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This bud is on a Night Blooming Cereus. It blooms just once a year for one night only. It is a rare and special event. In Victorian times, people planned parties around the blooming of these plants.
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All the design information and geometry in this blossom (as in any blossom) is contained in the seed of the plant. It just takes time and the right conditions for the plant to flower.
What do you think it feels like to be this flower? How do you think the flowering of a plant might connect to the study of ballet?
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This bud is on a Night Blooming Cereus. It blooms just once a year for one night only. It is a rare and special event. In Victorian times, people planned parties around the blooming of these plants.+of+DSCN2065.JPG)
All the design information and geometry in this blossom (as in any blossom) is contained in the seed of the plant. It just takes time and the right conditions for the plant to flower.
What do you think it feels like to be this flower? How do you think the flowering of a plant might connect to the study of ballet?
37 comments:
Patience, perseverance.... It reminds me of the feeling of arching backwards with the chest opening rather than the head falling back, as discussed in class today.
The plant works all year converting carbon dioxide and water to sugar and oxygen while its growing. Then it only gets one night to display its beauty. This probably feels like something of a thankless job during the year, but the final result (the blooming) makes it all worthwhile.
Taking ballet technique classes and performing parallels the process the plant goes through to achieve its beauty. Taking classes and rehearsing allows a dancer to grow and improve his or her technique. The final result is a performance (which may happen more or less often than the Night Blooming Cereus's performance) where the dancer can display the full beauty of his or her technique for those who chose to enjoy it.
Before it blooms, I bet the flower feels like shouting out to everyone "Just wait! I'll be beautiful soon!" This is what we must sometimes tell ourselves while studying ballet. It takes much patience, practice, and effort before we can really show off our talents.
The second paragraph implies that people can all become successful dancers - "it just takes time and the right conditions" for it to happen!
The flower blooms for just one night, which makes it a rare event for humans, but to the flower, it is something it spends all year preparing for as it is part of its life cycle.It must take a lot of work to occur. This relates to dance in that it is hard to obtain perfection and beauty, but is something we can work hard to obtain. A dance performance that lasts only one night will still require weeks, months or even years of work to prepare for. Although we get one performance, we must still work hard to perfect that one night. However, unlike a flower which has no choices in whether it blooms, we choose to work hard to eventually bloom.
The flower makes me think of patience. I have taken dance 101 and 102 and already I see that 108 is going to be more of a challenge than those two classes. I know that if Im patient and keep working at what I'm trying to achieve I will be successful.
Like many people have already said, the flower makes me think of patience and perseverance. I've had many years of ballet, but it doesn't come naturally to me because I'm not a very flexible person. I have to work hard to accomplish what may seem to be very little. The flower also has to work very hard to be able to bloom for just one night. Blooming just one night or being able to touch my toes may seem like very small feats, but both the flower and I have to work very hard to get there. Hard work does pay off in the end and it doesn't go unnoticed.
yeah it takes a lot of patience and hardwork just like dancing. it might be tiring, and sometimes we just want to give up (in this case maybe the flower will think "OMG, i did all these things just to show it for a day!!!)
, but when the day comes, it'll pay off, because like this flower, people gather around and have party to see this rare flower blooms.
Ballet dancers rehearse, prepare, study, and learn many techniques to become the dancer they want to be. It takes patience from the dancer as well as friends and family who can't wait to witness its beauty. Along with a single performance, dancers will spend long hours and many many days in preparation for a show, as friends and family will wait patiently for the day of the final performance. Its beauty and growth will definitely soar if proper preparation have been achieved for the final performance.
This flower accumulates energy and patience from everyone who waits for that day, when it's ready to bloom! And when it does, its beauty and one in a kind occurrence will make everything worth while..
How would it feel to be the blossom? Put yourselves in it's position. Is it tired? Is it joyful?
I think it would be hard to be this flower because 24/7 for 365.5 days of the year all it does is prepare for one evening. And then after that one evening, it does it all over again!
The growth and flowering of a plant is connected to the study of ballet because it takes time, perseverence and a lot of work to study ballet. However, when we finally understand a concept or nail a double pirouette it's like a flower blooming and something has blossomed from all that effort.
This flower reminds me how important it is to make every single movement beautiful in ballet. Since the flower only gets to blossom once a year, it has one chance to impress everyone watching it. This encourages me to try harder to make every single motion elegant.
It probably feels delicate yet powerful. Ballet is very beautiful and it's supposed to look like a breeze to your audience, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication.
When I think of a flower blossom in relation to ballet, I think of what it is that makes ballet aesthetically pleasing- which I believe is the balance, neutrality, grace and natural movement in ballet. In the same sense, when I picture a flower blossom, or a flower blossoming, I see the stem of the flower as being long and gracefully arched and the petals of the flower opening in a similar way a dancers arms would move in ballet. If I were a blossom, I think I would feel like I was holding a deep breath of air and ready to exhale it out at any moment, and once I could exhale I would let my breath out slowly. I would feel happy as a blossom.
This plant needs special time and condition to show its beautiful flower to people who waited for one year. We as a dancer have to be patient and work hard to show our nice job at specific time to the people, who support us for years, like our teachers, family and friends.
It seems like the preparation the plant undergoes all year to bloom is comparable to the preparation dancers undergo for years as they refine their technique and improve.
Before the plant blooms, it will feel very closed and the need to keep itself from exposing itself because it does not feel ready to bloom. As the plant absorbs water and light each day, it comes closer and closer to the day in which the plant will finally bloom. On the day in which it blooms, it is finally ready and confident to show it's beauty.
At the beginning of learning ballet, a dancer is like the plant because they will feel shy, unsure of themselves and has not built up alot of strength yet. As a ballet dancer practices each day just as the plant absorbs water and light, the dancer becomes more confident and better just as the plant. Finally at the end of the quarter, when a dancer performs, everyone will be able to see the art of dancing and what he/she has been working on the whole year. The plant's blooming is the performance that the dancer finally reveals.
On a personal level the flower reminds me of being injured. Or even just working really hard to have one moment where you feel you have made progress as a dancer. Sometimes I think you can get stuck in a rut in your technique or whatever aspect of dance, and it becomes difficult to feel any new sensation or expereince and then one day, due to various conditions all lining up, you have this wonderful moment of dance where it all comes together and is beautiful and radiant, much like the flower on its day of blooming.
I really like the comments that everyone has posted. What jumped out at me from post was the idea of needing time and the right conditions for the plant to flower.
I think there is a parallel to dance, because it requires time, dedication and a passion for this beautiful art form. This plant requires perserverance for its night of beauty.
I feel like I can relate to this plant through prepartion for a performance. Though there maybe be a special party planned a few days before the performance, as a performer, I have invested much more time and energy than any attendees of the concert can imagine. That one night represents a long journey I have taken with whatever art form I am expressing, it is the process that is beauty, though the audience will just see the end result.
A day when everything in dancing falls right into place is kind of rare. There are so many things to work on that Everyone constantly tries to change something. There are so many details and there are times that we wonder if we will ever blossom,put everything into place, but when we do it is amazing. The plant may always look pretty in its unique way, but when it truly blooms it has that same amazing affect that a good performance in dance has.
Upon first glance, the Cereus plant bud, before it has bloomed, appears to be nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, however, it blooms when no one is expecting it to. It takes time and patience. This is very much like a dancer's experience with ballet. In order to excel in ballet, one must take the time to practice as well as patience for perfect technique does not happen over night. Overall, the outcome of time and patience, as well as the perfect conditions will result in beauty.
I feel that the flower connects to ballet on many levels because only with the right conditions can a dancer become great as well. To “blossom” as a dancer, one needs instruction, practice, desire and love for the art, without these things greatness cannot be achieved. This is a great comparison to dance and it will encourage me to do better each and every day.
Well...I think that the two questions are very much related. The flower is putting alot of time and energy into its blooming process, which is exactly how a dancer feels. In order to become a great dancer you must devote time and energy into developing the techniques. The flower works and works until it blooms and then it is done. I feel that with dancing it is different and there is always more to learn.
i feel that like the flower, a ballet dancer must prepare for a very long time for their "performance". The flower buds only once a year just like a ballerina has one big performance a year. Its the time to show its beauty and time to show what it has been working on through out the year. It is also their one time for everyone to admire their beauty.
This flower makes a big effort and patient for a long time just for one night. This is like a ballet dancer spends so much time practicing and working hard just for one performance.
If I were this flower, I would feel a little sad since I have only one night to show my beauty made by a lot of effort and patience. However, because I have only one day of performance, I would do my best to make it fabulous. When I succeeded in blooming, I would feel more than happy and it would worth the whole days of efforts and patience.
There are many different thoughts that run through my head when I think about this flower and its once a year moment.
First, it makes me think of making the most of my life. I have but one life to live, and I should make the most of each moment.
Second, I think of how a dance can develop. How movements can open up to full extension. I think about a leap rising and extending to its full beauty, just like the blossoming of this flower.
I feel like the second part of this post hasn't gotten a whole lot of specific attention, but it really stuck out to me. Even though none of us may end up being professional dancers, the best dancer that we can be is already there inside of us, just waiting for us to take the time and put forth the effort to bring it out.
Like others have said, ballet is a process, much like the creation of this blossom. The blossom is the crowning achievement of the plant. The Night Blooming Cereus puts every ounce of its energy into preparing for the blooming of the flower throughout the rest of the year. Assuming the flower knows that, I think that it feels really appreciated. It knows how important it is.
I think that in developing our ballet technique, we can all identify with that feeling. We try our hardest to pay attention to every minute detail. We put our mind, sweat, and emotion into our movements. I think in some ways we're more lucky than the plant in that we can experience multiple blossoming instances - every time that something improves, be it we get our second positioning right for the first or three hundredth time, or we balance a little longer on releve or manage a clean triple pirouette. Everything is an individual triumph resulting from our hard work, just like the blossom is the culmination of a year of effort put in by the Night Blooming Cereus.
I see the flowering of a plant connecting to the study of ballet in several ways. The flower is like a ballet dancer in that all of its geometry and design info is contained within - like a ballet dancer's knowledge of technique. After a lot of hard work, practice, and patience (much of which most others don't see) the dancer, like the flower, puts together everything s/he's been working on internally or behind the scenes to blossom - into a beautiful dancer or flower.
The last picture of the flower is showing the beauty and the accomplish. The point to be a beautiful flower needs a long time period to grow. This is the same concept that connecting to ballet. If you want to be acheive and accomplish to be the beautiful flower, time and technique is very important for a ballet dancer. The longer time for practicing ballet technique and the movement, the better looking of the body will become. The more practice of dancing, the better and the prettier will become in the end just like the flower. Be able to accomplish to become a beautiful dancer, just as pretty as the flower, time of practice and technique training is required.
Since the plant blooms once a year, the conditions surrounding the plant in the year preceding the bloom probably influence how spectacular the bloom is. If the plant has been healthy all year, the bloom will probably be fantastic.
This is similar to dance in that good training and good habits will lead to great dancing, while poor practice and poor training can take away from that.
This flower patiently waits for the ideal conditions without faltering and taking shortcuts in order that it may achieve its gorgeous blossom even for as short as it lasts. The plant probably senses what perseverance it takes to fulfill its flowering process but in the end realizes how it's work paid off. With that said, I think the flowering of this particular plant directly connects with the study of ballet. In order for a dancer to perform in front or an audience during a recital, their technique has to be perfected which takes a tremendous amount of time but in the end, you realize that all of your hard work, blood, sweat and tears becomes worth it when you are able to express yourself for the world to enjoy!
The flower knows that none of its energy is wasted. Every single small minuscule process that goes on within each an every cell plays a part in creating the inevitable beauty. It wouldn't be what it is, even if it lacked just a few of those processes. Everything counts.
I think it would be very frustrating to be this flower. Its working all year and waiting for the perfect time to be seen. But others don't see this work that its doing within.
It relates to ballet and the work and time it takes to achieve your technique. You have to be patient and work on your skills and wait for the time to show off what has been going on for all that time.
To blossom would be really exciting because your finally coming out and showing everyone what your all about.
Wow! That's awesome. I have actually been to a party planned around the blooming of a Night Blooming Sirius. :) It was great.
Like this beautiful flower we will shine for a brief instant.
The rest of the time we will look like a half dead scraggly stick.
It's all good, though.
The fact that the plant is genetically coded with all of the information it needs to "perform" gives me a sort of confidence - it's like I am born with everything I need to be a beautiful dancer - and, like the flower, with the right conditions, I'll bloom. Aww. *tear*
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