Dimitri appeared across the production as active glue between the various circus acts, his persona operating as an odd-jobs man to fix and clean. For instance, he intervened in the elephant act as a cleaner, scrubbing and polishing the elephant’s skin with little effect and tuned, with much difficulty, a tiny fiddle for the grand orchestration to come. But Dimitri was also given moments of his own and this is the one that has lodged in my memory.Dimitri enters the brightly lit and empty circus ring with a broom in hand. The audience at this point have accepted the signal that Dimitri’s interludes prepare the ring for the next attraction—to sweep, as it were, the sawdust back to neutrality. He surveys the circle for a moment and then takes a position on the periphery to begin what appears to be a regular clean-up. The initial brushes over the sawdust, however, produce an unexpected result—the light rather than the sawdust responds to his broom stokes. Bafflement swiftly passes as an idea takes hold: the diminutive figure trots off to the other side of the ring and, after a deep breath and a quick glance to see if anyone is looking (we all are), nudges the next edge of light. Triumphantly, the pattern is pursued with increasing nimbleness, until the figure with the broom stands before a pin-spot of light at the ring’s centre. He hesitates, checks again about unwanted surveillance, and then, in a single strike (poof), sweeps light and the world into darkness.This particular clown gesture contradicts usual commentaries of ineptitude and failure associated with clown figures but the incongruity of sweeping light and the narrative of the little man who scores a win lie thoroughly in the characteristic grounds of clownish behaviour. Moreover, the enactment of this simple idea illustrates for me today, as much as it did on its initial viewing, how powerful a slight clown gesture can be. This catastrophe with a very small “c:” the little man with nothing but a broom and an idea destroyed, like the great god Shiva, the world of light.Jesse McKnight’s discussion of the peculiar attraction of two little men of the 20th century, James Joyce’s Bloom and Charles Chaplin, could also apply to Dimitri:They are at sixes and sevens here on earth but in tune with the stars, buffoons of time, and heroes of eternity. In the petty cogs of the causal, they appear foolish; in the grand swirl of the universe, they are wise, outmaneuvering their assailants and winning the race or the girl against all odds or merely retaining their skins and their dignity by nightfall. (496) Clowning as a State of Mind/ConsciousnessAnother perspective on a clown’s relationship to ideas of catastrophe which I would like to examine is embedded in the discussion above but, at the same time, deviates by way of a harsh tangent from the beatitude and almost sacred qualities attributed by McKnight’s and my own visions of the rhythmic gestures of these diminutive figures. Beckett’s advice in Worstward Ho (1983) is a fruitful starting place wherein the directive is “to keep on trying even if the hope of success is dashed again and again by failure: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better’” (Le Feuvre 13). True to the masterful wordsmith, these apparently simple words are not transparent; rather, they deflect a range of contradictory interpretations. Yes, failure can facilitate open, flexible and alternative thought which guards against fanatical and ultra-orthodox certitude: “Failure […] is free to honour other ways of knowing, other construals of power” (Werry & O’Gorman 107). On the other hand, failure can mask a horrifying realisation of the utter meaninglessness of human existence. It is as if catastrophe is etched lightly in external clown behaviour and scarred pitilessly deep in the psyches that drive the comic behaviour. Pupils of the pre-eminent clown teacher Jacques Lecoq suggest that theatrical clowning pivots on “finding that basic state of vulnerability and allowing the audience to exist in that state with you” (Butler 64). Butler argues that this “state of clowning” is “a state of anti-intellectualism, a kind of pure emotion” (ibid). From my perspective, there is also an emotional stratum in which the state or condition involves an adult anxiety desiring to protect the child’s view of the world with a fierceness equal to that of a mother hen protecting her brood. A clown knows the catastrophe of him/herself but refuses to let that knowledge (of failure) become an end. An obstinate resilience, even a frank acknowledgement of hopelessness, makes a clown not so much pure emotion or childlike but a kind of knowledgeable avenger of states of loss. Here I need to admit that I attribute the clowning state or consciousness to an intricate lineage inclusive of the named clowns, Grock, Chaplin, Popov, Dimitri, and Thiérrée, which extends to a whole host of others who never entered a circus or performance ring: Mikhail Dostoyevsky’s Mushkin (the holy Russian fool), Henry Miller’s Auguste, Salman Rushdie’s Saleem, Jacques Tati, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Eric Satie’s sonic whimsy, and Pina Bausch’s choreography. In the following observation, the overlay of catastrophe and play is a crucial indication of this intricate lineage:Heiner Müller compared Pina Bausch's universe to the world of fairy tales. “History invades it like trouble, like summer flies [...] The territory is an unknown planet, an emerging island product of an ignored (forgotten or future) catastrophe [...] The whole is nothing but children's play”. (Biro 68)Bausch clearly recognises and is interested in the catastrophic moments or psychological wiring of life and her works are not exempt from comic (clownish) modulations in the play of violence and despair that often takes centre stage. In fact, Bausch probably plays on ambivalence between despair and play more explicitly than most artists. From one angle, this ambivalence is generational, as her adult performers bear the weight of oppression within the structures (and remembering of) childhood games. An artistic masterstroke in this regard is the tripling reproduction over many years of her work exploring gender negotiations at a social dance gathering: Kontakhof. Initially, the work was performed by Bausch’s regular company of mature, if diverse, dancers (Bausch 1977), then by an elderly ensemble, some of whom had appeared in the original production (Kontakhof), and, finally, by a group of adolescents in 2010. The latter version became the subject of a documentary film, Dancing Dreams (2010), which revealed the fidelity of the re-enactment, subtly transformed by the brashness and uncertainty of the teenage protagonists playing predetermined roles and moves. Viewing the three productions side-by-side reveals socialised relations of power and desire, resonant of Michel Foucault’s seminal observations (1997), and the catastrophe of gender relations subtly caught in generational change. The debility of each age group becomes apparent. None are able to engage in communication and free-play (dream) without negotiating an unyielding sexual terrain and, more often than not, the misinterpretation of one human to another within social conventions. Bausch’s affinity to the juxtaposition of childhood aspiration and adult despair places her in clown territory.Becoming “Inhuman” or SacrificialA variation on this condition of a relentless pursuit of failure is raised by Joshua Delpech-Ramey in an argument for the “inhuman” rights of clowns. His premise matches a “grotesque attachment to the world of things” to a clown’s existence that is “victimized by an excessive drive to exist in spite of all limitation. The clown is, in some sense, condemned to immortality” (133). In Delpech-Ramey’s terms:Chaplin is human not because his are the anxieties and frustrations of a man unable to realize his destiny, but because Chaplin—nearly starving, nearly homeless, a ghost in the machine—cannot not resist “the temptation to exist,” the giddiness of making something out of nothing, pancakes out of sawdust. In some sense the clown can survive every accident because s/he is an undead immortal, demiurge of a world without history. (ibid.)The play on a clown’s “undead” propensity, on his/her capacity to survive at all costs, provides a counterpoint to a tragic lens which has not been able, in human rights terms, to transcend "man’s inhumanity to man.” It might also be argued that this capacity to survive resists nature’s blindness to the plight of humankind (and visa versa). While I admire the skilful argument to place clowns as centrepieces in the formulation of alternative and possibly more potent human rights legislations, I’m not absolutely convinced that the clown condition, as I see it, provides a less mysterious and tragic state from which justice can be administered. Lear and his fool almost become interchangeable at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy: both grapple with but cannot resolve the problem of justice.There is a little book written by Henry Miller, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder (1948), which bears upon this aspect of a clown’s condition. In a postscript, Miller, more notorious for his sexually explicit fiction, states his belief in the unique status of clowns:Joy is like a river: it flows ceaselessly. It seems to me this is the message which the clown is trying to convey to us, that we should participate through ceaseless flow and movement, that we should not stop to reflect, compare, analyse, possess, but flow on and through, endlessly, like music. This is the gift of surrender, and the clown makes it symbolically. It is for us to make it real. (47)Miller’s fictional Auguste’s “special privilege [was] to re-enact the errors, the foibles, the stupidities, all the misunderstandings which plague human kind. To be ineptitude itself” (29). With overtones of a Christian resurrection, Auguste surrenders himself and, thereby, flows on through death, his eyes “wide open, gazing with a candour unbelievable at the thin sliver of a moon which had just become visible in the heavens” (40). It may be difficult to reconcile ineptitude with a Christ figure but those clowns who have made some sort of mark on human imagination tend to wander across territories designated as sacred and profane with a certain insouciance and privilege. They are individuals who become question marks: puzzles not meant to be solved. Maybe similar glimpses of the ineffable occur in tiny, miniscule shifts of consciousness, like the mark given to me by Dimitri and Chaplin and...—the unending list of clowns and clown conditions that have gifted their diminutive catastrophes to the problem of creativity, of rebirth after and in the face of destruction.With McKnight, I dedicate the last word to Chaplin, who speaks with final authority on the subject: “Be brave enough to face the veil and lift it, and see and know the void it hides, and stand before that void and know that within yourself is your world” (505).Thus poised, the diminutive clown figure may not carry the ferment of Shiva’s message of destruction and rebirth, he/she may not bear the strength to creatively reconstruct or re-birth normality after catastrophic devastation. But a clown, and all the humanity given to the collisions of laughter and tears, may provide an inept response to the powerlessness which, as humans, we face in catastrophe and death. Does this mean that creativity is inimical with catastrophe or that existing with catastrophe implies creativity? As noted at the beginning, these ruminations concern small “c” catastrophes. They are known otherwise as clowns.ReferencesBala, Michael. “The Clown.” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 4.1 (2010): 50–71.Bausch, Pina. Kontakthof. Wuppertal Dance Theatre, 1977.Big Apple Circus. Circopedia. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.circopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page›.Biro, Yvette. “Heartbreaking Fragments, Magnificent Whole: Pina Bausch’s New Minimyths.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 20.2 (1998): 68–72.Butler, Lauren. “Everything Seemed New: Clown as Embodied Critical Pedagogy.” Theatre Topics 22.1 (2012): 63–72.Coover, Robert. “Tears of a Clown.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 42.1 (2000): 81–83.Dancing Dreams. Dirs. Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann. First Run Features, 2010.Delpech-Ramey, Joshua. “Sublime Comedy: On the Inhuman Rights of Clowns.” SubStance 39.2 (2010): 131–41.Foucault, Michel. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as Practice of Freedom.” Michel Foucault: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press, 1997. 281–302. Ghosh, Oroon. The Dance of Shiva and Other Tales from India. New York: New American Library, 1965.Kontakthof with Ladies and Gentlemen over ’65. Dir. Pina Bausch. Paris: L’Arche Editeur, 2007.Le Feuvre, Lisa. “Introduction.” Failure: Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Lisa Le Feuvre. London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2010. 12–21.McKnight, Jesse H. “Chaplin and Joyce: A Mutual Understanding of Gesture.” James Joyce Quarterly 45.3–4 (2008): 493–506.Miller, Henry. The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder. New York: New Directions Books, 1974.Raoul. Dir. James Thiérrée. Regal Theatre, Perth, 2012.Salisbury, Laura. “Beside Oneself Beckett, Comic Tremor and Solicitude.” Parallax 11.4 (2005): 81–92.Stradda. Stradda: Le Magazine de la Creation hors les Murs. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.horslesmurs.fr/-Decouvrez-le-magazine-.html›.Weitz, Eric. “Failure as Success: On Clowns and Laughing Bodies.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 79–87.Werry, Margaret, and Róisín O'Gorman. “The Anatomy of Failure: An Inventory.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 105–10.

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling was, for many Millennials, a defining literary and media experience. The popularity of the series has spawned many fan-made parodies. Meanwhile, in recent years, the classical Petipa story ballet style has begun to give way to more modern structures of choreography. The Marauder’s Son, the culmination of a yearlong choreographic endeavor, is a story ballet that strives to introduce new audiences to classical dance through the use of the first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The full production is available for viewing in the Scripps College Dance Department and on YouTube.

I come to my interest in musical theater dance genetically. My father, Peter Gennaro, was a Tony Award winning choreographer and star dancer/choreographer on Broadway and television variety shows. My mother was a ballerina-turned-Broadway-dancer who danced for Bronislava Nijinska, Agnes de Mille, and Michael Kidd. My father, before becoming a choreographer in his own right, danced for Katherine Dunham, Hanya Holm, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins. My parents were voracious dance and theater goers and I spent my childhood and teenage years seeing great dance and theater that included Judith Jamison in the premiere of Alvin Ailey’s “Cry,” Mikhail Baryshnikov’s first performances with The American Ballet Theatre, the premiere performance of Jerome Robbins’ ...

Abstract Acomo:Ly held belief in dance is that younger is not only better: it is essential. According to some dance professionals, if one is intent on a dance career, the years spent attending college are dangerously detracting. Many young dancers feel compelled to enter professional dance schools or apprenticeship within a company often without even having finished high school. Some professionals hold that those who have not achieved the status of soloist by the age of twenty-one or twenty-two will, in all probability, never rise beyond the ranks of the corps de ballet. In order to become a soloist, one must be dancing professionally by the age of eighteen at the latest. ln other words, all energies, leading up to acceptance into a company, must be directed toward dancing; there can be no question of a college education interrupting the momentum. ‘bile the late teens are unquestionably essential formative years during which young dancers must be engaged in honing their skills, this denies a young dancer the chance to enjoy other, “normal” teenage experiences and ignores the many alternatives that are available for continuing an education. These alternatives include enrolling as a part-time student in a university while engaged in a professional company.