Three years ago, the New York City Ballet dancer and owner of fitness company Ballet Beautiful got a chance to train Natalie Portman for her role in the film ”Black Swan.” The association with Portman, said Bowers, expanded her market exponentially. Publicity surrounding the training convinced non-dancers that Bowers’ fitness regimen could work for them.
“People from around the globe became interested after ”Black Swan,” said Bowers. ”Demand is much broader.” Ballet Beautiful’s membership has skyrocketed in the last six months — up a whopping 5,000 percent. Today, Ballet Beautiful has nearly 8,000 clients.
”The movie created a lot of excitement and renewed interest in ballet,” said Bowers. ”And that’s been tremendous for my business.”
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.
