The art of ballet
 

Ballet is an amazing style of dance. When you see a ballet performance, you feel the story that they are telling you. You do not want to talk during this because no matter what performance you see, they have you on the edge of your seat and you don't want it to end.

There are three styles of ballet, they are American, Russian and French. The American is known for big movement, they are fast and they also focus more on modern techniques. The Russian style has amazing arms and feet movement. Gliding from one move to another. French style is harder on the technique, jumps every move that you are doing. No matter what style of ballet you do, they are all hard and a lot of fun.

You have to wear a leotard, tights and ballet shoes in the ballet class. The leotard is a one piece and tight-fitting to your body and the girls wear pink. The boys will wear black leotards, leggings with shorts and a t-shirt. The t- shirt must be tucked in at all times. Both of them will wear ballet shoes, pink for the girls and white or black for the boys.

Pointe shoes are worn when you go onto the top of your toe and you do different turns, jumps and land on one leg. Ballet teachers go back and forth on how old you should be to go on pointe. If you start too young you can seriously hurt your ankles. They say around 10 to 12 years old, if your ankles are one hundred percent strong: you are able to do around two to three hundred calf raises every day and other ankle exercises without your ankles hurting. Going on pointe may look amazing, when you see a performance, but you never know the pain you will be in. Your feet have to get used to the pointe shoes. The first few weeks, your toes are bloody and sometimes your nails comes off. So you have to put them in ice water to make the pain and swelling go down. Then you go right back to dance classes to dance and do this over and over again. After a few weeks, your feet get used to the shoes and you will be okay, until you need another pair of shoes and you must break in a new pair of pointe shoes. Your ballet shoes and pointe shoes will last about three months and that is if you are dancing every day or every other day. Ballet shoes start at around 45 dollars and can go up to several hundred dollars. Pointe shoes start from 65 dollars and go up to several hundred dollars too.

The difference between someone who is amazing on pointe and someone who is just starting out would be, when you are watching a performance and you hear the girls landing and making a lot of noise that means they have weak ankles. When you see a girl jump, land and you only hear music, that means she has strong ankles and is amazing on pointe. You only want to hear music when they are dancing.

Boys will learn at a young age how to stand on their toes, after this they only go on pointe when they need an extra person to play a girl in the performance. For example in Cinderella and they are doing the dance part of the ball. The boys have to be so strong so that they can do every move and pick up the girls and never drop them. Boys and girls will take ballet classes together and do partner work too. Then when the girls are working on pointe work, the boys will go to another class and work on technique for them.

No matter what ballet performance you go and see you're always going to have a lovely time.