Dance, Dance, Wherever You May Be

[shanmonster]

Check out the following dance-related links. All are very interesting.

Lion Dance: "In China, besides dragon dance, the lion dance is another popular recreation for the Chinese during their new year season. However, the lion dances of Northern China and Southern China have great differences in that of their appearance and the art of demonstration."

Virtual Provocateur: Bill Shannon--the CrutchMaster--is an urban style dancer with a unique twist. Because of a medical condition, he's relied on crutches to get around since he was five years old. With these crutches, he's not disabled. In fact, he shows more ability than most people you may meet on the street. You can find more infomation on him here.

Proprioception: I've finally learned a term for a concept I understood but had no name for: the way dancers, martial artists, and athletes send more accurate commands to their muscles while "better predicting the consequences of their movement commands. They learn, through practice, that when you lift your left leg, for instance, you need to shift your body to the right to compensate. And they learn to make fast and accurate corrections without conscious thought." You can learn more about Ian Waterman, a man who lost his proprioception, yet taught himself to walk again, here.

Pilobolus: I wish this dance company had a gallery or video clips. Even still, the photos scattered throughout their website are very interesting.

Dare to bare!: This article is interesting because it is so very silly and misinformational. "Lala who gave birth last year, confessed that she owes her shapely body from belly dancing.... The dance requires a lot of body jiggling, wiggling, bouncing, shaking, twisting and gyrating. As a belly dance instructor Lala needs to wear sexy, colorful flowing belly dance costumes that exposes her tummy. So, she has to maintain a nice, smooth abs...free from stretch mark." Puh-lease! Middle Eastern dancers do not have to wear colourful, sexy clothing that exposes their stomachs. And if the dance required no more than bouncing, jiggling, wiggling, and twisting, everyone from toddlers to newby strippers would be masters. Gawd.

Comments

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

"...Lala needs to wear sexy, colorful flowing belly dance costumes that exposes her tummy. So, she has to maintain a nice, smooth abs...free from stretch mark."

Sheesh. Ah well, guess I better give up belly-dance immediately, as I am obviously horrendously disfigured, and have no right exposing my woefully stretch-marked ..er.."abs".

Or not.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Sheesh indeed.

[miraba.livejournal.com]

That's a gorgeous photo.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I think so, too. The photographer specializes in fashion photography.

[phil-in-a-box.livejournal.com]

Who's that a photo of?

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

An unidentified model. I don't have any more information on the photo.

[phil-in-a-box.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't someone you knew and cared for before I busted out with "Ewwwwwwww, gross!! Get some freakin' meat on that corpse!"

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

Uh, she's not THAT skinny. The pose (arms raised, arched back) stretches out the abdomen, and while she might have a few ribs showing, the top-lighting is what brings them out so much. She's thinner than the average American (not hard to do), but not unhealthfully so; look at her arms.

Besides, her nipples are showing (okay, so they're only 5 pixels each, sue me). ;-]

[phil-in-a-box.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought the arms were the giveaway. The straight upper arm with neither fat nor any defined muscle visible, the elbow joint with bones pokin' out, and then the long straight forearms all point (to me) to pretty extreme emaciation; kinda like when I see pictures of Sara Michelle Gellar. *shudder*

But what the hell, she can do whatever she wants as long as she'll show us her tuts. ^_-

[hyperallergina.livejournal.com]

"she has to maintain a nice, smooth abs...free from stretch mark".
Most belly dancers have belly's as well as abs. What makes sexy dancing so sexy is that the women who do it are real, confident and feel sexy. Stretch-marks should never prevent someone from...well, ANYTHING!
I like to think of my stretch-marks as racing stripes...they make my bum go faster!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Hee!