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

New Teachers

I am a pretty shy person, so nothing scares me more than being in unfamiliar situations. That may have been why I was having an internal meltdown when I realized my dance teacher on Monday was going to be a teacher I'd never had before, a former principal with the Cuban National Ballet, and a dancer in New York Companies like The Harlem ballet and Alvin Ailey. She. Was. Awesome.

First off, I have never had a teacher teach in sweatpants and funny colored socks. She speaks english as her second language, so sometimes when going over combinations, it was a little hard to figure out what she was saying. But oh my gosh, I learned so much. She could tell I was lacking in flexibility and didn't push like other teachers tend to do, but she helped me work with what I have. Certain teachers just click with you, they explain things in a way that makes you see something totally differently and clearly, and that's what she did for me. If you ever get the opportunity to dance at a different studio, take open classes, or take a master class, I urge you to try it. A new set of eyes on your technique can pick out certain things (like my less than impressive arabesque), and rearrange or re-explain to make things look and feel better, so now my arabesque doesn't  look so...blah.

Motivation

Hey bunheads, it's been a while! I have some good news and some bad news, bad news first. No Nutcracker for me this year. It's tragic, I know, but the newish owner is completely changing everything about it, from location to costumes to choreography, and I guess the random 17 year old on stage doesn't fit his vision, haha. I'm okay with it though, my classload is ridiculous right now.

Now for the good news! My class is starting variations! Normally, we'd have a combined class with level 5 and 6 on Monday for 2 hours, and a normal class on Thursday for an hour and a half. However, considering there's only 3 people in level 5 and only 5 in level 6, they combined Thursday's class as well, and tacked on an extra half hour to fourty-five minutes so we can learn variations! I'm so excited, none of my normal friends get it, so hopefully one of you out there will get my glee. It'll be great.

The reason this is called Motivation, is because before I found out about variations class, I was close to being done. I was falling behind in class because the other girls in my level take 5 classes a week and I take 2, and I was dissappointed about lack of Nutcracker. I didn't really get why I was still dancing, my feet and muscles hurt after every class and I have hours of studying to do before and after dance to keep up with my advanced and college level classes (ap chem, astronomy, and ap US government and politics, ouch). Not to mention, I'm working 15+ hours a week (including Friday and Saturday nights, goodbye social life) to fund my expensive hobby. The only light at the end of the tunnel I could see was that next year as a level 6 I'd get to preform variations. And now that that has come a year early, so I'm staying in the game. I'm more motivated than ever.

Unfortunately, I'm missing the first variation class (can you believe my luck?) because I'm helping run a safe Halloween at my high school, and it's the same day.

My russian pointes have one foot in the grave. I just can not find a pair of shoes to last me more than a few months, from Blochs to Russians everything dies in a month. The amount of jet glue I use is unbelievable. I'm going to go for grishkos or gaynor mindens next I think, or possible a different fit and shank on russians. Any suggestions?

I'm going to add a bunch of variation videos in the Video tab up there ^^, so look at them and tell me your favorites!