Восточное окружное управление
Образования Департамента
г. Москвы
Государственное бюджетное общеобразовательное учреждение города Москвы «Гимназия № 1811 «Восточное Измайлово»»
The science practical conference
“Children are creators of the 21-st century”
Project
« Why do we dance? »
Students: Gorkova L, Larina K, Filateva N
Form 11 “zh”
Teachers: Kukushkina M.A.
Zolotaryova N.A.
Moscow 2015
Contents
Chapter1. Dancing in ancient times. Dancing: for what?
Chapter2.
Dancing styles
Chapter3.
Outstanding dancers in the world
Chapter4.
Dances in our life
Chapter5
A survey in the school
Conclusion
The used literature
Introduction
Why Do We Dance?
Why do people dance? They do it for different reasons but probably the most expected answer is that they dance because they simply like it. It is difficult to say when dance became an important part of human culture.
Our project is «Why do we dance?»
The working group consists of the pupils from the 11th form. They are: Filateva Nastya,Gorkova Luba and Larina Ksenya. The teachers: Kukushkina M.A , Zolotaryova N.A.
The aims and tasks of the project:
Dancing in ancient times.; Dancing: for what?; Outstanding dancers in the world
To make this project we have learnt a lot of literature, used various information from the Internet resources, made a social survey among classes at school, found topical pictures and videos for the presentation. For making our film we have used new computer technologies and programmes. Then we would like to demonstrate our project on the other science festivals.
Chapter1. Dancing in ancient times. Dancing: for what?
Dance has been used during different ceremonies, rituals and celebrations since prehistoric times. Archeologists have found Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from circa 3300 ВС. In the past people danced to tell myths and to show feelings for one of the opposite gender. Dance plays a vital role in many of the world's religions. People have used dance in praise of their gods, in celebration of the seasons, and simply as an outward expression of joy or grief. Native Americans could not imagine their lives without dancing. It was an essential part of their culture and heritage. Native Americans danced for almost any reason: for worship, for rain, when preparing to fight with other tribes or when preparing for a big hunt.
Today a lot of people are still fond of dancing though few of them dance for religious reasons. For many of us dance is an excellent opportunity to have fun, to express our emotions, to relieve stress, to experience music and to improve our health and fitness level. Dance can be also a form of nonverbal communication as it helps two people say 'I love you' to each other. That is why many couples celebrate their unions with a wedding dance which is the symbol of their love and affection. A wedding dance is an unforgettable experience and a person remembers this happy moment during all his or her life.
Chapter 2. Dancing styles
There are many interesting dancing styles and everybody can find something to his liking. There are dancing styles that can be practiced alone (solo dance), as a couple (partner dance), or as a part of a much larger group (group dance).
Ballet is popular with many people and it is best known for its unique features and techniques. Ballet began to develop in Italy and later it appeared in France. It combines classical music, mime, acting, costumes and dance. Nobody can remain indifferent watching ballet dancers' graceful movements.
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in 3/4 time. It first became fashionable in Vienna around the 1780s and spread to many other countries. This dance form became the example for the creation of many other ballroom dances. In Britain the waltz was considered 'riotous and indecent' as late as 1825. Now there are many types of waltz, including many folk and several ballroom dances.
Tango is often associated with love, passion and romance. This dance form originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay and it became popular in Europe in the early years of the 20th century. Tango has influences from Spanish and African cultures. Today, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine Tango, Uruguayan Tango, Ballroom tango (American and International styles), Finnish tango, Chinese tango, and vintage tangos.
Today many young people, especially boys, are fond of break dancing. It is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement among African American and Latin American youths during the early 1970s. It is normally danced to funk or hip hop music. Break dance is highly improvisational and physically demanding. It allows dancers to display their skills by showing extremely difficult and complicated elements. Some dancers organize competitions and try to outperform each other.
Chapter 3. Outstanding dancers in the world
A [pic] nna Pavlovna Pavlova (January 31, 1881 (Old Style)/February 12, 1881 (New Style) - January 23, 1931) was the most famous ballet dancer of the early 20th century.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia to a poor peasant family, she trained at the Imperial Ballet School until she graduated at age 18. Then danced with the Mariinsky Theatre. In the first years of the Ballets Russes she worked briefly for Serge Diaghilev before founding her own company and performing throughout the world.
Her most famous showpiece was The Dying Swan choreographed for her by Michel Fokine. The music piece was the Swan part of Camille Saint-Saens the Carnival of the Animals.She died of pleurisy in The Hague, Netherlands while touring. Her remains were recently moved to the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
The pavlova dessert was named after her, although its origins are disputed. Both Australia and New Zealand have claimed the credit.
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (17 March 1938 – 6 January 1993), Russian-born dancer, is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest male dancers of the 20th century, alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Nureyev was born in a train near Irkutsk, while his mother was travelling across Siberia to Vladivostok, where his father, a Red Army political commissar of Tatar descent, was stationed. He was raised in a village near Ufa in Soviet Bashkiria. As a child he was encouraged to dance in Bashkir folk performances and his precocity was soon noticed.
Due to the disruption of Soviet cultural life caused by World War II, Nureyev was unable to enroll in a major ballet school until 1955, when he was sent to the Vaganova Choreographic Institute, attached to the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. Despite his late start, he was soon recognised as the most gifted dancer the school had seen for many years. Already, however, his extremely difficult temperament was evident. In retrospect it seems obvious that his personal problems were mainly due to internal conflict over his sexuality. [pic]
Within two years Nureyev was one of Russia's best-known dancers, in a country which revered the ballet and made national heroes of its stars. Soon he enjoyed the rare privilege of travel outside the Soviet Union, when he danced in Vienna at the International Youth Festival. Not long after, for disciplinary reasons, he was told he would not be allowed to go abroad again. He was condemned to tours of the Russian provinces.
In 1961 Nureyev's luck turned. The Kirov's leading male dancer, Konstantin Sergeyev, was injured, and at the last minute Nureyev was chosen to replace him in a performance in Paris. In Paris, his performances electrified audiences and critics. But Nureyev broke the rules about mingling with foreigners, and was told he would be sent home. Realising he would probably not be allowed abroad again, on 17 June at Charles De Gaulle International Airport, he defected. He did not see Russia again until 1989, when he visited at the special invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Within a week Nureyev had been signed up by the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and was performing The Sleeping Beauty with Nina Vyroubova. Nureyev was an instant celebrity in the west. His dramatic defection, his outstanding skills, and, it must be said, his astonishing good looks, made him an international star. This gave him the power to decide where and with whom he would dance.
Nureyev's defection also gave him the personal freedom he had been denied in the Soviet Union. On a tour of Denmark he met Erik Bruhn, another dancer ten years his senior, who became his lover, his closest friend and his protector (mainly from his own folly) for many years. The relationship was a stormy one, for Nureyev was highly sexually promiscuous. Bruhn was director of the Royal Swedish Ballet from 1967 to 1972 and Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada from 1983 until his death in 1986. One of the men that Nureyev is said to have had an affair with was movie star Anthony Perkins.
At the same time Nureyev met Margot Fonteyn, the leader British dancer of her time, with whom he formed a professional partnership and a close friendship. She brought him to the Royal Ballet in London, which remained his base during the rest of his dancing career. Together Nureyev and Fonteyn forever transformed such cornerstone ballets as Swan Lake and Giselle.
Nureyev was immediately in demand by film-makers, and in 1962 he made his screen debut in a film version of Les Sylphides. In 1976 he played Rudolph Valentino in Ken Russell's film, but he had neither the talent nor the temperament for a serious acting career. He branched into modern dance with the Dutch National Ballet in 1968. In 1972 Robert Helpmann invited him to tour Australia with his own production of Don Quixote, his directorial debut.
During the 1970s, Nureyev appeared in several movies and toured the United States in a revival of the Broadway musical The King and I. His guest appearance on the then-struggling television series The Muppet Show is credited for boosting the series to worldwide success. In 1982 he became a naturalized Austrian. In 1983 he was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet, where as well as directing he continued to dance and to promote younger dancers. Despite advancing illness towards the end of his tenure, he worked tirelessly, staging new versions of old standbys and commissioning some of the most groundbreaking choreographic works of his time.
Nureyev's talent, beauty, and charm caused him to be forgiven many things, but stardom did little to improve his temperament. He was notoriously impulsive and did not have much patience with rules, limitations and hierarchical order. Some saw this as unreliability and rudeness to those he worked with. He mixed with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, and developed a reputation for intolerance of non-celebrities, but he kept up old friendships in and outside the ballet world for decades, being a loyal and generous friend. His interests were widespread and he loved to discuss all kinds of subjects, showing an amazing wealth of knowledge in many fields. By the end of the 1970s he moved into his 40s and faced the inevitable decline of his amazing physical prowess, he unfortunately continued to tackle the big classical roles for far too long, and his rather undistinguished performances in the late 1980s disappointed many of his admirers.
Nureyev's influence on the world of ballet changed especially the perception of male dancers; in his own productions of the classics the male roles got much more choreography than in earlier productions. The second very important influence was his crossing the borders between classical ballet and modern dance by dancing both, although having been trained as a classical dancer. Today it is absolutely normal for dancers to get training in both styles but Nureyev was the one who started this and is was a sensation and even much criticized in his days.
When AIDS appeared in France in about 1982 (as well as everywhere else), Nureyev, like many French homosexual men, took little notice. He presumably contracted HIV at some point in the early 1980s. For several years he simply denied that anything was wrong with his health: when, in about 1990, he became undeniably ill, he pretended he had several other ailments. He refused whatever treatments were available at that time.
Eventually, however, he had to face the fact that he was dying. He won back the admiration of many of his detractors by his courage during this period. The loss of his looks pained him, but he continued to struggle through public appearances. At his last appearance, at a 1992 production of The Bayadere at the Palais Garnier, Nureyev received an emotional standing ovation from the audience. The French Culture Minister, Jack Lang, presented him with France's highest cultural award, the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Artes et Lettres. He died in Paris, France, a few months later, aged 54.
Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov was born on January 27, 1948 in Riga, USSR. He bagan studying ballet in 1960, at the age of 12. In 1964 he entered the Vaganova School to further his ballet studies. He soon began winning top honors and leading roles in major ballets. Upon seeing him dance in the Soviet Union, Clive Barnes, a New York Times critic, called him the most perfect dancer he had ever seen.
Leaving Russia:
Because the Soviet dance world held fast to 19th century traditions and shunned creativity, Baryshnikov decided to move west. He first defected to Canada, then made his way to the United States. During his first two years away from Russia, he danced for 13 different choreographers.
[pic]
New York City Ballet:
In 1978, Baryshnikov became a principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, under the direction of George Balanchine. His distinctive style won him many leading roles, although Balanchine never created a new work for him. In 1980, he changed his role from performer to director, becoming Artistic Director of the American Ballet Theatre.
Film Career:
Baryshnikov began dancing for American television in 1976. In 1977, CBS brought his production of the Nutcracker at the American Ballet Theatre to television. The famous production remains the most popular and most often shown television production of the Nutcracker Ballet. The DVD of the performance is a bestseller during the holidays. It is also one of only two versions of "The Nutcracker" to be nominated for an Emmy Award.
He also portrayed a famous Russian ballet dancer in the 1977 film The Turning Point, receiving an Oscar nomination. He later starred in the 1985 film White Nights, and Sex and the City.
Family Life:
Baryshnikov has three children with former ballerina Lisa Rinehart, although they remain unmarried. He also has a daughter from a former relationship with actress Jessica Lange.
Chapter 4. Dances in our life
For us life is a dance. We can’t imagine ourselves without it. Every movement, swing, turn, makes the world brighter. We have been dancing since the 5th form at school. And it is passion of our life. Dancing is very beautiful and elegant. Dress, heels, hair – what could be more beautiful? Before going on a stage, you feel excitement. But once the music starts to play, once there is a great desire to come out and shows to all that you are capable. Crowds of people are watching your every movement, a smile. And it is a true happiness.
We are trying ourselves to think what movements use, speaking in the language dance.
Every year we take part in different school and afterschool activities and there we demonstrate our skills in dancing.
We not only dance, but we enjoy watching different dancing reality television shows on TV. Such as: Dances with Stars, Dances in TNT, Ice Dances on the first channel, different dancing competitions on musical channel and so on.
Sometimes we take dance lessons or just, buy videos and DVDs that teach different dance steps.
Dance and enjoy the fact that you are doing. Believe me, there are no such people who can’t dance. Try, you must succeed. And for someone dance will be a part of the life. Dance to live!
I like to listen to music. I can listen music of all styles, it depends on my mood. But most of all styles about I told You, I like dance. Because this style helps me to relax and make merry with my friends or alone.
Chapter 5. A survey in the school
Dancing plays an important role in people's life. It is difficult to imagine a person, who would not love to dance.
Can you think of a day without dancing? We can dance everywhere: in the streets and at home, in the schools, halls, parks, different grounds in the parks and so on. People all over the world are fond of dancing. They listen to music, they dance to music, they learn to do nice.
We have made a survey in our school among classes. It was asked 5 questions to the pupils.
The first question was 1) Do you like to dance?
The 2nd question was 2) What’s your favourite style?
The 3rd question was 3) What are dances for your in your life?
The 4th question was 4) Do you like to take part in school dance festivals or competitions?
The 5th question was 5) Do you watch a dance show on TNT «Dances»?
The results we have got are different. But now we know that :
64% like to dance
81% like to dance modern styles
64% dances are a pleasure hobby in free time
61% like to take part in different dance festivals and competitions
60% watch a dance show on TNT « Dances»
In general it took part in the survey 167 pupils.
The 1-st question
[pic]
The 2-nd question
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