How tall is a rockette dancer

Radio City Rockettes lower height requirements for Christmas Spectacular auditions

Local News

By Natalie Duddridge

Updated on: April 18, 2022 / 7:10 PM / CBS New York

Rockettes lower height requirements for Christmas Spectacular auditions 02:24

NEW YORK -- The Radio City Rockettes are reaching new heights. The famed high-kickers adjusted their requirements, meaning more women could compete for a spot.

CBS2's Natalie Duddridge went behind the scenes with hopeful dancers at Monday's open casting call.

It's a moment they've dreamed about since they were kids.

"It's just so exciting, even to just stand in line and be here," said Katie Armstrong from Minnesota.

"I'm a little bit nervous," said Lindsey Carroll from Kentucky.

Hundreds of young women traveled to Radio City Music Hall to earn a coveted spot with the Rockettes for the 2022 winter season.

"I was listening to the music, getting in the spirit of the Christmas spirit," said Jade Burns from Erie, Pennsylvania.

"I've been training for this day for a really long time," said Kennedy Berthiaume from San Francisco.

For the first time in at least 15 years, the height restrictions were lowered by an inch.

"We're hoping to include more people to come dance for us. So we lowered the range to 5-5 to 5-10 and a half," said Julie Branam, director of choreography for the Christmas Spectacular.

"I would've been on the edge, but I think I would've barely just made it. So now I feel like I have a little more room," said Brooklyn Bronson from Portland, Oregon.

The Rockettes are also aiming to create a more inclusive team of dancers.

"As a Latina myself," said Rockette Valeria Yamin, " ... diversifying the line is really important to me, but also for the younger ones."

At least 800 dancers were in line to audition. That's more than double the usual amount, but only a handful will make it.

"This is our first time having an open call in three years. So there were so many dancers who were preparing even during the pandemic," said dance captain Danelle Morgan.

First, they warm up and stretch. Then, they learn the routine. Next, they file into the studio for the moment they've been waiting for: the audition.

Twelve dancers from the first round were called back for Friday.

"I'm feeling super excited, super blessed and thankful," said Reba Bartran from Cleveland.

"I'm feeling overwhelmed, but overwhelmed with excitement," said Tanah Becker from Florida. "A little nervousness just because they were like 'You have to come back tomorrow,' which is exciting for me. My grandma actually showed me the Rockettes when I was around three and I told my mom when I was four that I wanted to do this."

Those who made the cut will go through a second round. The official new lineup of Rockettes will be announced at the end of the summer.

Rehearsals start in September.

A select few who do not make official Rockette status, but show potential, will get an offer to attend the dance company's conservatory program.

Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Rockettes

Natalie Duddridge

Natalie Duddridge is an award-winning journalist. She joined CBS2 News as a reporter in February 2018.

Twitter Facebook Instagram

First published on April 18, 2022 / 10:06 AM

Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.

Create your free account or log in
for more features.

Please enter email address to continue

Please enter valid email address to continue

Rockette Height Requirements - Our Pastimes

Images courtesy of xxloveemma and Shellies777 at Photobucket.

By: Brynne Chandler Updated September 15, 2017

A long line of tall, beautiful women doing high kicks in perfect unison is an image as American as waving wheat or red, white and blue. Many little girls who dance dream of being a part of that line, but it takes a very special set of skills and talents to fit in. The Rockettes were originally known as "The Missouri Rockets" when they were created by Russell Markert in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1925. The dancers were brought to Radio City Music Hall by its founder, Samuel Roxy Rothafel, where they performed at its grand opening in 1932.

History

According to Markert's December 3, 1990 obituary in the New York Times, the original height requirements for a Rockette were that she be between 5' 5" and 5' 8" tall. The average height for women at that time was 5' 2". Markert had also required Rockettes to be skilled in ballet, tap and soft shoe.

Modern Height Requirements

In 2009, Rockettes must be between 5' 6" and 5' 10 1/2" tall. The average height of an American woman in 2009 is 5' 4". Measurements are verified at the time of the audition.

Other Requirements

Markert looked for girls who were pretty and shapely and could kick at least six inches above their heads. He also required personalities that shone out from the stage as well as blending with those of the other dancers.

Casting calls for modern-day Rockettes on the Radio City Music Hall audition site also require that women trying be quick learners and proficient in jazz and tap.

Integration

Until 1987, only Caucasian women were accepted as Rockettes due to concerns that the appearance of women of color would violate the ensemble's visual symmetry. This was a reflection of founder Markert's vision of the dancers as "mirror images" of each other, which was so all-encompassing that he even forbade his dancers from getting suntans. The integration of the Rockettes was a smooth transition, first with a Japanese dancer being hired for the New York troupe in 1986, followed by two black women the following year.

In a New York Times article published on December 26, 1987, Manhattan Borough President, David N. Dinkins--the highest-ranking black in city government at that time--commented that "The quality of a production and its success at the box office are affected more by the talent of the performers than whether they look alike. It's the costumes that provide the sameness.''

Influence and Popularity

The precision dance routines made famous by the Rockettes have influenced ensemble dancing from the stages of Las Vegas to the half-time football fields of middle America. In 2001, the Rockettes performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the Inauguration of George W. Bush, and during the Christmas season they continue to perform five shows a day, seven days a week, as they have since 1932.

References

Read the full New York Times article on Rockettes and race.

Writer Bio

Emmy-award nominated screenwriter Brynne Chandler is a single mother of three who divides her time between professional research and varied cooking, fitness and home & gardening enterprises. A running enthusiast who regularly participates in San Francisco's Bay to Breakers run, Chandler works as an independent caterer, preparing healthy, nutritious meals for Phoenix area residents.

Dancing thinking and its development: ailev — LiveJournal

Immediately summary of this post:
-- we dance not with the body, but with the brain. The body is just a tool, but the brain works.
- the complexity of dance thinking is that one cannot do without a body at all, and other thinking (with reservations about embodied intelligence) can live purely in the brain. Well, the dancer is both the stakeholder and the material.
- dance thinking is a specialization of systems thinking, it is engineering in nature, its goal is to create a successful dance (cf.

successful system). This move has the traditional benefit of fighting complexity. But here you need to take into account: in dance thinking, work with many different viewpoints can be found! There may be many different "subjections" that serve different concerns.
- before considering dance thinking (patterns of movements to music), you need to deal with bodily psychopractices (which do not pull on thinking, but without which you will dance badly).
- dance thinking is interesting only in terms of its development.
-- the results of modeling and development of dance thinking should be formalized either as some kind of activity standards (body of knowledge), or immediately in the form of some kind of training course. The easiest way to look for such modeling results today is in the curricula of the best dance schools as "the content of education" (and should not be confused with teaching methods, "how to teach". No, for now we are discussing only "what to teach" in curricula).

Dance is usually associated with the body, but if you talk to dancers (especially dance teachers who need to quickly teach someone to dance - and preferably to the level of "champions"), it turns out that the brain dances and trains, and the body gradually obeys. Specific thinking takes place in the brain: dance thoughts, like the thoughts of systems thinking, mathematics and everything else, can be conscious or not conscious, this thinking does not live in every individual dancer, but in culture (“between people”, thinking cannot be discussed in Ptolemaic model of man - even if we are talking about a solo dancer).

To talk about dance thinking, you need to highlight it somehow. And then it turns out that there are many different ways of thinking about dance, it is multi-level and multi-disciplinary. And since thinking is closely connected with communication (including dance communication, for example, paired social dances), talking about dance thinking becomes no less difficult than talking about any other thinking. Even more complex: in systems thinking, of course, you can add a body (embodied intelligence), but in dance thinking you can’t do without a body, or even several bodies.

Moreover, dance thinking is hardly distinguishable from non-thinking practices-experiences in which there is no rationality, which "just are", which are simply patterned gestalts of states-positions of the mind and states-positions of the body. See, for example, the texts "my three months of kizomba" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1312598.html and "kizomba, exotelo and basic for dancing intelligence" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1315064.html

If, when discussing systemic thinking, engineering thinking, one can somehow abstract from the "bearer of thinking" and discuss the ideal flow of thought and the content of this thought, then in dance thinking it is impossible to abstract from the carrier of thinking by principle. As Anton Klimat (this is his pseudonym, he is actually Anton Klimov, the head of the Breakwater studio, which prepares hip-hop champions - https://vk. com/klimat) said a few days ago at a training session, "the dancer needs to be especially honest [reflexive] - because if the artist immediately sees with his eye that he smeared in the wrong place, the musician immediately hears with his ear that he played something wrong, then the dancer is deprived of such an opportunity if he is in the course of the dance does not look in the mirror. At any moment, the dancer must understand what is happening with his body, be honest and truthful in his feelings - this dance is different from other arts. " The focus of dance thinking is the dancer himself and what is happening to him, the dance is inalienable from the dancer. As I already wrote about the dance - here the dancer is both the material of the target system, and the stakeholder, who has his own interests. And so it is necessary to discuss separately "thinking of the material" (psychopractices) and "thinking of the stakeholder" (mental patterns taken from culture).

"Thinking of the material", low-level perceptions and patterns of movement are connected with the body, they make it possible to realize the dancing idea of the dancer-stakeholder - this is "thinking about movements", not even "thinking about dance". This is motor thinking, "about the body and its movements."

The difference between this motor/body and dance thinking is about the same as between rational thinking and its logical foundations (see, for example, http://ailev.livejournal.com/1311261.html) and systems thinking -- the second is not happens without the first, builds on it. An illogical thinker cannot be a systems thinker. Similarly, a poorly moving (or poorly imagining movement) person cannot be a dancer. But rational thinking together with logical thinking is incorporeal in this regard (although there are nuances about embodied intelligence), but voluntary motor thinking (and not already patterned by dance!) thinking is bodily. Well, it should also be noted that along the line of development of rational thinking, you can get a Nobel Prize, and along the line of development of motor thinking, you can only set a Guinness record (becoming a world champion in some kind of dance or martial arts is also about performing in the arena, see below). "psycho-practices of the animal nature", http://openmeta.livejournal.com/236318.html).

The problem is that a good dancer doesn't think about movement in an arbitrary way, but in a very specific way. And this thinking can also be taught, and taught explicitly. The difference in explicit (through intelligible explanations of the principles and then through specially selected exercises) and implicit ("on the best samples", according to the principle "do as I do", i.e. purely on mirror neurons, "like monkeys") learning is usually five once in time. If you don’t want to learn five times faster, then you don’t need to “learn through awareness”, and then you could not talk about this “thinking of the material”. From motor practices, I mentioned such a transition to intelligible learning, I know in taijiquan (section " learning taijiquan" at http://ailev.livejournal.com/1013825.html), piano (http://ailev.livejournal.com/944960.html), and from the ones I recently met - just Anton Klimat's movement training school.

Boris Mayer just told me that he discovered a "general motor processor" in a person, which is suitable for superimposing any movement patterns on him - even ballroom dancing, even any other dances, even taijiquan, even any other martial arts. But he is personally interested in taijiquan, and therefore he is not particularly involved in explicitly describing and highlighting the practices of teaching motor skills as such, the practices of thinking about your body as a moving body, the psychopractices of bodily movement as such, not yet patterned by kizomba, taijiquan or a waltz from sports dances . Anton Klimat is about the same about this level of motor skills, only in relation to hip-hop in general and wavering in particular: he clearly does not distinguish it, but understands its existence well. This gives both the acceleration of learning for their students five times compared to learning the movements immediately patterned by their movement styles - that is, the gain in speed is obtained by dividing the actual dance (taijiquan is exactly the same dance as any other in my imagination), those. culturally patterned movement and movement as such, not yet affected by patterning, but conscious and developed for the perception of this patterning - prepared for the rapid development of the actual dance (in a specific dance or sports style) movement.

The leading scheme for me in thinking about this bodily level, the boundary between thinking and just psychopractices, is the scheme of the (cyber)psyche (see the report "psyche engineering" http://openmeta.livejournal.com/238030.html, scheme in slide 13 https://www.slideshare.net/ailev/ss-58654585), and taking into account the possibility of the emergence of cyber components, http://openmeta.livejournal.com/237056.html (I myself tried to understand how I move smoothly using the graph from the accelerometer in the phone.There are gadgets for athletes like "smart racket", there will certainly be gadgets for dancers).

A good dancer thus has different points of attention on the body and other ways of controlling the body, other possibilities -- and these possibilities come to the body "through the brain", there are no other ways! Say, where does the beauty of hand movements come from?

1. Some muscles stop interfering with other muscles (isolation as the ability to contract one muscle, not large groups of muscles, which immediately gives you completely different possible trajectories of movement, as well as plasticity - the ability of a muscle not only to contract, but also to stretch, which adds significantly to the range of possible trajectories). Anton Klimat offers here some special training based on three modes of muscle work: tension (pressure sensation), stretching (burning sensation), relaxation (limp sensation). And you need to train conscious control of all three states, and in times less than a second (dancing is fast! And if under tension this “less than a second” looks like a ridiculous requirement, then try to relax some tricky muscles that control the position of the pelvis in less than a second! relax any flexor, the extensor will not be able to fully work, and vice versa). Brain training here is simple, but it takes a significant amount of time: a) to “catch” the right muscle with its “clamp” with attention, and b) learn how to relax and strain it (and other muscles will stretch it, but only when it can be relaxed).

2. Control points are tied to bones and joints, and not to the usual ordinary coordinates. For example, you can lift and rotate the shoulder, or you can lift and rotate the scapula - of course, the movement of the scapula (i.e., the movement that is perceived in the mind as controlling the scapula, not the shoulder) leads to a rise and torsion of the shoulder. But the style will be significantly different: the movements of the scapula (well, or "from the scapula", as the dancers say) will be softer, smoother, and more varied. The problem here is that it is difficult to even imagine the movement of the scapula, it is difficult to control the different muscles that pull it up. But it is very easy to imagine and control the muscles when it comes to shoulder movement. This is the first task: to retrain the brain. Another example is the movements of the pelvis (try to twist it in different planes, this is a rude "plate" - and you need to be able to somehow turn it, quickly and accurately), movements of the spine in the region of the upper ribs (usually there is nothing at all moves unless you specifically design this place - but if you want to send a wave through the body, you will need this movement).

The passage "through awareness" in this training of "bodily thinking", thinking of the "dancer as material", this education of self-perception and self-control through an explicit connection "brain-body" takes about five times less time than through unconscious repetitions of some movements. And the practices of this "bodily awareness" are approximately the same in all schools. So, “dance meditation”, work with the brain-without-the-body works well (well, or on micro-movements, when the muscles do not work at full strength, but only twitch a little, imperceptibly to the eye). The climate calls it break meditation, but it is also described for practicing piano playing, and it was also used by Mahmud Esenbaev for his training, and Cameron-Bostick likes to talk about it, who “does ballet” in the hospital. “Dancing inside the head” (or playing a musical instrument “inside the head”) and micromovements is already a common place, but this is a move towards awareness, towards psychopractice, although not yet towards some kind of civilized thinking. But when you "inside your head" pull not with your shoulder, but with a shoulder blade - at this moment culture works, the bodily thinking transferred to you works.

There are many ways to define/describe dance that are important for conscious thinking about dance. For example, all systems of external recording of movements will not be adequate as "notes" for a dancer - for a dancer moving "inside the head" with a spatula will have to somehow translate a description into another system of motor thinking, in which the movement of the shoulder, which is clearly visible from the outside, will most likely be recorded. ! Here's about these dance notations: http://ailev.livejournal.com/76767.html - there is an emphasis on performance, meaning "outside view". This is a notation for thinking about the dancer, not the movement thinking of the dancer himself. Although both can formally be attributed to dance thinking, but these are completely different manifestations of it! Moreover, this is a recording of "just movements", while the actual dance thinking works in a patterned way. In the same kizomba, all thinking revolves around exits to various sayids, and not around individual movements of the legs. Thus, you need to record patterns, not individual movements!

Here is another example of this "external", visual thinking about dance -- Optimal asymmetry and other motion parameters that characterize high-quality female dance, http://www.nature.com/articles/srep42435. The article draws a connection between the ability of women to make asymmetrical movements (which shows a high degree of development of the body and brain) and her "femininity", the perception of male as a potential partner and female as a potential competitor. Further, these results can be translated into an engineering plane: to teach dancing in such a way as to "make the right impression" (well, and generally discuss the requirements for dancing). Well, or declare the entire article nonsense: perception in dances depends more on culture, it is artificial, comes from thinking, and not from "instincts" - and if the study carried out in the article is repeated on people from the hinterland of Africa, in the US ballet school and the village urban type in the Far North of Russia, the results will be quite different.

In any case, from the level of the motor base, the "movement processor", the sensation of the body from the inside and the pattern of body movement from the outside (as well as the relationship between dance and music - working with rhythm at least, phrasing in music, weaving rhythm and form of dance movements into rhythm and form of parts of musical instruments in music - see the initial list of skills in "the most important skills of a dancer" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1324775.html) we can go to the next level of dance thinking - where there are no longer separate movements, and their pattern, i.e. dance. By and large, dance thinking will work with dance, while the body and its control will be considered developed.

There are also several different levels here, since different people are concerned about different things, everyone has their own concerns (concerns):
-- within the given dance language (patterns of movements of some kind of dance). Thinking is dogma, the canon of some kind of dance or dance family. Here, too, you can set different perspectives, build different methods of description, build a canon in different ways. For example, postulating a dance as inseparable from its music, or deriving a canon from the performance of some particular dance school (and albeit a large one - say, city parties somewhere in Luanda) at some period of time (say, in 80- years of the last century), or deriving the canon from some historical considerations, or simply referring to authorities with their "sense of correctness", or making attempts to formalize some ideas and mercilessly cutting off everything that does not fit under it. For example, discussions of "true kizomba" from this series. But further within the framework of the canon, this thinking also exists, we can talk about the degree of its development, wealth or limitation, productivity or secondary.
- outside the given dance language, in other words - the development of dance, going beyond some canon.
-- beyond the boundaries of dance as such, access to broader cultural patterns (for example, along the line of hip-hop culture, where breakdancing is only one of the components of a wider culture, and the canon is wider, as well as development is not only breakdance).
-- beyond these broader patterns, out into patterned thinking as such.

And at each of these levels, one can talk about "perception from within by a dancer", "perception by a dance partner", "perception by observers/spectators/judges/friends" -- and further attempts to satisfy the most diverse interests/concerns of all the most diverse interests , realizing that dance as a "successful system" is very difficult to make.

Here it should be noted separately that dances obviously do not belong to science, but to engineering - therefore, systems thinking is quite applicable to dances. In this regard, in dancing, the task is to create (realization, "bringing into reality") a successful dance (successful dance), which satisfies, if possible, all stakeholders - both the dancer himself from the inside, and his partner / partner (also from the inside, remember about the connection! ), and viewers, and parents, and many, many others. Remember that a successful system is included in the very first phrase of the systems engineering definition - it is a system that satisfies the expectations of the project stakeholders (see the very first phrase in the systems engineering definition: http://www. incose.org/AboutSE/WhatIsSE). Well, those familiar with systems engineering do not need to be told that the dance "here and now" is just a 4D individual (a kind of "worm in space-time"), we even especially analyze this example in the classes of systems thinking.

So I personally would finally become non-pop, non-humanitarian and non-poetic, and build further reasoning about dance thinking as about engineering thinking, and to the extent that dance implies collective forms of its existence, I would also include managerial thinking. Thus, I would talk about dance thinking and dance practices in much the same way as about the thinking and practices of programmers, or the thinking of machine learning system engineers - what is there with the requirements for the dance, what is there with the architecture, what are the modules in the dance and what components , and even what kind of placements there are in the dance. Everything is not so original, but such an approach certainly allows you to somehow take into account the plurality of stakeholders in the dance and the plurality of their interests. Including interests in poetry, pop, ease of perception, compliance with some cultural canons, etc. material", and as "stakeholders", so that the methods of traditional "iron" and software engineering are unsuitable for creating dances. However, these engineering methods are many and they work. They reduce complexity in dealing with different situations, they provide reproducible results, they enable teamwork. And they leave a huge scope for creativity, no one has yet canceled the work of the head for that same engineering thinking - it does not cancel the engineering approach to dance and the work of the head for the manifestation of creativity in dance thinking.

Thus, above "body thinking", "motor thinking" there appears a level of patterned dance thinking within the framework of some kind of dance tradition.

In a good way, I would need to develop this idea further and tell what are the dance modules, what are the interfaces, which concerns of which stakeholders are made out by which viewpoints - with examples, without "bird language", understandable to dancers and the general public . But I won't do it.

Instead, I will note that there are recognized pioneers in engineering - they propose new architectures that respond to new architectural requirements. What was previously considered impossible by a variety of stakeholders is becoming possible with these pioneers. They push the boundaries of the possible, they create the new. The rest are second-moverers, third-moverers and other rearguards and gray masses. This argument about engineering fully applies to dancing.

The main innovation of this post is a suggestion to take from engineering the methods of dealing with complexity that allow you to create successful engineering systems and apply them to dance. This will allow mass and conscious creation of successful dances. Moreover, it will allow the development of dances, making them more complex and sophisticated, but without going beyond the limits of ordinary human capabilities.

You can get great pleasure by dancing the same waltz in its dogmatic version from youth to old age. There are stakeholders who need exactly this, this is an ideal. All their thinking is slowly moving into the unconscious, leaving a pure and uncomplicated trance - either a change of partner or a change of music can bring variety. But I'm not one of those conservatives. Art, including in its social, rather than professional and performative forms, develops and grows with new languages, new styles, new thoughts, and not by carefully preserving and polishing the classics. This discussion about art fully applies to dances, exactly the same as about engineering, which is also valuable for the by no means careful preservation of some kind of bridge building as of the middle of the last century.

When it comes to dance thinking, development is important to me - creating new dances that will be successful for more and more dancers, spectators, judges, art historians, DJs, friends, families and other people affected by dance.

To do this, dancers must have their own R&D, engineering (and sometimes just scientific) research and development. There should be experiments that go beyond what is already known and tested. There must be passages into new dances, there must be finds of rich and expressive dance languages.

Half a year ago I found the social dance "kizomba" and found that it is largely inexhaustible -- research and development, formulating new requirements and building new kizomba architectures. Or no longer kizomba? It does not matter what words to call and what classification will then be built post factum. But it is important where and how the dance is developing, how the "dance engineers" communicate, how the research is organized.

The dance industry is like the mass production of dance -- it happens at parties. Thousands and thousands of dances are produced there. Yes, sometimes something new is also produced there, a party at the same time and an "exhibition of the achievements of the dance economy." But more often than not, new things are produced purposefully in the course of research and development, and this happens mainly in dance schools. Of course, schools are different. Most dance schools are just educational institutions: their teachers take master classes in various other schools and then pass on knowledge to students, preserving the canon. But there are dance schools focused on research. An example of such a dance school in Moscow is AfroFusion (http://afrofusion.ru/). For example, here is one of their research products: Kizomba Fusion -- https://youtu.be/whNe6zgPrV0. This is not the only result of the research. AfroFusion teachers lead a community https://vk.com/kizombamoscow, where a lot of materials on Fusion Kizomba have been published over the past few months - and most often today this is the junction of kizomba and dubstep (I myself, by the way, noticed that the frontier of kizomba is creeping towards dubstep back in November -- http://ailev.livejournal.com/1310496.html, http://ailev.livejournal.com/1311543.html. But AfroFusion noticed this earlier - in addition to several kizomba programs (very different: traditional, classical, fusion, urban kiz, tarraxa and even tarrax'osteo) there is also a dubstep group led by the same Anton Klimat. And this group is attended not only by ordinary students like me, but also by teachers. Well, the dubstep itself in this group is geared towards the interests of kizomba, this is also part of the research - but already Anton's research in terms of the development of hip-hop in its fusion with other dances, the development of dance thinking of illusory styles.

AfroFusion teachers also lead the Yu community, where they publish their "projects" on the study of dance novelties (for example, there was a series of publications on urban tarraxa), biographies of figures in the kizomba world and other things that cannot be called "research and development", but what demonstrates some level of reflexivity in work. The same can be said about Thierry Déa's studio in St. Petersburg, they put on a rebit there: https://vk.com/video175030_456239031 - although I wouldn't say that we are talking about some kind of "creating a new one", but it's a disaster Start. Experiments go with movements, with music, the results are laid out on video (here is Dnepropetrovsk - https://youtu. be/lpNcbuIZQ3g, here is Krasnodar - https://youtu.be/fcb0TXThmMU, here is Kaliningrad - https://www .youtube.com/channel/UCCP-WhRAISTmE6ZSsgmkFgw, and this is not the whole list). I would draw attention to the fact that this is not so much about "advertising videos" and demonstrations of various "shows" (which can be extremely negatively perceived by fans of social dances, there is an opinion that "teaching kizomba" and "shows" incompatible with kizomba itself!). I would pay attention to the fact that there is some kind of research activity, some kind of development, some kind of advancement of the boundaries of dance, attempts to take some step in the development of dance thinking.

GP Shchedrovitsky wrote a book "Pedagogy and Logic", where he clearly showed that if there is no combined research and educational activities, then education cannot be of high quality. This I mean that if we are talking about "research schools", then the education in them will be of high quality, there is a chance to teach dance thinking, to make this thinking conscious. And if it's "just a school" that takes dance thinking in its unreflected form and tries to transfer it unconsciously to its students - I'm sorry, but such a school will only release good dancers into life by chance.

There is also a real university science of dance, and there is a lot of it on the Internet in a variety of languages. There, higher dance education is close, and even academic degrees in dance and their study. But usually this is far from life, it is a "theory", not life. For life, some Portuguese professor (not a university professor, but just a "teacher"! This is not English, everyone confuses the translation here!) Like mestre Petchu (http://www.mestrepetchukilandu.com/biografia.html, here is an example of him work -- he explains the basic movements of tarraxinha -- https://youtu.be/aHbjn_JQLa0) is often more influential than a major university graduating dancers with a real high school diploma.

Well, you can’t say in a nutshell about dance thinking itself, volumes have already been written about it (as well as about systems thinking, computational thinking and any other thinking, as well as “just thinking”). But I will repeat the main idea of this post: it is worthless to try to describe it, to develop it, if we are not talking about education. For I adhere to a constructivist interpretation: if you understand what the essence of dance thinking is, then be ready to demonstrate it in the educational process, i.e. take a student (and even yourself) and show how your version gives a successful dance with less effort, in less time than other methods. Well, or with a comparable time, it gives a more successful dance than the dances obtained by other variants of dance thinking, or even "beyond thinking". This applies to all thinking. If you figured out how to think well, then write a textbook and do exercises for it - create a training course for good thinking. Without this, any talk about thinking is meaningless.

This means that dance thinking can be found in the curricula of the best dance schools. And then you can try to overcome the complexity, relying on systemic and engineering thinking about dance.

UPDATE: Facebook discussion -- https://www.facebook.com/ailevenchuk/posts/10209485959599942
Track concern (wow!) with the text of the first few lines of the post from Valery Veryaskin (https://www.facebook.com /valery.veryaskin) -- https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3av2yybeezx3rj/concerns.mp3?dl=0
Anton Klimat's review -- https://vk.com/wall7236650_5234
Huge discussion of various dancers -- https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.vilvovskaya/posts/10154668226083705 (and a lot of my clarifying comments)
Discussion with emphasis on the "interpretation" of both dances and neural networks and a systematic approach: https://www.facebook.com/alexander.girshon/posts/1640359375980662
Discussion, including about "alchemy and chemistry" in dance, as well as the possibility of an engineering approach https://www.facebook.com/groups/fulldayideokinesis/permalink/1838725396157102/
Discussion in the KIZOMBA community (alas, only a small part of the post was published there - but the discussion about "muscle memory" and dancing did take place): https://vk. com/wall-24773547_9174
Review in the VK community "Live dancing ": https://vk.com/wall-17215818_2180
Viewpoints performance (based on this text and Valery Veryaskin's phonogram) -- work of the 5th year student of the Department of Modern Choreography of KhSAC, class of teacher Falkov I.N. (this is Kharkov) -- https://www.facebook.com/events/375517116176741/?active_tab=discussion&__xt__=33.%7B%22logging_data%22%3A%7B%22profile_id%22%3A375517116176741%2C%22event_type%22% 3A%22clicked_view_event_posts%22%2C%22impression_info%22%3A%22eyJmIjp7Iml0ZW1fY2

After the draw, the first games began. Someone made their debut this time, and someone participated in all our previous tournaments, as the winner of previous years, Vladimir Chuguev, but emotions were running high. Watching this game is a pleasure! The fans were talking about the same.

Valentina Nuzhina with her daughter Zhenya came to support Yaroslav's wife:
- Our family is still young, we are only seven years old. We have two children, and we are fond of sports, lead a healthy lifestyle. Today they came with their daughter, and their son Igor is resting with his granny. We support dad, whom we love very much! says Valentina. – Of course, we wish you success and victory! I myself love athletics, volleyball and fitness that is fashionable these days. I haven’t thought about table tennis yet, maybe I’ll follow the example of my husband.
- I am very, very rooting for dad today, because he is the head of our family, - Zhenya shares without hiding his delight. - Physical education and sports are health! I like sports, however, I have not yet decided what I will do, - the little girl admits.
Yaroslav Nuzhin adds:
- We play table tennis in our free time at our enterprise, at the Weight Equipment Plant, where I work as a slinger. This is not my only hobby, but also football, volleyball, I am fond of hockey. I learned about the Golden Racket of BR from social networks, and decided to participate without hesitation with my friends. Everything was set up great! So I advise everyone to go in for sports and be active participants in such events.

The youngest tennis player at the tournament was Denislam Gilyazetdinov :
- I am a student of the Nosov Moscow State Technical University in Beloretsk, studying at the department of "Electric Power Engineering and Electrical Engineering". I have been playing hockey for many years, I played for the Yunost team, and now for the Magnitogorsk team SMS-Group Service. Once I was scrolling through the news feed and saw an ad about a table tennis tournament. We used to play often, I wanted to remember. For the first time I participate in such competitions. In my opinion, the main thing is not victory, but participation and the opportunity to test yourself and your strengths. Everyone is in a great mood. Received the prize as the youngest player. Very nice! I wish such events were held more often. After all, they attract young people to sports, here you can see the continuity of generations, you can talk with experienced players, learn from them. It would be great if competitions were held in football, tennis, and volleyball at the city or district levels. It is necessary to develop mass sports!

Tennis players have been trying to find the strongest for several hours.

Among men, the first two places were won by guests from Magnitogorsk Khakimzhan Royanov and Yegor Solomatov. The third place belongs to Oleg Lomakin from Belarus.
Among women, Olga Ryzhkina became the best, Ekaterina Migranova came in second, and Lyudmila Cherepanova closed the top three.

Olga Ryzhkina, the winner of the Golden Racket tournament, shares her impressions :
- I work as a process engineer in shop No. 16 of BMK JSC. When I first came to work, I found out that we have a tennis team in our workshop, the guys invited me to play. Gradually got carried away. This is my first participation in the Golden Racket, I saw an ad on the Internet, then Oleg Lomakin invited me, so I decided to try it. Before that, she participated in competitions that take place at our plant, and also played in the championship of Beloretsk. Last year she took second place, and this year - first.
So she won the Golden Racket BR. To be honest, it was very difficult. Firstly, she did not practice much, and secondly, Katya Migranova is a strong player. She works in the first workshop, so we have already played at various BMK sports days, and either she or I won. This time our final turned out to be powerful and emotional. Luck smiled on me. But I wish everyone luck and more often! And I will definitely train and participate in such tournaments, - the winner assured.

Rafkat Nurullin became the oldest participant of the last tournament. Vladislav Anosov was awarded for the will to win. For the most offensive loss in the tournament, an incentive prize was awarded to Rustam Zainullin :
- I am 32 years old, I work at the Weight Equipment Plant. I have been actively playing table tennis for three years, and I started as a schoolboy, that's how it hooked me. I really like this sport. I participated in such competitions for the first time, although I heard that the tournament was held before, and then there was a break due to the pandemic. When a friend threw off information about the Golden Racket of BR, he immediately decided to participate. In addition, we play tennis together at the weight plant: we set up a table and train in our free time. We also play volleyball. In general, we try to lead a healthy and active lifestyle.
Impressions from the tournament are only positive. It is a pity that he did not reach the victory, the opponent was stronger. Such activities must be carried out. And I will participate in them!

Alexander Kononenko, Director of the Wrestling Sports School:
- Impressions from the tournament are very good! Before that, we played at our level and, to be honest, we didn’t quite understand what it could be. At your event, I saw a lot of experienced players, watched them carefully, learned a lot of new and useful things. All this has to be rethought, realized and learned. What were the submissions! Everything is very interesting. Having played my parts, I left, but as soon as I was free, I returned to the hall to watch the game. Impressive final meeting. I was pleasantly surprised that in Beloretsk there are tennis players of such a high level. So we all have room to grow and improve. Impressions - cool, cool. If possible, I will engage in and participate in such tournaments. Yes, my friends support me. One of them has already ordered a new professional racket and new pads. In general, I got excited about the game and got carried away in earnest. Now I want to get a decent inventory. I would like to note that the coaches of our sports school play tennis before and after their training sessions and show master classes to everyone. So we got infected with this sport, now we do it together. Tennis does not interfere with wrestling at all. I am sure that every athlete should be diversified. This game helps to be agile, improves reaction, helps to concentrate, makes you think quickly and make the right decision, and this is necessary in any sport.