<\/a>In this 2009 photo, December’s mid-day light shines through the Juneau Dance Unlimited studio as Misha Culver stretches in her Snow costume during a dress rehearsal for “The Nutcracker.” (Klas Stolpe)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
In one professional company’s performance of “Swan Lake,” principal dancer Kathleen Martin did 64 fouettés — a quick-spinning movement of a raised leg usually accompanying a pirouette. A pirouette is a turn on one leg with the dancer starting on one or two legs in a plié and moving into a relevé (rising onto the ball of one’s foot for a man and en pointe for a woman) with a rotation. She did 64 fouettés without stopping.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Yes, I had to Google that, my Swedish explanation would have been: Katie spun around fast.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Dancers have explosive power and artistry, physical prowess and emotional expression.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
We are not talking 3 a.m. at the local night boogie stop here.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
So let me just bask in the glory of “The Nutcracker” season.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
If you need a resolution in a month, watch a couple ballets and you will be vowing to exercise a bit more.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Okay! Missy Copeland, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Olga Smirnova, Eleonora Sevenard, Laura Morton, Vincenzo Di Primo, Bianca Scudamore, Amanda Morgan, Kennedy Brown, Maria Coelho….<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I name-dropped a couple for you.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Juneau’s own Genevieve Carson, Misha Culver, Máire New and Anouk Otsea are a few that impressed me years ago in coverage…just look at the guest faculty of the Juneau Dance Theatre and everyone there is more athletic than the average hiking Swede.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Would I choose a dancer first in a game of pickup basketball? I would not even care if they had no jump shot.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Sports, entertainment, business…the line is easily crossed when someone can do things so incredible that my muscles get sore just watching.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
In Vegas gambling? Check out any Cirque du Soleil performance.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Here’s a fact:<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
It is easier to get onto a college basketball team than that same university’s performance dance team.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
And while ballet is not considered a sport, dance has come into the Olympic games in various contests (breakdancing, figure skating, gymnastics).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
So maybe “sport” is the wrong noun. “Athlete” is more fitting. “Super athlete” to be more specific.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Ballet is one of the most physically grueling endeavors a human can withstand.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
And heck, if they have an orchestra that makes my heart swoon, it is even better.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stople@juneauempire.com.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The anniversary of one of the holiday’s most heartbreaking and heartwarming events still chills me to this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":113988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[87,856],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-113987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-sports","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-holidays-and-seasonal-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113987"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=113987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}