Author Archives: asher

Calendar Boys

Nov 23

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Our friendly neighborhood photog, Kevin, has created a 2017 calendar of images from performances and workshops at Suspend and, by happy coincidence, Denis and I are collectively Mr. February (I’m a February baby).

The image he used is one of my all-time favorites, captured during our dress rehearsal/tech run of “Duelo Trapecio.”

I love this shot so much.

In a lot of ways, this image speaks to the best gift that Denis has given me: specifically, a stable foundation from which to fly. 

Literally, in this picture, I’ve just mounted the trapeze from a candlestick:

…Like this, only in parallel, legs together.

…and I’m lifting my body out of Denis’ hands so he can roll to the side and I can beat up to a pike balance. (Technically, in this choreography, that’s all one move for me: I use the muscles of my back to pull up into an arc, release my back à la Martha Graham at the top, then allow momentum to carry me around the bar and the act of straightening my legs to pull me into the pike balance.)

As these things go, it’s a fairly basic acro-to-trapeze transition, but it’s not without risk.

In this sequence, timing is crucial — if he releases before my knees catch the bar, I have a split-second to react so I don’t pile-drive into his face and potentially break my own neck. If I enter the swinging phase of my beat too soon, I’ll whack him in the head with my hands or head at high velocity.

Likewise, if (as happened in the night of our first performance!) something goes wrong(1) and the trapeze isn’t where it should be, it’s up to me to gracefully exit the candlestick without making both of us look like idiots (hello, walk-over), and up to him to proceed smoothly with his portion of the choreography. 

  1. What happened, in practice, was that D somehow got blinded by the stage lights during his transition from the previous sequence (in which I cartwheel and he catches my legs) and whacked his head on the trapeze! It’s on a rotating point, so it turned 90 degrees and wasn’t there when I reached the apex of the candlestick. Thank G-d for the billion years of training and preparation that made me steam right on through with a walk-over followed by a straddle mount. 

Metaphorically, he has grounded himself so I can reach my goal (the trapeze) and soar. He has lifted me up without hanging on. I have trusted him to support me, and he has trusted me to take care of myself and of him.

As a model for relationships, there’s much to be said in favor of partnering. Each party must do his or her share of the work, each party is accountable to the other, and when both parties do what they need to do, the result is a beautiful harmony of movement; poetry in motion indeed. 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes do, the dancers or aerialists in a good partnering relationship are able to respond accordingly — and while nothing can prevent all harmful outcomes, the care and attention that go into this kind of work allow for damage control through rapid-fire adjustments (and the kind of trust that can think, “I get that you’re presently holding me up by my unmentionables so I won’t fall and break my neck so later we can laugh at this trainwreck instead of crying about it…”).

Perhaps most importantly, though, a good partnering relationship allows us to accomplish things we cannot do alone — like a pas-de-chat that floats two meters above the ground, or (as in our example above) mounting a dance trapeze from a handstand(2).

  1. In an unassisted handstand, this trap hits too high for that. I could manage an ankle hang, or I could maybe mount from a front handspring, but a regular handstand won’t get me to the position depicted.

    A good relationship of any kind, really, allows us to accomplish things we couldn’t on our own. 

    I am able to pursue my dreams because I have a strong and stable partner helping to lift me up towards them. I hope that I am, at least to some degree, doing the same for D. But it’s not only romantic partners and spouses who can do those things — good friends, loving parents and siblings, and even our peers in the dance studio lift us towards our dreams.

    Just as ballet partnering depends not on romantic attachment(3), but on consistency and trust, so with the relationships in our lives that allow us to fly.

    1. Not that I would deny a certain kind of romantic sensibility that can evolve even in the most most platonic of these relationships — but that’s a topic for another time. 

    I am, of course, planning on buying a copy of Kevin’s calendar for our house (and for my Mom and Mother-in-Law, as Christmas presents). It will help keep him in photographic equipment so he can continue to grow as an artist and to take amazing pictures of all of us that sometimes manage to say a great deal about important things. 

    Posted in balllet

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    It’s A Sign 

    Went to class tonight. As she prepared to give us the waltz, Trainee L (who gives a very fun class) announced, “I woke up this morning thinking about Renversé!”

    Evidently, my life at at the moment is all about the magic of renversé. 

    Monday night is a beginner class, and renversé was new to many of them. Trainee L did a good job teaching it, though, and I was very impressed with how well they picked it up! And my renversés were rather nice (to make up for my abominable double turns, bleh). 

    Traînée L also picked up on a weird thing I was doing with my outside shoulder at Barre. It may be new, as today I did Barre with ankle weights for the first time, but I suspect it’s something I always do that isn’t usually as visible.

    In other news, beginner class makes me feel like I don’t suck at petit allegro, except insofar as I keep wanting to put in a balonné where there isn’t one.
    Don’t worry, though, I’m sure my next advanced class will put me back in my place. 

    Posted on | Aside

    Break (Almost) Week; Reflections on Renversés and Choreography as a Process

    Break (Almost) Week; Reflections on Renversés and Choreography as a Process

    Nov 21

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    Saturday, I spent four hours teaching, several more hours scraping paint, and two hours composing choreography before we went to a party that was actually very fun. Sunday, after acro and Acro Brunch, I spent an hour running choreography, then another hour teaching, and then untold æons (with, so really an hour and change, maybe two) standing on a ladder and painting the house while my hands froze in a chill wind in spite of my gloves(1).

    1. Note to self: wear winter cycling gloves next time. They’re wind-resistant.

    As such, I opted to stay in this morning, do housework, and take evening class instead) even though I should really get back to doing Modern Mondays). 

    The piece I was working on Saturday evening and a Sunday is essentially a 5-minute long comedic story ballet set to the 2nd movement (adagio cantabile) of Beethoven’s Pathétique. I programmed in a few renversés, and I realized while I worked the piece that not so long ago I wouldn’t have even thought of them. They just wouldn’t have occurred to me. 

    BW and JP have really tuned up our renversés this semester, and as such they seem perfectly natural now. I put them in more or less by instinct where the music calls for them and the movement leads to them.

    This is, in fact, true of a lot of movements in the classical vocabulary. Many things feel perfectly natural now that wouldn’t have a year ago. 

    I think I’ve discussed my tendency to get get to the studio and instantly forget every step I’ve ever learned, then devolve upon programming a bunch of piqué turns and ronds-de-jambe (sometimes while thinking, “How do I get to the jumps?! Ack!”).  I also used to open every adagio piece with essentially the same sequence of développés and adagio turns that open Simon Crane.

    Somewhere along the line, that seems to have changed.

    This surprised me. Ballet is funny like that. It creeps up on you, and one day you discover that you are far more fluent in its language than you thought.

    As a caveat, I must admit that I don’t know if it works this way for people who are genuinely new to dance. I think it might take a little longer in the situation, possibly. For me, the vocabulary was there but largely dormant; I could picture a dance, but when I tried to essentially run dance.exe to execute the dance, it was as if I couldn’t access the necessary files and code.

    Taking class again for the better part of three years has apparently done a great deal of hard disk repair, kicking out the bad sectors and improving the connections between the good ones. The dynamic link libraries are once again accessible; the modules of code that create renversés  and cabrioles are no longer in the land of File Not Found (double cabs continue to elude me: goal one for 2017, I guess; double tours are probably goal two). 

    When I go to create a piece that’s floating around in my head, I rarely lose the piece anymore. The vision and the finished dance usually match pretty well. I still mostly work phrase by phrase — visualizing, iterating, visualizing, iterating, then moving to the next phrase when the current one one seems solid, then eventually stringing them together into parts and finally stringing the parts together into a dance — but that may simply be my work style.

    It also really helps to be able to remember the names of things. Makes writing them down much easier. The downside, though, is that I can now stay up till 1:30 AM listening to music and writing out choreography, knowing that in the morning it will still make sense. Or maybe that’s another upside, because it’s not like choreography didn’t keep me awake before. It just rarely turned out to be particularly intelligible in the cold light of day(2).

    1. Seriously, while working with BB, I have actually said things like: Why did I just write “effacé” there?! Éffacé what?! How? What does that mean? …Did I even mean éffacé? … Wait, I don’t think I meant éffacé.

    So I’m pleased to say that this current piece, which I’ll be performing on 9th December if I can convince a couple of people to join me (there’s a second, far less technical dancing part and one brief non-dancing part), is not just a sequence of RDJs and random turns (it has arabesques, penchés, faillis, renversés, double turns, sautés arabesques, tours lent, and some other stuff, not to mention a grand allegro chase scene in the middle). Progress!

    In other news, this week will largely be a break week, which means I’ll have time to catch up on household minutiae and start rehearsing “Work Song,” possibly, if everyone is available. After tonight, both dance team and ballet are off until next week. This will be a good week for reconditioning. You guys, I am weak. Between vacation and being sick, I have lost a lot of strength and stamina. 

    So it’s back to eating for performance (with, of course, occasional digressions into the realm of pure pleasure) and training for … Erm,  also for performance.

    And housework, because adulting never ends. 
    Edit: PS – Señor BeastMode would probably like me to remind you that:

    Renversé is not a turn.

    Posted in balllet, choreography, fitness, work

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    Because I Am A Garmin Fanboy

    Nov 18

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    When I was racing bikes badly (or at least with immense mediocrity, heh), I relied on a Garmin Edge 500 GPS-tracking device to keep track of speed, time, and so forth while riding and to log my workouts.

    These days, I spend most of my time dancing somewhat less badly than I raced bikes, and I don’t ride anywhere near as much. The Edge 500 isn’t equipped for tracking things like dance, aerials, and housework, so while I’ll probably keep the Edge 500, I’ve bought a refurbished first-generation Garmin Vívofit fitness tracker.

    I don’t really need it, but I like data, and I’m curious. I wasn’t, however, willing to commit $100+ to a fancy new-model fitness tracker until I’ve tried using one for a while — not least because I’m not great about wearing things on my wrists.

    The Vívofit refurb was fairly inexpensive and pairs with my existing ANT heart-rate monitor strap (which is comfy), so I figured I’d start with it and work from there. If I like it a lot and decide I want something a little fancier, I’ll pass this one along to Denis.

    Thus far, the only thing the firs-gen Vívofit doesn’t have that I’d like to have is a built-in watch. Oh, so it turns out that the Vívofit does have a watch; it just wasn’t activated until I synced it. Derp. So, now I also have a watch. Yeah, my phone knows what time it is, but sometimes it’s a pain in the neck to dig the phone out of my pocket or whatevs. It turns out that the folks who invented the wrist watch knew what they were about, eh?

    It also knows the date, which is nice for those of us (like me) who live in Golden Retriever Time and tend to be a bit vague about dates.

    Anyway, thus far, I’m not finding the wristband annoying, which is really kind of the most important thing, since a fitness tracker I won’t wear is worthless. The small one fits fine and doesn’t get in the way when I’m typing.

    It’ll be interesting to see what the Vívofit thinks of ballet classes 😛

    Posted in fit tech, health

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    The Adventure Continues!

    Nov 18

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    Derp. This was supposed to post to the old blog address 😀

    Ohai! If you’re looking for Danseur Ignoble/My Beautiful Machine, I’ve moved.

    You’ll find me at:

    danseurignoble.wordpress.com

    Everything else is the same, though!

    Posted in balllet

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    Thursday Class: Tour de Force*

    Nov 18

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    *Yeah, it’s a pun, and a bad one.

    I can’t sleep, so I might as well write, eh?  

    Mostly good barre today (or, well, yesterday). No scary turns-at-the-kneewhacker; got my RdJ en l’air back, extensions were okay-to-good. The adjusted passé/retiré is becoming automatic.

    That said, the frappé was delightfully wicked: facing the barre (universal ballet code for This will either be a piece of cake or hell on wheels), singles (from flexed) en croix on flat, repeat in a sustained fondu, spring straight up to doubles en relèvé, petit battement at maximum speed for a billion (okay, actually sixteen) counts, straight into the reverse, repeat twice as fast, plié, brush out while remaining in plié, close back, other side. Doesn’t sound too hard, but it’s that “repeat twice as fast”  that gets you. It adds up. 

    Also, my petit battement is currently way(1) better on the right than on the left. Feh.

    1.  Or, well — the difference at double-time is definitely enough that I notice it, which is too much. 

    What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. BW either wants us strong or dead. I’m guessing strong; he’s a sweet guy.

    Also a fondu-adagio thing with all the attitudes and demi-ronds en l’air and the holding the extension à la la seconde until the legs became impervious to pain, plié — inside passé balance for eight, plié — outside passé balance forever, sus-sous, détournée, other side. This was lovely and light and painless except for that à la seconde. At one point BW shouted, “Fight for it!” and I kid you not, that gave me a second wind. Because I adore BW as ridiculously as I adore Ms. Killer B of Wednesday Class fame. Basically, if he told me to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge…

    Also, at one point he touched my foot, and part of me is like I will never wash those shoes again but, to be honest? They’re kinda grungy, and they’re white, soooooooo… .  

    Anyway, at center we did a tendu (or dégage, or grand battement) combination that was all about body facings and épaulement and little faillis and turns from fifth. I did grand battements and doubles on the repeat, since my body finally decided to get with the program and face the right way.and my arms Asiago sorted themselves. 

    We then did a really nice (and simple) terre-a-terre with back-to-back turns from fourth:

    balancé

    balancé 

    chassée – pas de Bourée – fifth

    chassée to fourth

    turn 

    land fourth

    turn

    Sweep through to soutenu turn from croisée to opposite croisée

    sus-sous balance with port de bras

    balancé, etc. 

    Going right, I felt good and managed two easy doubles in  the first three turns, so I aimed for a triple on the third. 

    Turns out that you can, in fact, force a triple through sheer stubbornness, even if if you haven’t got the momentum for it, if you’re willing willing to let it be an ugly triple.

    It was totally, “Around, aROUND, gorammit WE … ARE …  MAKING … IT …  AROUND AGAIN IFITKILLSME!” 

    But it was still a triple. 

    I made up for for it by almost careening into the mirror doing hell turns  chaînes on the left. Apparently, my ear isn’t quite up for those yet, no matter how hard I spot. 

    Also, I travel like a mofo. I managed to eat up the whole floor doing 2 piqué turns, 2 soutenu turns, 2 piqué turns, 4 chaînes. There was a lot of ATTAAAAAAACK! involved. I get a little excited about piqué turns sometimes. I’m even worse about tombé-piqués/lame ducks, though. Frealz.

    So that was Thursday. Today it’s all about scraping the paint, then painting the paint. 

    Posted in balllet, class notes, ID-10T errors, mistakes

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    All the Wednesday 

    Nov 16

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    Killer Class

    Barre was generally fine except for an occasional creeping-up shoulder and the fact that, for whatever reason, my body was like “HOW DO ARMBAR?” when it came time for RDJs en l’air. Breathing mostly worked.

    Adagio was literally half great and half terrible. It was like my turnouts just gave up on the repeat first side, then got their crap together again for the second side. 

    Turns were less weird today. I didn’t try for doubles going left. That just seemed like asking for trouble. Going right, I cheated myself out of either a second good double or a triple by failing to decide what I was going to do. 

    I bowed out all the allegro because my ear had started to feel odd and I didn’t want to push things too hard. This made me sad, because the grand allegro was fabulous — opened with a renversé, and included two Bounonville jetés, en tournants, and cabrioles. I haz a sad. 

    Dance Team 

    I adjusted the choreography a hair to make one transition less difficult, then added a new phrase. We didn’t have time for more than that because there was a bunch of “housekeeping” stuff we had to do before we got to dancing. This is our week for Saturday rehearsal, though, so we’ll make up for it

    Trapeze 3 

    After a line-dancing warm-up in which I finally understood WTF a “grapevine” is (and the usual array of trapeze warm-ups), we started learning dolphin rolls. I almost nailed them. We also did the reverse birds’ nest (which is basically made for me) and attempted to beat to sit from a crucifix, which I couldn’t do because my shirt was too slippery. This is because I forgot to change out of my ballet clothes, which are definitely not optimal for trapeze. I have this little sleeveless shirt from Sansha that’s perfect for ballet but too short and slippery for any other application 😛

    I also discovered that I have lost my v-ups. Ugh. Back to conditioning with me. 
    I’m too tired right now for tags and stuff — I’ll try to add them in the morning. 

    Posted in balllet

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    Meh-dern Monday

    Nov 14

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    I am definitely on the mend (the meh-nd?), but not yet well enough for class. I’ve got an inquiry in to my doc’s office to see if they want me to come back in. 

    I stayed in this morning, slept late, and had really weird dreams that probably resulted from the fact that I was sleeping with my face shoved into a pillow that was, in turn, hanging off the bed and wedged into the Pile-O-Books that lives on my nightstand. I can’t remember what the dreams were about, but I remember thinking they were weird. 
    Anyway. I read in the bath for an hour and change, trying to get the fresh cement in my head to loosen up. It did, to an extent, for a while.

    Then I went off to Dance Team, where the girls were pretty awesome. AS and I restructured the rehearsal program and divided the girls up into discrete small groups, and that made a big difference.

    I let my group choose a song to work on with no suggestions from me. They chose Adel’s “Rolling In The Deep” (yeay!) and I banged out the first few phrases and got them started. They did a fantastic job staying on task and picking up the opening choreography, including at least one fairly challenging move, so I’ve added some harder stuff to the section they’ll learn learn on Wednesday. 

    On Wednesday, I’ll review the technical aspects of the today’s phrases, review today’s phrases, break the new steps down to get them thinking about technique, then teach them the new phrases. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do as a group.

    Tomorrow, I’m going to have to see if I can find a pharmacy that actually has my decongestant. I’m now out of my previous supply, and the pharmacy I normally use hasn’t been able to fill my prescription, which they’ve had for a week as of tomorrow :/

    I am audible enough now that I should be able to call their other locations and check around. I’m hoping one of them will have it, as my insurance only covers two pharmacy chains. I can go somewhere else and pay out of pocket if I have to, though. This isn’t an expensive medication.

    In other news, I made Brussels sprouts for for the first time ever tonight. They were good! …Which was nice, because the cooking time recommended on the package was too long,and i was afraid they’d be incredible when I took them out of the oven. 

    Anyway, here’s my recipe:

    You’ll need:

    • 14 Brussels sprouts (or however many you need; scale other ingredients accordingly!) 
    • 1 – 2 tbsp (15 – 30.ml) olive oil or melted butter 
    • 1 – 2 rashers bacon, cooked and cooled
    • coarse salt to taste

    Here’s how you make them:

    1. Preheat your own to 450 – 500 degrees Fahrenheit
    2. Remove loose outer leaves and cut sprouts in lengthwise halves
    3. Chop or crumble bacon 
    4. Toss sprouts in oil/butter to coat
    5. Place sprouts cut-side down on a cookie sheet 
    6. Sprinkle bacon and salt over sprouts
    7. Roast for 15  –  25 minutes*, until cut sides are golden brown 
    8. Remove from oven, flip sprouts cut-side up, cool for a minute or two, and serve.

    *The sprouts came in a bag that suggested 30 minutes at 350 — too long at too low a temp, IMO. I did 15 at 500 and 15 at 350; next time, I’ll just do 20 at 500. Sprouts roast beautifully at a high temperature, with a lovely Maillard reaction where they touch the pan.  That’s why I put the flat, cut side down, by the way — more surface area for browning!   

    I was preparing dinner to coincide with Denis’ arrival from a late evening at work, and the sprouts were ready a bit early. I ate almost all of my share before he got home. Thought about eating his, but I’m a nice boy. At least I’m eating again! 

    I think I’m going to make these again tomorrow, so I’ll try to add pictures.

    Posted in adulting, modern, recipe, work

    2 Comments

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    Saturday Class: I Got Nothin’

    Nov 12

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    I made it to class this this morning, and the beginning of barre was reasonable, and the end was a fiery swath of pain. Basically, I didn’t have the resources for the fondu — which is to say, my glycogen stores were hosed, I was getting no air through my nose, my mouth was the Sahara, and my legs screamed NONONONONO basically the whole time. My Arabesque on the second side was laughable, and the penché basically didn’t happen. 

    Called it a day after have battement, which frankly felt like a piece of cake after the flaming hell of fondu, even though my brain refused to remember the combination correctly, and kept putting its elements in the same wrong order. So instead I tried to focus on GBing to my second instead of behind my shoulder when going à la seconde. 

    After that I went home. That was my whole day so far.

    If I’m still utterly unable to breathe through my nose while exercising on Monday, I’ll check in with my doctor’s office. I mean,  it never works well for me, but this is ridiculous.  

    Posted in balllet

    4 Comments

    Moar Whinging, Feel Free to Skip This 

    Nov 11

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    I’m really feeling a lot better — which is to say A) better enough that I realize how long I’ve been feeling like crap and, B) better enough to have energy to complain about things. 

    Before, I was basically feeling too awful and tired to resent feeling awful and tired (besides which, I basically spent the better part of ten days asleep). Now I’m well enough to be past that, but not well enough to be back to normal. So instead I’m feeling cranky and resentful and sorry for myself. Poor me. Le sigh. 

    I guess that’s progress? 
    The weirdest complaint  is that I’ve apparently forgotten how to eat. This illness just basically killed my appetite, and I kind of don’t think I’ve really been eating enough. 

    Anyway, today we took our friend KH out for dinner, and I ate half a small Caesar salad and three small seared ahi nigirizushi, and then I was ridiculously and depressingly full. 

    Mostly it was depressing because the ahi was so good, and I wish I had skipped the salad (which was horrible because it was overdressed, even though this place does a good, legit Caesar … slimy lettuce is just kind of revolting) and just eaten the fish. I couldn’t even bring it home — it would’ve had to sit in the car for a couple of hours, and it isn’t yet cool enough here to pull that off with fish. (I know: First World Problems all the way, quel dommage.)

    But it’s also annoying because now I’m eating Graham crackers in bed because I know I’m going to wake up starving at 2 AM but everything else seems nauseatingly oversized. I think I’ve taken in maybe 900 calories today. Bleh. 

    I hope my stomach will get its stuff together soon so I can go back to eating like I normally do, because this is no way to fuel a dancer. 

    I don’t have energy enough to complain about real problems right now, at least, so there’s that.

    Anyway, I’m done whinging for now. Tomorrow I shall attempt class, so I’m sure I’ll whinge  about  that, too.

    G’night, errbody. Feel free to drop your own ridiculous, frivolous, but still irritating whinges in the comments; I feel like a self-aware Open Whinging thread could be kinda fun, actually. We can collect them into a book later and call it Fine Whines, and we’ll all be famous on the internets and make a million yen (which is only, like, $10,000 dollars, but that’s a start). 

    Posted in adulting, food, health, life

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