Spring Show!

Hello! Last Thursday I had a fun rehearsal for the Spring Show Finale. Our show is Le Corsaire, which has to be one of the coolest ballets, considering it's about pirates. Talk about awesome, right? Here is a synopsis, if you're interested.

Anyway, the rehearsal started at 4:00 with an average 90 minute ballet class, with everyone from level 5-7. Total, there were about 20 girls from 11-18, so it was packed in the studio. I almost wiped out doing left double turns en pointe, but we'll just pretend like no one saw ;)

After class, we sat around in the dressing room while our ballet master (yep, that's really his official title!) choerographed a trio for the show. Around 6:30 level 5-6 was called in, including me, to go over a corps type piece for the finale. We mostly dance in the background while the soloists dance in the spotlight, but we do have a little section to ourselves, which is pretty cool. This will be my first ever performance en pointe, so I'm super duper excited and nervous.

Anyone else prepping for Spring shows or recitals?

Balancing Ballet and Life

Hey guys! Obviously I haven't posted in a while. Partly due to studying for two AP classes and multiple honors classes, working 3-5 nights a week, taking part in two clubs, and, of course, ballet, I have virtually no spare time. I'm trying to reorganize my life so everything fits and I'm not up until midnight doing chem homework, which happens all too often.

As for dance, I am now taking two, 2 hour long classes a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. They are usually composed of 35 minutes of barre in flats, 15 minutes of barre en pointe, and the rest of the class is center en pointe. The Spring show is soon approaching, in June, but I haven't heard word of our costumes, song, or routine yet. The ballet Coppelia is the show's inspiration, all of the music and routines will be variations on the ballet.

Oh my gosh, I really have writer's block right now. I'm gonna go brainstorm post ideas. If you want me to write about anything in particular, post in the comments!

I'm Back!

Hello! It's been months since I've posted, due to ballet, my intense class schedule, and my job as a waitress taking most of my time! But I'm still dancing and loving every second. Stay posted for many updates over the next few days!

Variations!

Thursday I learned my first variation! It's the Giselle variation from Act 1. We started with a 90 minute ballet class, and then did 30 minutes of variations. We did most of barre and all of center en pointe, and due to my dead shoes, I was pretty burned out by the time we started the variation. We did the actual variation in flat shoes though, because otherwise we would be doing hops on pointe (which are preeetty hard). Hopefully I'll be able to get fitted for gaynors this weekend, but I'll have to take a bit of a trip to get to the store that properly fits them.

Sylvie Guillem

Any professional dancer could tell you who Sylvie Guillem is, and most students probably could too. She's a beautiful dancer, handpicked for principle at the young age of 19. She dances flawlessly, and after seeing a great mini documentary on her, I found out she is also involved with an extreme environmental group that I kinda love (Sea Shepard--Whale Wars anyone? No? Didn't think so...).

So here's that documentary I mentioned, I really recommend it!
Part 1
Part 2