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With preschool ballet.  The faces of the girls are softened for reasons of privacy. Photo courtesy of Pargetts in Nebraska City.

How is a Dance like a Painting?

(This guide comes from my website blog of April 2008.)

The May dance recital in my town is only one month away. Everyone has been practicing dances since January.  It will be my fourth year to help as a volunteer by going onstage with the youngest dancers, ages three to five.  I dance with the little ones in order to provide a reassuring presence and to role-model the steps, in case a child forgets.  For some it will be their first time to see bright stage lights and the hundreds of eyes in an audience.  Even if all the faces in the audience are friendly ones, it can be unnerving.

I hope the recital goes smoothly.  In 2005 a child scraped her arm and needed a Band-Aid just as we were lining up to go onstage.  She could simply not dance without a Band-Aid, nor without antibiotic ointment on the cut (Can you tell that both of her parents were doctors?).  No other mishaps since then.

I like everything about ballet, from the French words (I studied French for four years in high school) to the graceful steps to the beautiful music.  Helping the children and teacher brings me happiness.  Ballet works like a tonic for my blue moods.

How do dances relate to paintings?

A dance, if well learned, will look deceptively easy.  The audience will see onstage smiles and complex steps that are energetic and graceful.  In just one four-minute jazz dance there may be a thousand steps and motions.  Each had to learned, step by step.

It is similar for paintings.  One painting may include hundreds of decisions in design, color, brush stroke, edge, and shape.  In the end, however, the painting should look as if it were effortless.  The artist may feel tired and ragged, like the dancers at the end of an energetic dance, yet only the fresh beauty of the artwork is meant to be seen.

In the book by the Royal Academy of Dancing, Step by Step, Steven Heathcote of the Australian Ballet wrote: There will always be more to discover about the elusive world of dance, and I hope to be able to contribute to it for many years to come.

I like how elusive Fine Art is.  I hope to keep contributing to it.

Text here has been copyrighted by Nancy Lee Moran.  Photo copyrighted by Pargetts Studio, included here with permission of the studio.