I am not much of a fan of ballet. I like watching Emily do it - but she is my daughter and I'm just happy to see her doing it because she enjoys it.

In particular I get pretty bored watching male ballet. Maybe it's the pants?

Anyway, this post isn't really about ballet but about a different form of dance called Hopak.

Hopak is a Ukranian dance alo known as a Cossack Dance. You've undoubtedly seen some of it when you see the guys squatting and kicking as they roam around the stage with their arms crossed in front of their chest. By the way tHat squatting kick move is really insane.

Here is a video showing a bunch of guys going through a variety of the moves. It's pretty amazing what they are able to do. NOTE: this is Virsky the Ukranian national dance company so they are all really good at this kind of dance.

Anyway, maybe if ballet were as energetic as Hopak I'd enjoy it a little more. Some of those jumps in Hopak just don't make sense - like when the guy kicks himself in the back of both shoulders at once? How is that even possible? And let's not even talk about how fast some of those guys are spinning and the one guy doing the uber-fast squat kick (officially known as the prisyadka).