Dance

Dance is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.

An important distinction is to be drawn between the contexts of theatrical and participatory dance, although these two categories are not always completely separate; both may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, competitive, erotic, martial, or sacred/liturgical. Others disciplines of human movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and many other forms of athletics.

Performance and participation

Theatrical dance, also called performance or concert dance, is intended primarily as a spectacle, usually a performance upon a stage by virtuoso dancers. It often tells a story, perhaps using mime, costume and scenery, or else it may simply interpret the musical accompaniment, which is often specially composed. Examples are western ballet and modern dance, Classical Indian dance and Chinese and Japanese song and dance dramas. Most classical forms are centred upon dance alone, but performance dance may also appear in opera and other forms of musical theatre.

Dancer (novel)

Dancer is a novel based on the life of Rudolf Nureyev, written by Colum McCann and published in 2003.

Background

Nureyev was a Russian ballet dancer who achieved fame with the Kirov Ballet before defecting to the West in 1961 and subsequently became "one of the most written-about dancers in history". He died in 1992. McCann, born in Ireland, had previously written novels, short stories and newspaper reports while travelling and teaching in the United States and Japan; some of his work was set in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In 2001, already having "a growing reputation as an international writer", he moved to Russia where he researched his novel based on Nureyev while teaching English. A decade after the book's publication, McCann commented that he personally saw Nureyev as "a monster".

Plot and structure

The book begins on the Eastern Front during World War Two, with Nureyev performing for injured Soviet soldiers as a child. It covers his good fortune in gaining the chance to study ballet in his home country, his success there and then his life, work, loves and excesses as a celebrity after his defection to the West.

Dancer (disambiguation)

A dancer is one who performs dance.

Dancer or dancers may also refer to:

See also

Hockey

Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick. In many areas, one sport (typically field hockey or ice hockey) is generally referred to simply as hockey.

Etymology

The first recorded use of the word hockey is in the 1773 book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education by Richard Johnson (Pseud. Master Michel Angelo), whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey". The belief that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation by King Edward III of England is based on modern translations of the proclamation, which was originally in Latin and explicitly forbade the games "Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem: & ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam". The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word "hockey" when he translated the proclamation in 1720.

The word hockey itself is of unknown origin. One explanation is that it is a derivative of hoquet, a Middle French word for a shepherd's stave. The curved, or "hooked" ends of the sticks used for hockey would indeed have resembled these staves. Another explanation is that the cork bungs that replaced wooden balls in the 18th century came from barrels containing "hock" ale, also called "hocky".

Hockey (disambiguation)

Hockey is a family of team games.

Hockey may also refer to:

See also

Hockey (album)

Hockey is an album by John Zorn featuring his early "game piece" composition of the same name which first appeared on the Parachute Records edition of Pool in 1980. The full recordings of the piece were first released on CD on Tzadik Records as part of the The Parachute Years Box Set in 1997 and as a single CD in 2002.

Reception

The Allmusic review by François Couture awarded the album 2½ stars stating "Hockey belongs to John Zorn's early works. The piece dates from 1978 and is shorter (in principle) than Lacrosse or Pool, also from the same period... The inner workings of the piece are left to the listener's imagination, but the composer suggests a likeness to entertainer Jack Benny (and to a lesser extent Buster Keaton). ".

Track listing