Beautiful Ballet

I am about to introduce you with my biggest passion, dancing. There is no official, standard definition of dancing. Each person has their own interpretation, especially if they are dancers themselves. I have been crazy about dance since I was probably 12 years old. Soon after, me and my friend joined local dance school and we started practicing mixture of ballet and hip-hop, which at first was too good to be true. Why? Because I come from a small town which focus is on tourism and not on dance education at all. So that school was a dream come true for me. I trained for about a year, year and a half when I got sick. I had a bad flu which lasted for about 2  or 3 weeks. And we all know what that means. I missed a lot, I needed to focus on my grades and suddenly, my dancing "career" was over. Two years later, I joined the team again. Sadly, hip-hop was abolished so my only choice was ballet. When I saw children only, I realized that I was way to old for ballet. So I quit after some time again. When I was about 16, I joined a newly created hip-hop group with a few of my friends. I trained for about a year and a half, maybe more. We had a few stage performances but that was about it because many people from the team needed to concentrate on school, including me. After all, it was the last and the most important year of high school. Long story short, I 've experienced a lot of other dance styles during the years. ( e.g. jumpstyle, zumba, cheerleading ) Even though I respect every single style the same, ballet will always be, lets say, the best thing I never had. So the question is why, why ballet?

 

Classical ballet is one of the most demanding and difficult forms of dance. It has been taught in ballet schools all around the world since 1581. It requires perfection and perfection only. In ballet, there is no in between. Each move and each emotion need to be flawless. Ballet dancers are both artists and athletes who must work extremely hard if they want to become successful someday. And by hard I mean they need to dedicate their lives to it. Ballet requires sacrifice and a lots of discipline. A dancer's life is full of rehearsal, from minimum 3-4 to 5-6 hours. Dancers  need to be healthy from head to toe, inside and out. They also need to be mentally strong. If the dancer is especially talented, he may be promoted to soloist and then to principal dancer. And if the dancer is incedibly taleted, he may become prima ballerina or premier danseur. Even though most of the people only see the good side of being a dancer such as performances, gorgeous costumes and make up, life of a typical dancer is not easy at all. There is no ballet dancer who doesn't have foot or knee injuries. That means that they are in constant pain, the pain they need to cover with a smile. Every ballet dancer, I believe, wants to be the best, the one on the top. Sadly, most of them end up feeling disappointed, betrayed and lost in the shadow of some better, stronger, prettier dancer. Competition is fierce and they must be prepared for the worst. Most retired dancers, whether injured or rejected, end up being teachers, choreographers or ballet administrators, while some end up being artistic directors or producers.

This is by far the best ballet documentary I ever watched. It confirms everything I previously wrote.

It follows six young and talented dancers on their journey to become noticed, accepted and awarded.

All six of them are preparing, both mentally and physically, to compete on Youth America Grand Prix, largest international student dance competition. Whoever impresses the judges the most, wins a scholarship and many other awards. This competition is held each year, with final competitions taking place in New York. Every ballet dancer between 8-19 years old with ballet and contemporary dance style is more than welcome.



This is one of the dancers that appear in the movie, Miko Fogarty.

There is something special about ballet. Everything around us has changed in some way e.g. people, technology, music, cities, fashion but not ballet. Ballet is still the same and will always be the same.

Fascinating, isn't it?