Not much of a post, but if you’ve been waiting to watch Dance Academy (like me), it’s now available on Netflix!
What is your favorite dance tv show?
August 29, 2013
Tumblr and TV, anyone?
A long, long time ago (my freshman year of college) I ran a little blog over on Blogger called A TV and A Girl after encouragement from a professor that we should start a blog, any blog, just to get writing. So I did, and I kept writing for a while (quite horribly actually). My friends mocked me regularly, calling me avatar girl (because that’s what the URL looked like)–but I got quite a lot of hits after creating a tutorial for a Glee hairstyle on YouTube. That was also pretty horrible.
But I’ve missed writing about TV (a lot)–so that’s why this blog has had a fair amount of posts on Dance Academy, Bunheads and Breaking Pointe. I’ve wanted to create a blog about TV for a while, but I know it would be too much of an additional pain to handle–not to mention the fact I have pretty eclectic tastes and don’t have cable TV. But with me watching a ton of Netflix the past few days and not getting into the studio or running, I’ve really wanted to start one.
So my simple solution is to start a Tumblr blog for now since it’s easy. involves a lot of reblogging and I already spend a fair amount of time on Tumblr looking at TV stuff. Maybe move it eventually if I really enjoy it and since I have the hosting account anyway.
It’s called “The Girl Who Watched TV” (after “Doctor Who’s The Girl Who Waited”.) If you’re on Tumblr, let me know what your blog is, and I’ll follow you.
Have you ever wanted to create a blog on a completely different subject?
July 10, 2013
Summer TV Dance Shows Return: Breaking Pointe and Dance Academy
One of my favorite parts of the summer is the large selection of TV dance shows. While I’m not a So You Think You Can Dance fan, it’s one of the many popular dance shows that came back on this summer. I meant to try to get into it, but I just haven’t had the time. I also don’t have cable (although I do have an antenna that allows me to get most network channels, it doesn’t really like Fox). There’s two other dance shows taking over this summer though: Dance Academy and Breaking Pointe. To me, they’re great for when there’s not as many ballet performances to go see and when I’m too busy doing other things to make it into the studio (although I’ll be there tomorrow night, finally!)
Breaking Pointe
Breaking Pointe first premiered last summer on the CW and featured company members of Ballet West in Salt Lake City. Although the show tries to amp up a lot of the supposed drama (especially through portraying Allison DeBona as a prima ballerina), there’s a lot of good content in the show. The show gives you key insight into what ballet company life is really like. While one of my favorite dancers, Katie Martin, will no longer be featured after her contract wasn’t renewed with Ballet West last year, I’m excited to see Beckanne Sisk again. Sisk studied at the Rock School in Philadelphia and is one of the company’s younger members. I’m also excited to see them show us the lives of the members of the second company, which wasn’t included last year. Breaking Pointe Premieres July 22nd.
Dance Academy
Dance Academy is an Australian teen show, but don’t let that mislead you. There’s lots of dancing: modern, hip hop, and of course, ballet and pointe work. Although there’s some teenie bopper drama, of course, I like Dance Academy even more than I like Bunheads, because it portrays teenagers struggling through a dance academy preparing them for a possible company role in Australia’s première dance company. Seasons 1 and 2 are currently available on Netflix and season 3 just premiered on Monday. While the episodes are available in the US quite yet, the first one has already popped up on YouTube.
PS: If you like Dance Academy, many of the actors (Dena Kaplan, Tom Green, and Tim Pocock will be on Camp on NBC, which premieres tonight at 10.
Do you watch dance shows on TV? What’s your favorite show?
January 23, 2013
Floor Barre (and why can’t I take ballet in a swimming pool?)
In a post on my old blog (around the time I first injured my ankle/leg), I posted about how I wished I could do ballet in a pool. I’ve always really enjoyed swimming (I was a lifeguard full-time for four summers and part-time for two summers). I first got the idea from an episode of Dance Academy entitled Heatwave where the academy holds their barre class in the pool because it’s too hot and the air conditioning in the studio is broken.
While I have messed around with barre exercises a little in the pool, I don’t really have a place where I can put this into practice as my school only has lap swimming at odd times. So I’ve been looking into floor barre, or doing exercises normally done at the barre while sitting or lying on the floor, as an alternative.
This Dance Advantage article entitled “How Low Can You Go?” lists several benefits of floor barre, including it being good for injuries, developing strength, and helping to improve with movement execution (including realizing what you might be doing wrong with bad habits).
While there are no floor barre classes in Philadelphia (that I could find) you can find a list of instructors of the method developed by Zena Rommet here. Another book I’ll be looking into checking out at the library is Maria Fay’s Floor Barre.
Would you ever consider doing floor barre or taking a floor barre class?
January 16, 2013
Ugly Feet
(Note: This is a repost from my old blog, so some of you may have already read it)
Dancers (especially ballet dancers, because of dancing en pointe) are known for having rather beat up feet. It’s been brought up on several dancing-focused shows like Breaking Pointe, Dance Academy, and of course, on Bunheads, where the girls enter an Ugly Feet contest for dancers (and win).
Despite that all the major ballerinas having less-than-pretty feet, I didn’t expect this to become a problem for me, since I only take once or two classes a week.
But, ugh, I was wrong. At class on Tuesday, two of my toenails cut into the sides of my toes (I keep my feet well-groomed mind you) and my left big toe’s nail started peeling back again (I slipped once in the pool locker room and OUCH! bent my entire toenail back).
On top of all that, my ankles often get black and blue (because they’re so weak) which results in me taping them like crazy (although the bright pink KTTape I just bought I must say looks pretty cool).
I think I see a pedicure in my future.
Do you have “Ugly Feet” because of dancing? What do you do to make your feet pretty again?
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to leave a comment on this post to help me enter in a DanceAdvantage contest: Top Dance Blog Contest 2013: Recreational Dancer
