Rough
This week, on Thursday, we began work in Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It is, to say the least, a baptism by fire in terms of partnering. Act II is basically all about the “We’re all getting married and happiness is restored even in the fairy kingdom,” and here I am like, “Feck, well, guess I’m going to learn to not suck so much at partnered turns now.”
But, holy hell. The amount of new material I’ve crammed into my head and body in the past two days is … Erm. It’s a lot.
I’ve been frustrated with myself for not picking some things up as well as I could. I think just not having time to review last night was part of it, and of course just being kinda stressed makes learning harder, which makes you more stressed, etc.
Anyway, I have 3 weeks to look like I know WTF I’m doing, and I’m going to effing well make it happen.
But for now it’s rough, and today I was stressed out and generally mad at myself for the entire day.
So tomorrow will be better. And the day after that will be better. And in three weeks, I will have this down, and I hope I’ll be a partner worth dancing with.
Until then, I’ll try to remember to post my class notes from time to time, but it’s about to get real up in here.
Posted on 2020/01/24, in #dancerlife, balllet, class notes, learning my craft, partnering, rehearsals, work and tagged "brilliant" would be good but I'll take "serviceable", a Midsummer Night's Dream, partnering, stress. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
danseur ignoble 
Thanks for another great post. As a novice I am encouraged to hear that perhaps I’m not the only one who can get completely lost when trying to put a new combination together for the first few times.
You’re most welcome, and thank you!
Don’t worry—you’re in very good company, there. Everyone struggles with picking up combinations from time to time. It does get easier as the physical and verbal vocabulary becomes more deeply entrenched, though!
Do you write material out the first time, or wait ’till it’s reinforced?
A little of both, tbh. It sort of depends on how well I catch it the first time and whether I have time. I also revise my notes as needed 😅
on intensive week last time I deliberately avoided writing choreography (as opposed to corrections) down the first time around and it seemed to make learning it much easier.
I find it helpful for remembering long stuff (long scenes from ballets) where some of the details might get lost, especially when I have to learn then fast, but otherwise it does strike me as unnecessary.
I should mention that I use it in combination with visualizing my way through the dances, and then I’ll review it with the music (which can help me figure out if I’m missing something). It’s also a useful reminder when you need to brush a part up a year later (Nutcracker 😁).
It’s the maximally help for long character roles where there’s a lot more graceful acting than there is actual dancing—it’s weirdly harder to remember “in which order do I walk around and look at things in this room?” than to remember an entire dance 🤷 Brains, amirite?
I just realized I somehow missed “the first time around.”
You’re dead on about that. I usually wait til we’ve finished a dance (or as much of the dance as we’re setting right then) before writing things down.
If I try to write and receive choreography, I’ll definitely miss at least half the choreography 😅
I think I interpreted your original question to mean “on the first day,” rather than “on the first talk-through.” Brains, amirite? 🙄