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Ballet
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Ballet is a highly formalized performance art with roots in European court entertainment that later developed into a rigorous theatrical tradition. Students write about it across arts, humanities, performing arts, and Western civilization courses because it sits at the intersection of music, drama, visual design, and physical technique. Its history, from early theatrical productions through the innovations of the Ballets Russes, offers rich material for academic inquiry, and works such as Giselle raise questions about how movement, costume, and character combine to convey emotion and cultural meaning. The recurring presence of gender and sexuality as themes further connects ballet to broader conversations in cultural studies and critical theory.

Student papers on this topic tend to approach ballet through several distinct lenses. Historical essays trace the evolution of the form and examine how companies like the Ballets Russes reshaped choreographic and design conventions. Other papers take a cultural angle, exploring how ballet reflects or reinforces ideas about gender, identity, and national identity, with Russian culture appearing as a significant frame of reference. Some essays analyze specific productions or musical collaborators, looking at how composers such as Debussy and others shaped the dramatic and emotional register of staged works through sound and score.

A strong essay on ballet stakes out a focused argument rather than attempting a broad survey of the entire form. Evidence drawn from specific productions, costuming choices, musical structure, or documented choreographic decisions tends to carry the most analytical weight. The most common pitfall is treating ballet as purely aesthetic spectacle without engaging the social or historical forces that shaped its conventions and gave its narratives meaning.

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Research Paper Doctorate
Beyond clienthood: redefining relationships and agency
During the 1990s, none of the five largest air carriers in the US earned its costs of capital. Despite these challenges, airlines like Southwest and JetBlue earned enviable returns. How? An airline can be quite expensive for its owners. Aside from fuel, there is also airplane maintenance, and the number of seats that need to be filled. Airlines make profit by flying frequently, by filling all these seats, and by using less fuel. By sacrificing on other items, such as meals and seat assignments, Southwest set its prices very low, competing with the cost of auto travel rather than other airplanes' fares. Moreover their pricing structure was simple and relatively transparent to passengers, with few classes of fares and few ticket reservations. They were able to do this due to providing frequent point-to-point service between secondary airports that were on average only 515 miles apart. They also focused on simplicity, on eradicating frills, and on high aircraft utilization. Jet Blue imitated Southwest with its combination of low costs, strong brand, and new technology. The Internet helped launch JetBlue since 60% of seats were booked online. Encouraging customers to interact with the airline via Internet made it easier for customers and airline as well as cutting costs inv various ways. Also here the fare structures were simple, and tickets (as they were with Southwest) were electronic. JetBlue's image too was cheap although it attracted a different market – the bankers, brokers, fashion models, and finance officers. This was where it carved its niche. These air carriers succeeded whereas the others failed largely due to their low-cost rates, but also - as compared to other imitators that too tried low cost but shuttered (such as CALite) - because they put their customers first and were truly low cost Why have all the low-cost subsidiaries of legacy airlines, including Delta Express failed? Other low cost subsidiary airlines were not truly low cost – their true expenses were hidden in their financials - and therefore they failed. As regards Delta Express, it attempted to cut costs with lower labor rates and higher aircraft utilizations. It also operated older Boeings and served only light snacks. However its maintenance overhaul gave it low apparent maintenance cost and fights for its profitability showed as CEO Leo Mullin said that "it was a bit of a delusion to say it was a low-cost carrier" (9). Furthermore, Delta was initially a high cost carrier and it would be difficult if not impossible for a high cost carrier to transform itself into a low-cost carrier even with their selling cheap seats and attempting to cut costs. Delta Express still managed their transaction via their parent airline being, intrinsically still, high-cost and, therefore, lost in profitability...
Essay Doctorate
Impressions When in Rome the Film When
The film When in Rome deals with a young woman has lived a fairly sheltered life and has had limited experience with relationships. The romances she has had have made her feel that love and romance are unimportant in…
Research Paper Doctorate
Theoni V. Aldredge: life and theatrical design career
Discussion of Theoni V. Aldredge: One of America's Most Gifted Costume Designers
Paper Undergraduate
Accessibility in the Performing Arts
This study attempts to address the recent decline in arts patronage with an eye towards its underlying factors. While recent research has focused on the mix of economic pressures which have resulted in decreased funding for the arts, this research has frequently failed to investigate the attitudes and perceptions which inform these economic decisions. In order to bridge this critical lacuna, this study examines the different barriers to participation in the arts and determines that the recent decline is the result of practical and perceptual barriers to participation that engage in a vicious cycle wherein misinformed attitudes towards art precipitate decreased public and private support, which then serves perpetuate these attitudes. Stepping outside this cycle in order to reverse the decline requires an honest assessment of art's benefits and which benefits should be included when making appeals for greater patronage and support.
Paper Doctorate
Education reform initiatives and policy outcomes
At the moment, American schools work on a 10-month system due to their system being based on the traditional agrarian schedule when children were needed to work in the fields during the summer.
Research Paper Doctorate
Paul Taylor Contributions to Contemporary Dance
Since his first dance routine more than half a century ago, Paul Taylor has become one of the world's most popular and respected choreographers. His works are performed by companies throughout the globe.
Research Paper Doctorate
Reasons for reluctance to communicate
¶ … art is "the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking works" according to the World English Dictionary
Research Paper Doctorate
City in Modern Literature Professor
Professor and author Richard Sennett is frequently depicted in biographies and scholarly journals as a left-leaning social science thinker whose writing, though sometimes brilliant and always original, is also on…
Research Paper Doctorate
Ballet Russe and Nijinsky Influence the Gendering
¶ … Ballet Russe and Nijinsky influence the gendering of ballet? Consider both repertories and choreography.
Research Paper Doctorate
Understanding dance cultures and their social significance
¶ … Gerald Jonas' text Dancing -- the Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement attempts the difficult feat of conveying "The power of dance," a kinesthetic practice, into prose. Perhaps this is why the book was originally…