Ballerina Body

Author: Misty Copeland
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0751565652
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
In her first health and fitness book, celebrated ballerina Misty Copeland shows you how to find the motivation to get healthier and stronger, and how to refine the body you were born with to be lean, strong and flexible, with step-by-step advice, meal plans, workout routines and words of inspiration. Misty offers her own time-tested, ballet-inspired movements that are perfect for women who want to lengthen and strengthen, but don't want to run a marathon or lift weights. She also demonstrates the floor exercises that helped maintain her own ballerina body while recovering from an injury. Misty's eating plan focuses on vegetables, fruits, plant fats, animal proteins and beneficial oils - all of which keep her energetic and in top shape. With simple and delicious recipes for Granola, Spinach and Goat Cheese Salad, Quick Salsa Chili, and even a Ballerina Smoothie, you'll be satisfied and happy while getting leaner. To keep you motivated, Misty gives tips and words of encouragement on persevering even when you may want to give up, including a peek into her personal journal, to inspire you and help you stay on the road to your own ballerina body.

The Dancers' Body Book

Author: Allegra Kent
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006195179X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Book Description
Ballet dancers have the strongest, most beautiful, probably the most envied bodies in the world. How do they stay slender and willowy while maintaining the extraordinary energy it takes to perform night after night? Can a nondancer or an amateur attain a dancer's figure and a dancer's vitality? And keep it? Here, in The Dancers' Body Book, the legendary ballerina Allegra Kent discloses the health, weight-watching, and relaxation secrets of some of the world's greatest ballet dancers -- from Suzanne Farrell and Fernando Bujones to Darci Kistler and Madame Alexandra Danilova. Combining them with two well-balanced diets -- one to lose weight by and one to live by -- and an exercise regimen that can be tailored to the individual, she provides a fabulous fitness program for everyone who longs to be slimmer, healthier, and more energetic. Fourteen varied menus incorporate delicious recipes from the dancers themselves (such as Jacques D'Amboise's Wonderful Dinner Salad and Dierdre Carberry's Almond Meringue Kisses), along with calorie guides and advice on how to create additional menus using your own favorite dishes. Helpful discussions on sports and exercise systems -- ranging from jogging and swimming to the sophisticated "Pilates" workout -- are also included, and in a special chapter entitled "A Healthy Outlook," the dancers talk candidly on such issues as smoking, anorexia, vitamins, doctors, massage, junk foods, fad diets, and injuries. Dancers take meticulous care of all their equipment because training and performance depend on it. Of course, the most essential piece of equipment, the body, needs the most care of all, and that is what this book is about: how to take care of the world's greatest machine. Allegra Kent joined the New York City Ballet at the age of fifteen and was a principal dancer with the company for thirty years, during which time she created a number of starring roles in ballets by Balanchine and Robbins. The mother of two daughters and a son, she is also the author of Allegra Kent's Water Beauty Book.

The Ballet Companion

Author: Eliza Gaynor Minden
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416595716
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
A New Classic for Today's Dancer The Ballet Companion is a fresh, comprehensive, and thoroughly up-to-date reference book for the dancer. With 150 stunning photographs of ballet stars Maria Riccetto and Benjamin Millepied demonstrating perfect execution of positions and steps, this elegant volume brims with everything today's dance student needs, including: Practical advice for getting started, such as selecting a school, making the most of class, and studio etiquette Explanations of ballet fundamentals and major training systems An illustrated guide through ballet class -- warm-up, barre, and center floor Guidelines for safe, healthy dancing through a sensible diet, injury prevention, and cross-training with yoga and Pilates Descriptions of must-see ballets and glossaries of dance, music, and theater terms Along the way you'll find technique secrets from stars of American Ballet Theatre, lavishly illustrated sidebars on ballet history, and tips on everything from styling a ballet bun to stage makeup to performing the perfect pirouette. Whether a budding ballerina, serious student, or adult returning to ballet, dancers will find a lively mix of ballet's time-honored traditions and essential new information.

Ballet Beautiful

Author: Mary Helen Bowers
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0738215899
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Book Description
Ballet-inspired fitness for every woman! You don't have to be a professional ballerina to look like one! With Mary Helen Bowers' Ballet Beautiful, forget beating yourself up in the gym and suffering through starvation diets for some unattainable goal. You can achieve your ideal body and develop the strength, grace, and elegance of a dancer by following Mary Helen's proven program-one that's got everyone from celebrities to busy moms to executives raving!Ballet Beautiful is a fitness method that blends the artistry and athleticism of ballet with an easy, accessible eating plan that works for every body - and absolutely no dance experience is required. Created by professional ballerina Mary Helen Bowers, this transformative approach to fitness and health will reshape your body and your mind!Ballet Beautiful's three-fold approach is not an extreme workout nor is it a radical diet for an overnight fix; it's a roadmap to achieving and maintaining your ideal health, shape and size-all with the elegance and strength of a ballerina. Part One of the book introduces the program's empowering mindset, the key to supporting and guiding you through lasting change. Part Two, the Ballet Beautiful Method, consists of challenging, effective, and fun workouts that sculpt and tone sleek ballet muscles and build beautiful posture. Whether you have a full hour or only 15 minutes, you can tailor the program to your own schedule and needs. Part Three shares the Ballet Beautiful Lifestyle, a healthy, balanced approach to nutrition. With meal plans, shopping tips and quick but delicious daily recipes that will satisfy and nourish your entire body, it's a stress-free, diet-free plan that will help keep you feeling as strong and healthy as you look.

Celestial Bodies

Author: Laura Jacobs
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465098487
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
A distinguished dance critic offers an enchanting introduction to the art of ballet As much as we may enjoy Swan Lake or The Nutcracker, for many of us ballet is a foreign language. It communicates through movement, not words, and its history lies almost entirely abroad -- in Russia, Italy, and France. In Celestial Bodies, dance critic Laura Jacobs makes the foreign familiar, providing a lively, poetic, and uniquely accessible introduction to the world of classical dance. Combining history, interviews with dancers, technical definitions, descriptions of performances, and personal stories, Jacobs offers an intimate and passionate guide to watching ballet and understanding the central elements of choreography. Beautifully written and elegantly illustrated with original drawings, Celestial Bodies is essential reading for all lovers of this magnificent art form.

Body of a Dancer

Author: Renee D'Aoust
Publisher: Etruscan Press
ISBN: 0983934614
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
"A remarkably clear-eyed descent into New York's surreal world of modern dance peopled by the obsessed, dispossessed, sexy, suicidal, brutal, broke, and absurd."—Lance Olsen, author of Nietzsche's Kisses The award-winning writer Renée E. D'Aoust draws from her experiences as a modern dancer in New York during the nineties. Her luminous prose spotlights this passionate, often brutal world. Trained at the prestigious Martha Graham Center, D'Aoust intertwines accounts of her own and other dancers' lives with essays on modern dance history. A dancer's body, scarred, strained, and tough, bears witness to the discipline demanded by the art form. Body of a Dancer provides a powerful, acidly comic record of what it is to love, and eventually leave, a life centered on dance. "With exquisite description, absolute honesty, and a clear compelling voice, Body of a Dancer offers an unforgettable account of one artist’s bittersweet journey."—Dinty W. Moore Renée E. D'Aoust's essays have been featured as notable essays in Best American Essays in 2006, 2007, and 2009. Her nonfiction work has been included in the anthology Reading Dance, edited by Robert Gottlieb and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. D'Aoust is the recipient of an NEA Dance Criticism fellowship and grants from The Puffin Foundation and the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Life in Motion

Author: Misty Copeland
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476737983
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Profiles the life and career of the professional ballerina, covering from when she began dance classes at age thirteen in an after-school community center through becoming the only African American soloist dancing with the American Ballet Theatre.

The Evolving Feminine Ballet Body

Author: Pirkko Markula
Publisher: University of Alberta
ISBN: 1772123528
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Dance has become increasingly visible within contemporary culture: just think of reality TV shows featuring this art form. This shift brings the ballet body into renewed focus. Historically both celebrated and critiqued for its thin, flexible, and highly feminized aesthetic, the ballet body now takes on new and complex meanings at the intersections of performance art, popular culture, and fitness. The Evolving Feminine Ballet Body provides a local perspective to enrich the broader cultural narratives of ballet through historical, socio-cultural, political, and artistic lenses, redefining what many consider to be “high art.” Scholars in gender studies, folklore, popular culture, and cultural studies will be interested in this collection, as well as those involved in the dance world. Contributors: Kelsie Acton, Marianne I. Clark, Kate Z. Davies, Lindsay Eales, Pirkko Markula, Carolyn Millar, Jodie Vandekerkhove

The Body in Time

Author: Tamar Garb
Publisher: Ewha Womans University Press
ISBN: 9780295987934
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Book Description
The Body in Time looks at two different genres in relation to the construction of femininity in late ninetheenth-century France: Degas's representation of ballet dancers and the transforming tradition of female portraiture heralded by the "new woman." Class, gender, power, and agency are at stake in both arenas, but they play themselves out in different ways via different pictorial languages. Tamar Garb is Durning Lawrence Professor in Art History, University College London.

Black Ballerinas

Author: Misty Copeland
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1534474250
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 111

Book Description
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland comes an illustrated nonfiction collection celebrating dancers of color who have influenced her on and off the stage. As a young girl living in a motel with her mother and her five siblings, Misty Copeland didn’t have a lot of exposure to ballet or prominent dancers. She was sixteen when she saw a black ballerina on a magazine cover for the first time. The experience emboldened Misty and told her that she wasn’t alone—and her dream wasn’t impossible. In the years since, Misty has only learned more about the trailblazing women who made her own success possible by pushing back against repression and racism with their talent and tenacity. Misty brings these women’s stories to a new generation of readers and gives them the recognition they deserve. With an introduction from Misty about the legacy these women have had on dance and on her career itself, this book delves into the lives and careers of women of color who fundamentally changed the landscape of American ballet from the early 20th century to today.