Dance Academy

Dance Academy is an Australian teen-oriented television drama produced by Werner Film Productions in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and ZDF. Series one premiered on 31 May 2010, and series two began airing on 12 March 2012. Series three premiered on ABC3 on 8 July 2013 in Australia.

A film sequel to the television series, Dance Academy: The Comeback, is in development as of April 2015 after receiving funding from Screen Australia.

Plot

Dance Academy is narrated mainly from the perspective of Tara Webster (Xenia Goodwin), a newly accepted first year student at the National Academy of Dance. Throughout the series, she learns to better her ballet technique, as well as learn contemporary ballet and hip-hop dance; while creating life long friendships and experiencing many hardships. In the first series, Tara soon befriends fellow students Kat (Alicia Banit) and Ethan Karamakov (Tim Pocock), Sammy Lieberman (Tom Green), Abigail Armstrong (Dena Kaplan) and Christian Reed (Jordan Rodrigues), as well as eventually getting to know her teacher Ms. Raine (Tara Morice).

Arya Dance Academy

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Arya Dance Academy was established in 2001 by Rupal Patel, who was seen as a judge on Dance India Dance, USA edition.

Arya's teachers are taught by people such as Birju Maharaj, Kumudini Lakhia, Mrilani Sarabhai, and Sarmishtha Sarkar. They teach classical dance styles as Kathak and Bharatnatyam, to Bollywood, Filmi Fusion, and Indian Folk dances as well as modern classical dance incorporating Ballet and Jazz.

Since 2004, the Academy has been responsible for dancers and choreography displayed at the Bollywood Movie Awards, Bollywood Music Awards, Bollywood Fashion Awards and the Unforgettable Tour. In addition, in 2010, Arya Dance Academy was asked to perform at the 84th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This was the first Indian dance troupe to perform in the parade's history.

Arya has taken home many awards from the prestigious dance competition - Naya Andaz. In 2009, Arya Juniors took home 1st Place for the junior category. In 2010, Arya took home 1st Place in Juniors again and 2nd Place in Seniors. In 2011, Arya took home 3rd prize in Juniors and 1st prize in Seniors.

Aryan

"Aryan" (/ˈɛəriən, ˈɛərjən, ˈær-/) is a term meaning "noble" which was used as a self-designation by ancient Indo-Iranian people. The word was used by the Indic people of the Vedic period in India to refer to the noble class and geographic location known as Āryāvarta where Indo-Aryan culture was based. The closely related Iranian people used the term as an ethnic label for themselves in the Avesta scriptures, and the word forms the etymological source of the country Iran. It was believed in the 19th century that it was also a self-designation used by all Proto-Indo-Europeans, a theory that has now been abandoned. Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the idea of being an "Aryan" was religious, cultural and linguistic, not racial.

Drawing on misinterpreted references in the Rig Veda by Western Scholars in the 19th century, the term "Aryan" was adopted as a racial category through the work of Arthur de Gobineau, whose ideology of race was based on an idea of blonde northern European "Aryans" who had migrated across the world and founded all major civilizations, before being degraded through racial mixture with local populations. Through Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Gobineau's ideas later influenced the Nazi racial ideology, which also saw "Aryan peoples" as innately superior to other putative racial groups. The atrocities committed in the name of this racial aryanism caused the term to be abandoned by most academics; and, in present-day academia, the term "Aryan" has been replaced in most cases by the terms "Indo-Iranian" and "Indo-European", and "Aryan" is now mostly limited to its appearance in the term of the "Indo-Aryan languages".

Dance

Dance is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.

An important distinction is to be drawn between the contexts of theatrical and participatory dance, although these two categories are not always completely separate; both may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, competitive, erotic, martial, or sacred/liturgical. Others disciplines of human movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and many other forms of athletics.

Performance and participation

Theatrical dance, also called performance or concert dance, is intended primarily as a spectacle, usually a performance upon a stage by virtuoso dancers. It often tells a story, perhaps using mime, costume and scenery, or else it may simply interpret the musical accompaniment, which is often specially composed. Examples are western ballet and modern dance, Classical Indian dance and Chinese and Japanese song and dance dramas. Most classical forms are centred upon dance alone, but performance dance may also appear in opera and other forms of musical theatre.

Academy

An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education or higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece.

The original Academy

Before Akademia was a school, and even before Cimon enclosed its precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens. The archaic name for the site was Hekademia, which by classical times evolved into Akademia and was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to an Athenian hero, a legendary "Akademos". The site of Akademia was sacred to Athena and other immortals.

Plato's immediate successors as "scholarch" of Akademia were Speusippus (347–339 BC), Xenocrates (339–314 BC), Polemon (314–269 BC), Crates (ca. 269–266 BC), and Arcesilaus (ca. 266–240 BC). Later scholarchs include Lacydes of Cyrene, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo of Larissa ("the last undisputed head of the Academy"). Other notable members of Akademia include Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Philip of Opus, Crantor, and Antiochus of Ascalon.