Now on a different stage, applause of a different kind (Real Estate Weekly)
March 27, 2013
In reflection, Novoa says while the stage and the applause may be different, some of the techniques she had to employ as a dancer so long ago, have remained the same. To work in the real estate business like dancing on the stage, requires a supreme amount of concentration in order to succeed, she said.
Erik says: Perhaps I'm biased about this article because it's about my mom, but I truely believe that dance gives a strong sense of consentration. Maybe the deep and complex synaptic connections that are made as a dancer can help us in our business environments.
Couple handcuffed, jailed for dancing on subway platform (NY Post)
It was nearly midnight when Stern and Hess, a film-industry prop master, headed home last July from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing. As they waited for the train, a musician started playing steel drums on the nearly empty platform and Stern and Hess began to feel the beat.
The cops asked for ID, but when Stern could only produce a credit card, the officers ordered the couple to go with them — even though the credit card had the dentist’s picture and signature.
When Hess began trying to film the encounter, things got ugly, Stern said.
“We brought out the camera, and that’s when they called backup,” she said. “That’s when eight ninja cops came from out of nowhere.”
Hess was allegedly tackled to the platform floor, and cuffs were slapped on both of them. The initial charge, according to Stern, was disorderly conduct for “impeding the flow of traffic.”
Ballet Fans Truly Know How to Feel the Moves
Scientists report that the ballet/dance spectators showed muscle-specific responses in their brain as if they were expert dancers — even though “they were clearly not capable of doing the actual movements,”
How Theater for Young People Could Save the World (Huffington Post)
Around the world artists are creating a new stripe of Theatre for Young People that combines the elegance of dance, the innovation of devised theater, the freshness of new plays, the magnetism of puppetry and the inciting energy of new musicals.
...theater is like a gym for empathy. It's where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people's actions. We practice caring.
An Irish Tradition With an Only-in-America Star (NY Times)
March 17, 2012
Meet Drew Lovejoy, a 17-year-old from rural Ohio. His background could not be more American. His father is black and Baptist from Georgia and his mother is white and Jewish from Iowa. But his fame is international after winning the all-Ireland dancing championship in Dublin for a third straight year.
in 2010, when he became the first person of color to win the world championship for Irish dancing — the highest honor in that small and close-knit world — and a group of male dancers in their 70s, all of them Irish, offered their congratulations.
"You have two lives — the Irish dance world and the real world where you live every day,” Ms. Goldberg said. In the world of dance, “you found a place where you’re comfortable and people don’t look at you in a certain way.”
Erik says: Dance has an amazing way of transcending racial stereotypes, economics and nationalities. This story is exemplary of the power of music and dance to bond people of different backgrounds and make people more sympathetic to each other.
Dancers on the poverty line (Crains)
The average professional dancer in New York City earns only $28,000 a year, according to a study to be released Monday by Dance NYC. The amount is just above the nation's poverty line. Of that income, just 55% comes from dance jobs, on average.
Could Beyoncé Get in Trouble for Stealing Dance Moves? (Slate)
Is it really possible to steal a dance? Evidence surfaced on Monday that Beyoncé may have cribbed dance moves from a Belgian choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for her new music video “Countdown.” Certain scenes in the video do appear almost identical to a 1997 film version of de Keersmaeker’s 1983 work “Rosas danst Rosas,” both in terms of movement and design.
Dance games step into void left by other genres (USAToday)
When interest in music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band declined, developers simply sidestepped and took a spin at making dance games.
Ballet replaces drugs for Fallen Angels dancers (BBC News)
Fallen Angels Dance Theatre was created to help vulnerable young people and adults who have experienced drug addiction and alcoholism through dance.
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Winner Melanie Moore Explores Reasons for Her Success
A great article about the extra work it takes to become successful: She attributes it to discipline and work ethic, unsurprisingly. She said she and Marko, her partner for the first half of the season, were the only couple to rent studio space outside of the regular rehearsal space they were given by the show’s producers. She and Marko would go to the studio and rehearse for a few hours after hours at the regular rehearsal space were over.
Tap dance syncopates fitness for any age (Reuters)
For fitness outside the box-step of the gym, why not try hoofing it? Experts say whether you've got rhythm, or just crave it, an extended foray into the purely American art form of tap dance can boost your balance, cardio and core.
A Generation’s Vanity, Heard Through Lyrics (NYTimes)
[It's interesting for dancers know the lyrical trend of contemporary music] Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words “I” and “me” appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in “we” and “us” and the expression of positive emotions.
Modern Masters (Dance Spirit)
Today the contemporary dance family tree has all kinds of offshoots, but its base includes four modern dance branches: the techniques created by Martha Graham, José Limón, Lester Horton and Merce Cunningham. Even if you don’t consider yourself a modern dancer, getting to know these foundational styles will make you a stronger, more versatile performer, and once you’ve been exposed to them you’ll find it easier to absorb the styles of contemporary choreographers. Here’s what you need to know about these fundamental modern techniques.
City Ballet A-Twitter Over Posts (WSJ)
New York City Ballet is set to become one of the country's first major performing-arts companies to govern its employees' posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social-media outlets.
Can't dance? Brain chemical throws off your groove (msnbc)
[Just in case you need an excuse not to improve your dancing] But my steps aren’t smooth. Those beats and my body never truly connect -- despite what the cocktails tell me. On the dance floor, I'm the male Elaine from "Seinfeld," all kicks, thumbs and no rhythm. Turns out, it’s all in my head, not my hips or feet. A study, released today by researchers at the University of Oxford in England, claims a tiny messenger in the brain is partly to blame for those among us who struggle to grasp the latest dance moves.
Butchery at the Ballet (Daily Beast)
Aronofsky has created a movie [Black Swan] celebrating the failure of a ballerina, and by implication her entire art—disguised, insidiously, as a film about sacrifice and success.
Putting the Fun Back into Excercise with a Little Footwork (WSJ)
Kathleen Hagan has one requirement for her workouts: They must be fun. When Ms. Hagan wanted to add a “fun factor” to her winter routine (because “indoor rowing is boring,” she says), she discovered dance. The class is a mix of beginners from 40 to 80 years old. Ms. Hagan says she started out dancing to slow songs but has now mastered full routines. “It’s very good for memory, because you have to remember all of the dance steps in a sequence. It’s also great balance training,” she says.
Prince targets arts education with $250,000 gift to American Ballet Theatre (LATimes)
Prince is moving into arts philanthropy in a big way, with a particular focus on arts programs for the younger generation. Before he performed at New York's Madison Square Garden on Monday, the rock musician was in the arena for the announcement of three major donations, including a $250,000 gift to American Ballet Theatre for its educational programs.
A Ballet Dancer who Taps (Pointe Magazine)
Tap dance is an ideal companion to classical ballet training,” says McRae, who grew up studying tap and jazz in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. “Tap is intensely musical, and it teaches coordination and control of footwork.
Married To Normal Folk (Pointe Magazine)
Relationships with “civilians,” however, seem more complicated: Figuring out scheduling is stressful, eating habits can differ and one partner probably can’t tell a tendu from a tour jeté. Yet many dancers have found that dating a non-dancer keeps them grounded in the real world.
I Do! Real-Life Dancer Love Stories (DanceSpirit)
You know the story: A beautiful young woman meets a charming young man. They eye each other shyly from across the stage. He asks her to dance. She says yes. Three acts of pas de deuxing later, they are getting hitched and the audience is applauding wildly through 10 curtain calls. (Extra points if he’s a prince, of course.) Onstage, love is a many-splendored thing. But offstage, for some dancers, life is equally as romantic. In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are a few of our favorite real-life love stories.
The Lowdown on Arts Downloading (WSJ)
"Thrifty" and "easy" are not usually how the performing arts are described. But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, world-class ballet can be downloaded from iTunes for just $14.99. And with the proliferation of HD broadcasts, the latest European operas are showing up at your local movie theater—for about $25.
Networkers grab their shot at love just in time (SFGate.com)
A couple in San Francisco met, fell in love and married...because of ballroom dancing.
Ballet Is Dying? State Of The Arts (Huffington Post)
Ballet is dying? Really? With the release of Jennifer Homan's new book Apollo's Angels, it seems this question is a popular topic of discussion. While I agree that, yes, there was a ballet heyday in the 1970's, I think the art form is far from dead. One only has to look at ballet's recent publicity and media focus to see that.
Jenifer Ringer Reacts to Critic on The Today Show (Today Show)
In one of the most hurtful reviews I have ever read, Alastair Macaulay of the New York Times said of a dancer in the Nutcracker, “she’d eaten one sugar plum too many”. It has created a firestorm in the dance world, on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Here, the dancer, Jenifer Ringer, responds to the critic's review.
Tracing the Spark of Creative Problem-Solving (NYTimes)
The very idea of doing a crossword or a Sudoku puzzle typically shifts the brain into an open, playful state that is itself a pleasing escape, captivating to people. To me this was all about the open-mindedness required to have an amazing dance - becoming one with the music and with your partner requires a very open-minded focus. It's almost a contradiction in terms.
First Lady’s Dance Moves Woo Indian Crowds (NYTimes)
Not all of the politicians’ wives have danced, though. In India, where everyone from teenage boys to septuagenarian aunts dance at weddings, a reticence to join the dance floor is seen as a troubling sign of a possible character flaw — one that Mrs. Obama certainly does not exhibit.
Washington Ballet will perform without orchestra this season
The Washington Ballet (as in DC) will dance before an empty orchestra pit this season, citing financial constraints in its decision to use recorded music for its upcoming production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater and, most likely, for "The Nutcracker" at the Warner Theatre.
Dancers Are Genetically Different (Science 2.0)
An examination of 85 dancers and advanced dancing students in Israel found variants of two genes that provide the code for the serotonin transporter and arginine vasopressin receptor 1a. Both genes are involved in the transmission of information between nerve cells.
5 Reasons Ballroom Dancing Is A Good Idea (Arts)
There are men who believe that ballroom dancing is primarily an activity for women. How ever there have been some pretty manly men prove that they can dance with the best of them on hit TV shows like “Dancing with the Stars”.
Ballet’s Costumes Take Center Stage (NYTimes)
An important part of history intertwining dance and fashion: “It was all very scattered,” said Jane Pritchard, a curator of “Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929,” which opens on Saturday at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The museum has reassembled about 60 outfits, many of them purchased decades ago at Sotheby’s auctions. The curators had to decide which ones would be strong enough to exhibit, and conservators have repaired rips and sweat damage, straightened bent flaps and reinforced shoulders for draping on mannequins.
US ballet companies to perform in Cuba
The American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet will perform in Cuba for the first time in half a century in November in homage to former prima ballerina Alicia Alonso on her 90th birthday.
Patrick Swayze Inspired Jennifer Grey to Try Dancing With the Stars (People)
A year after her Dirty Dancing costar's death from pancreatic cancer, Jennifer Grey says she wouldn't be competing on Dancing With the Stars if it weren't for Patrick Swayze – and the example he set of living life to the fullest in the face of any daunting challenge.
Scientists identify dance moves that attract women (CNN)
The scientists filmed 19 men dancing, then mapped their moves onto featureless avatars using technology similar to the computer animation used in making animated movies. Then they had 35 heterosexual women rate the attractiveness of the dancing, without the distraction of whether the dancer himself was good-looking.
Use It or Lose It - Dancing Makes You Smarter
For centuries, dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise. More recently we've seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.
Then most recently we've heard of another benefit: Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter. A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one's mind can ward off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing also increases cognitive acuity at all ages.
Performing Arts and the Brain (Dunbar Lab)
Our early work suggest that performing arts students show more extensive activation in areas of the brain associated with the abstract qualities of a situation, We are now using an extensive battery of screening tests, DNA genotyping, and fMRI to uncover the effects of a performing arts education on the brain.
The Physicist Who Figured Out Ballet (discovermagazine.com)
September 11, 2008
Ken Laws is a professor emeritus of physics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He also has a very serious case of balletomania. When his daughter and son decided to take ballet classes as children, so did he. After his children stopped taking ballet, Laws continued for another three decades.
Early on, frustrated with instructions from his teachers that he considered impressionistic, Laws started applying his knowledge of physics to jetés, fouettés, and other balletic motion. Conservation of angular momentum is perhaps the most important physical principle in ballet, but there’s more to ballet than rotation.
Court Upholds New York City's Dancing Ban at Bars (NYPost)
The city's 80-year-old cabaret law banning dancing by patrons in ordinary bars and restaurants is legal, the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division ruled Thursday. The Gotham West Coast Swing Club and several people had sued, saying the law violated their constitutional right to free expression. But the appeals court backed the law, which was enacted in the Prohibition era to crack down on speakeasies.
Live Music’s Charms, Soothing Premature Hearts (NY Times)
April 15, 2013
Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City led the research, conducted in 11 hospitals, which found that live music can be beneficial to premature babies. In the study, music therapists helped parents transform their favorite tunes into lullabies.
The researchers concluded that live music, played or sung, helped to slow infants’ heartbeats, calm their breathing, improve sucking behaviors important for feeding, aid sleep and promote states of quiet alertness. Doctors and researchers say that by reducing stress and stabilizing vital signs, music can allow infants to devote more energy to normal development.
Erik says: There are many breakthroughs in our scientific understanding of how music affects the brain and our emotional state. It is becoming more obvious that we may be genetically "programed" to be affected by music, rather than just learning how to be affected by music later in life.
Music, It's a Matter of Trust (Market Street)
“We know that music affects people’s behavior, their moods, their emotions,” Gefen says. “The reason happy music is played
in the supermarket is so people buy more. The reason that you go into an elevator and hear soft music is because you are entering a claustrophobic metal box that can plunge you to your death. It’s not for entertainment; it’s to calm you down.
It’s been said that the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. But according to David Gefen, an MIS professor at LeBow, playing music can help; it just depends on the tune.
Erik says: It seems intuitive that music affects our emotions and our state of mind. Recent studies are confirming these feelings. What is not obvious is how music is used to manipulate our brain chemistry, thoughts and desires. Advirtisers have been using music for years. I'm sure that good dancers are able to tap into their emotional state (driven by the music) to connect and build trust with their partners to create a good, emotionally-connected dance.
How Working the Muscles May Boost Brainpower (NY Times)
Scientists at the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging recently set out to examine whether changes in muscles prompted by exercise might subsequently affect and improve the brain’s ability to think. “We wondered whether peripheral triggers might be activating the cellular and molecular cascades in the brain that led to improvements in cognition,” says Henriette van Praag, the investigator at the National Institute on Aging who led the study.
Muscles are, of course, greatly influenced by exercise. Muscle cells respond to exercise by pumping out a variety of substances that result in larger, stronger muscles. Some of those compounds might be entering the bloodstream and traveling to the brain, Dr. van Praag says.
Erik says: A good night of dancing Hustle or upbeat West Coast Swing might constitute the type of exercise that helps promote brainpower.
The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health (NY Times)
Ms. Reynolds has distilled the knowledge gained from years of fitness reporting into a new book, “The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer,’’ published last month.
Ms. Reynolds makes a clear distinction between the amount of exercise we do to improve sports performance and the amount of exercise that leads to better health. To achieve the latter, she explains, we don’t need to run marathons, sweat it out on exercise bikes or measure our peak oxygen uptake. We just need to do something.
Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy. If people want to be healthier and prolong their life span, all they really need to do is go for a walk. It’s the single easiest thing anyone can do. There are some people who honestly can’t walk, so I would say to those people to try to go to the local Y.M.C.A. and swim.
Don’t Just Sit There (NY Times)
While writing about the benefits of , my muscles slackened. Fat seeped insidiously into my blood, liver and ventricles.
To see the results of such inactivity, scientists with the National Cancer Institute spent eight years following almost 250,000 American adults. The participants answered detailed questions about how much time they spent commuting, watching TV, sitting before a computer and exercising, as well as about their general health. At the start of the study, none suffered from heart disease, or diabetes.
But after eight years, many were ill and quite a few had died. The sick and deceased were also in most cases sedentary. Those who watched TV for seven or more hours a day proved to have a much higher risk of premature death than those who sat in front of the television less often. (Television viewing is a widely used measure of sedentary time.)
Erik says: I've recently started using a standing desk addition for my laptop and hardly ever sit while working/email/etc. It helped me recover from a back injury in 3 weeks instead of 3 months. It's not easy, but my body feels better because of it.
Cancer survivors urged to eat better, exercise (USA Today)
The cancer society on Thursday released new guidelines, saying there's now enough evidence to strongly recommend physical activity and better nutrition for survivors. The message: For many cancers, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising and eating a healthy diet can reduce the risk that cancer will return.
Fitness Trackers Use Psychology to Motivate Couch Potatoes (Wired)
Gadgets like the Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit Ultra and BodyMedia Fit Link use accelerometers, altimeters and algorithms to track everything from how many steps you took to how many calories you burned. By providing this data instantaneously, and in some cases allowing you to share it via social media, they do more than inform. They reinforce, motivate and reward by turning exercise into a game.
Erik says: I now owns a FitBit and I'm activily monitoring my steps while teaching and dancing. I highly recommend this product since it allows you to see your activity level and make adjustments to improve your life.
Meet the Active Couch Potato (NYTimes)
They [Australian researchers] found that the more hours the men and women sat every day, the greater their chance of dying prematurely. Those people who sat more than eight hours a day — which other studies have found is about the amount that a typical American sits — had a 15 percent greater risk of dying during the study’s three-year follow-up period than people who sat for fewer than four hours a day.
The Brain On Love (NY Times)
All relationships change the brain — but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.
During idylls of safety, when your brain knows you’re with someone you can trust, it needn’t waste precious resources coping with stressors or menace. Instead it may spend its lifeblood learning new things or fine-tuning the process of healing. Its doors of perception swing wide open. The flip side is that, given how vulnerable one then is, love lessons — sweet or villainous — can make a deep impression. Wedded hearts change everything, even the brain.
Erik says: Dance is great way to meet new people and even find love. See my article about the Top 5 Things That Everyone Wants.
Your Brain on Fiction (NY Times)
March 17, 2012
Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.
Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. Last month, however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active.
Reports in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective.
Erik says: Perhaps there is something about fiction that stimulates our brain uniquely. Could dancing to music on the radio (a fictious story) or even dancing a feigned emotional dance also stiumulate our brain in the same way?
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter (NY Times)
March 17, 2012
Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. In a study bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating greater mental efficiency.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Erik says: Similar findings have occured with dance. Although dance itself is not considered a "language" by scientific standards, perhaps the brain treats dance and language similarly as it diversifies and broadeds the neurological pathways in the brain.
How Massage Heals Sore Muscles (NY Times)
Feb 6, 2012
They [Researchers] found that massage reduced the production of compounds called cytokines, which play a critical role in inflammation. Massage also stimulated mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses inside cells that convert glucose into the energy essential for cell function and repair.
Erik says: I've used massage to recover from gruelling rehearsal weeks or just as regular maintenance. For me, getting a massage is like putting oil in your car. If I don't do it, I eventually run into problems that take longer to solve. In our very own dance community we have theraputic massage specialists, one of my favorites is Bobby Nieto.
A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond (NYTimes)
January 19, 2012
When Dr. Lachman and Dr. Tun reviewed the results, they were surprised to discover that into middle age and beyond, people could make up for educational disadvantages encountered earlier in life. Everyone in the study who regularly did more to challenge their brains — reading, writing, attending lectures or completing word puzzles — did better on fluid intelligence tests than their counterparts who did less.
As it turns out, one essential element of mental fitness has already been identified. “Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even a longer life,” says Margie E. Lachman, a psychologist at Brandeis University who specializes in aging. For those in midlife and beyond, a college degree appears to slow the brain’s aging process by up to a decade, adding a new twist to the cost-benefit analysis of higher education — for young students as well as those thinking about returning to school.
Erik says: There are a number of good studies that indicate that learning to dance and playing an instrument also challenges the brain in beneficial ways.
Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love
As Zak and others deepen their study of oxytocin, we may better understand why people with friends live longer and get sick less, and why we are compelled to be social animals online and off. If these changes apply in the world of social media, the implications for business.
10 Easy Ways to Boost Your Immunity (Shape)
Regular, moderate exercise can boost several aspects of your body's self-defense system. "Physical activity not only strengthens your cardiovascular system," Berk says, "it improves your mood and reduces stress." (see tip #8)
Newborn infants detect the beat in music (PNAS)
To shed light on how humans can learn to understand music, we need to discover what the perceptual capabilities with which infants are born. Beat induction, the detection of a regular pulse in an auditory signal, is considered a fundamental human trait that, arguably, played a decisive role in the origin of music. Theorists are divided on the issue whether this ability is innate or learned. We show that newborn infants develop expectation for the onset of rhythmic cycles (the downbeat), even when it is not marked by stress or other distinguishing spectral features. Omitting the downbeat elicits brain activity associated with violating sensory expectations. Thus, our results strongly support the view that beat perception is innate.
Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly (NE Journal of Medicine)
New England Journal of Medicine - Among leisure activities, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
