Get up and dance!

Did You Know?

• The ankle bells on Indian dancers are called “Ghungroo.”
• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest ballet class involved 989 participants in an event organized by Andrew Warth in Canal Walk Shopping Centre, Cape Town, South Africa, on August 24, 2008.
• The seven movements of dance are: Bending, Gliding, Turning, Stretching, Jumping, Rising and Darting. (Read more here) 
• “Between 1987 and 1997, the number of nonprofit (dance) companies grew by 93 percent… Despite a drop in funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, American dance, viewed as an artistic whole, has proven to be remarkably resilient” (NEA Report) 

• The NEA generates grants for dance companies in America, though most rely on local patrons and donors - like this one from the little island of Key West soon presenting at the Lincoln Center in NYC. 

After returning from the battlefields of Iraq, Christian Ellis found the only way to soothe the war wounds in his soul was by losing himself singing opera’s powerful, haunting songs.

Now the 29-year-old former Marine machine gunner— who has attempted suicide four times — is putting his pain on stage in the first opera believed written about the war: “Fallujah.”

The two-hour performance is an unnerving musical journey into his head.

“Fallujah” was developed in Vancouver, Canada, by City Opera Vancouver with the help of a playwright, a composer, nine actors and an 11-member orchestra in a kind of performance laboratory. It will debut July 2 on explore.org/fallujah and will be marketed to opera houses. It is an example of how battlefield trauma after a decade of war is shaping American art as countless veterans, like Ellis, find themselves fighting an even tougher battle at home against horrifying memories, survivor’s guilt and sorrow.

Read more about Fallujah here.

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Pictured: Christian Ellis holds his dog as he stands for a portrait in his apartment in Denver.