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As Fairfield Ballet enters its eighth season, it can look back at a long string of successes and accomplishments. Under the auspices of Dance Theater of Iowa, students have danced in six highly successful productions in Fairfield over the past seven years. In addition, students of Fairfield Ballet have performed for thousands of school-age children in southeast Iowa as part of Dance Theater of Iowa's popular Lecture Demonstration program, which offers dance demonstrations to increase awareness of dance as an art form. Other students have performed ballet pieces at FAO Schwarz in New York and at a children's museum in Soho.
For Some, The Beginning of a Career
A number of Fairfield Ballet students have participated in some of the most prestigious summer ballet programs in the country, including New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Boston Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Washington Ballet, and many others. In addition, some of the students who started with Fairfield Ballet have gone on to pursue dancing as a professional career. Australian-born Kathryn Wells, who started dancing with Fairfield Ballet at the age of seven, is now studying and performing as a professional ballerina in Sidney, Australia.
For Others, A Valuable Discipline
From the perspective of Fairfield Ballet Director Emma Rainey, however, the real accomplishment of Fairfield Ballet over the years has been the education and growth she has witnessed in the students over the years.
"Dance is an extremely valuable form of education," says Rainey. "Unlike the predominantly intellectual knowledge students are exposed to in school, it builds their whole personality. Dance requires extreme discipline, persistence, and attention to detail, and that discipline and persistence carries over into all other areas of life."
In recent years it is not only children and teenagers who have benefited from Fairfield Ballet's dance classes. Interest in the school's ballet and jazz classes has increased among adults as well.
"Many people think of ballet as an activity for children only," says Rainey. But that is not at all the case. Nationally, there is an increasing interest in ballet among adults, and I see the same in this community. It is true that ballet, and to some extent jazz and modern dance as well, can be challenging to be pick up at an adult age. However, it is also one of the most rewarding and holistic forms of exercise you can engage in."
Flexibility, Strength, and Endurance
According to Rainey, ballet tones all of the muscles of the body--particularly the abdominals, thighs, and back. It is also one of the few forms of exercise that cultivate all three categories of physical fitness: flexibility, strength, and endurance. Women approaching or going through menopause in particular can benefit from rigorous dance training, which offers protection against many of the symptoms associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, sleep problems, night sweats, osteoporosis, obesity, muscle weakness, and cardiovascular disease. It also facilitates increased weight control, enhanced self-esteem, better mood, improved sleep patterns, better digestion, strong muscle tone, and increased energy.
"Dancing not only does wonders for your body and energy level, it feeds you in a way that very few other things can," says one adult dancer who has worked with Rainey for a number of years. "It's more than just exercise, it really embodies the mind, the body, and the soul. In dance, your body is your instrument and you learn to communicate with and listen to your body in an entirely new way. Once you gain the ability to listen to your body, it will tell you a great deal."
Rainey's advice to adult beginners is to not feel inhibited by the way they look or the fact that learning new forms of movements in the beginning can be challenging. "The challenge is part of the training--physically and mentally," says Rainey. "It gives students the opportunity to face their own limitations, not only as a dancer and performer, but as a human being. When you learn how to face a challenge in a given situation, it teaches you how move beyond your limitations and grow in a way that you didn't perceive as possible. That is an extremely valuable lesson, for children as well as adults."
Dance classes for Fairfield Ballet will resume at the end of August. For more information, please call Fairfield Ballet at (641) 469-3799.
August 2001 Front Page http://www.fairfield.freehosting.net/01aug/index.html