Neon (dancer)

Neon is a contemporary belly dance and stiletto dance performer, instructor, and choreographer based in New York City. She is also the founder and owner of Stratostream Entertainment - World Dance New York, a US entertainment company publishing dance instruction, performance, and fitness home video products for women. As a dance instructor Neon has developed innovative visualisation-based methods for teaching dance and dance fitness in an accelerated-learning format.

Instruction

In the early 2000s, the rising popularity of women's solo dance styles as forms of creative fitness prompted the development of fast-track methods for teaching dance. Among the first dance fitness promoters, Neon based her courses on clear categorization of dance vocabulary, syntax and semantics, and borrowed from the language instruction techniques that stimulate intuitive discovery of patterns in a system of communication (such as in the Rosetta Stone and Berlitz instructional methods). Working with two- and three-dimensional trajectory visualizations and motor imagery she designed sequences of instructional cues and shortcuts that help learners with varying kinesthetic and space visualization abilities find correct movement trajectories without prolonged mechanical repetition. To promote the accelerated-learning dance class format, Neon introduced visualization-based learning tools in her dance instruction video programs, including 3-D graphic overlays on a dance instructor’s moving image tracking directions and shapes of movement trajectories.

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.

Assault Attack

Assault Attack is the third studio album from The Michael Schenker Group, and the only album to feature former Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnet. The album was recorded in France at the Château d'Hérouville and was produced by Martin Birch.

Overview

After returning to the UK from Japan in August 1981, having recorded the live album One Night at Budokan, Schenker and his band played a short tour of the UK. After the tour, Cozy Powell and Peter Mensch (Michael Schenker Group's manager) wanted a better singer for the band and suggested David Coverdale, but Schenker himself wanted Graham Bonnet. After some disagreements, which ultimately led to the termination of the cooperation between Mensch and MSG, Bonnet joined the MSG in February 1982. Meanwhile, Powell and Paul Raymond left the band for their own reasons and were replaced by drummer Ted McKenna and session keyboardist Tommy Eyre. After four months the band went to France to start recording the album that would become Assault Attack with producer Martin Birch, who arrived fresh from Iron Maiden's album The Number of the Beast. The sessions took place at a French castle, Le Château d'Hérouville.

Hot Space

Hot Space is the tenth studio album by British rock band Queen, released in May 1982. Marking a notable shift in direction from their earlier work, they employed many elements of disco, funk, rhythm and blues, dance and pop music on the album. This made the album less popular with fans who preferred the traditional rock style they had come to associate with the band.

Queen's decision to record a dance-oriented album germinated with the massive success in the US of their 1980 hit "Another One Bites the Dust" (and to a lesser extent, the UK success of the song too).

"Under Pressure", Queen's collaboration with David Bowie, was released in 1981 and became the band's second #1 hit in the UK. Though included on Hot Space, the song was a separate project and recorded ahead of the album, before the controversy over Queen's new sound (disco-influenced rock music). The album's second single, "Body Language", peaked at #11 on the US charts.

In July 2004, Q magazine listed Hot Space as one of the top fifteen albums where great rock acts lost the plot. Most of the album was recorded in Munich during the most turbulent period in the band's history, and Roger Taylor and Brian May lamented the new sound, with both being very critical of the influence Freddie Mercury's manager Paul Prenter had on the singer. Estimated sales of the album currently stand at four million copies.

Neon

Neon is a chemical element with symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is in group 18 (noble gases) of the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton and xenon) in 1898 as one of the three residual rare inert elements remaining in dry air, after nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide were removed. Neon was the second of these three rare gases to be discovered, and was immediately recognized as a new element from its bright red emission spectrum. The name neon is derived from the Greek word, νέον, neuter singular form of νέος [neos], meaning new. Neon is chemically inert and forms no uncharged chemical compounds.

During cosmic nucleogenesis of the elements, large amounts of neon are built up from the alpha-capture fusion process in stars. Although neon is a very common element in the universe and solar system (it is fifth in cosmic abundance after hydrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon), it is very rare on Earth. It composes about 18.2 ppm of air by volume (this is about the same as the molecular or mole fraction), and a smaller fraction in Earth's crust. The reason for neon's relative scarcity on Earth and the inner (terrestrial) planets is that neon forms no compounds to fix it to solids and is highly volatile. This led to its escaping from the planetesimals under the warmth of the newly ignited Sun in the early Solar System. Even the atmosphere of Jupiter is somewhat depleted of neon, presumably for this reason. It is also lighter than air, which has further depleted it from Earth's atmosphere.

Neon (Chris Young song)

"Neon" is a song recorded by American country music artist Chris Young. It was released in March 2012 as the third single and title track from his album Neon (2011). The song was written by Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Trevor Rosen. "Neon" received positive reviews from critics who praised the production, lyrics and Young's vocal performance. It stopped Young's five consecutive number-one hit run on the US Hot Country Songs chart, peaking at number 23. It also peaked at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Critical reception

Billy Dukes of Taste of Country gave the song four stars out of five, writing that Young "plays with notes high and low like a cat plays with a ball of yarn, sort of batting them back and forth, always in control." Tara Seetharam of Country Universe gave the song an A- grade, saying that Young's voice "sinks into the groove of the song so effortlessly you’d think he was singing in his sleep, skating around the melody with an appropriate blend of conviction and restraint." Jonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine, reviewing the album, called it a strong track that uses "creative imagery to explain the seductive draw of a bar."

Neon (Richard Fleeshman album)

Neon is the debut album by the British singer and ex-Coronation Street star Richard Fleeshman. It was released in November 2007. It debuted at number 71 on the UK Album Chart,

Fleeshman promoted the album by supporting Sir Elton John on two tours around the UK and Europe.

Track listing

References