Left out the most important part on Monday – did temps levée without blowing a tendon again (and it felt good!).
Huzzah!
Author Archives: asher
Danseur Ignoble: The Playa Plague Continues, Audition-y Anxiety
Since my cough was still keeping me up all night, I went to the doc-in-the-box on Monday afternoon. She listened to my lungs and said, “Ah-hah!”
o.O
It turns out I’ve got acute bacterial bronchitis. I’ve been running around assuming that this was some kind of sinus-drainage-induced-annoying-cough-thing that would clear up on its own. So … um, oops?
I was initially rather annoyed that I’d developed bronchitis, but then I realized it’s actually been quite a while (by my standards) since I’ve had it, or at least since I’ve had a case that warranted medical intervention. I feel like I still get sick more easily than most people, but my overall health is improving. I spend more time being reasonably well than I used to. Thanks, ballet!
So now I’m on an antibiotic and a prescription cough syrup. That should, I hope, get this shifted, though at this particular moment I’m still pretty uncomfortable.
I was able to sleep four about four hours tonight before the prescribed cough syrup wore off and I started coughing again, so I’ve taken my second dose for the night.
Since the cough has been at its worst when I’m lying down (convenient, right?), I decided to get up and give the medicine time to work its magic so Denis can sleep. He deserves a good night’s sleep for many reasons, not least because he’s been so great about looking after me while I’ve been useless and miserable.
The downside to the timing of this whole thing is that I’ve been invited to audition for a dance performance, and I’m iffy about whether or not I’ll be entirely back on my feet by the first weekend in October. (Or, rather, whether I’ll both be back on my feet and adequately rehearsed.)
The upside is that if I make it through the audition (that sounds so dire: there probably won’t be a shark pit waiting for those whose works don’t quite cut it), the performance isn’t until February, so I’ll have plenty of time to arrange my waterfowls in a linear array.
![Swan Lake. By Paata Vardanashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia (Nino Ananiashvili "Swan Lake") [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://danseurignoble.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/arrange-your-waterfowls.png)
Original photo by Paata Vardanashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia (Nino Ananiashvili “Swan Lake”) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Part of me says that I’m just being a big ol’ chicken (duck! :V). There’s some merit to that argument. I talk a good game, but my confidence about my ability as a performer and choreographer is, shall we say, still embryonic — you know, as yet unhatched.
Still, I must not let it ruffle my feathers.
…Okay, I’ll stop with the, ahem, poultry attempts at humor.
At any rate, I’ve bitten the bullet and signed up for an audition slot. After all my whinging about the challenge of finding performance opportunities, I can’t very well pass one up when it’s handed directly to me!
I have a piece in mind, though it’s a little on the short side (~4 mins; audition pieces need to be between 5 and 12 mins long). I’ll have to see if I can expand it a bit. If not, I may have to whip up something fresh — I do have some ideas, though, so that should be doable. I hope.
Being who I am, I feel a great deal of anxiety about the audition and essentially none about the concept of performing before (GASP!) an actual audience comprised of people who have actually paid actual money to actually sit down and watch. In short, I figure if the folks putting this performance together think I’m good enough, then I probably am*.
*This is very much consistent with my personality in general: I have absolutely no fear of public speaking before large groups, but the idea of carrying on a conversation with three or four strangers? Scary.
Here’s hoping I’ll be back in class this week. I’m going to need it. It seems unlikely that I’ll be up for Brienne’s class on Wednesday, but I might be able to handle Margie’s class. I’m optimistic about Friday, at any rate.
In other news, it looks like my primary employment this year will be with Porchlight Express, refitting the website and getting the other communications stuff sorted. That will take up a significant portion of my free time, so it’s useful to know that I probably won’t also need to pick up another part-time job.
I also still need to sign up for the GRE (OMG, WTF, BBQ) and submit my grad school applications. Oh, and take the driver’s exam at some point, hopefully before the 4th, in case Denis doesn’t feel like driving to Cincy for the audition. (But, seriously, there’s an IKEA there — why wouldn’t he want to go to Cincy?)
On my life-anxieties scale, by the way, this audition thing is right at the top. I feel pretty confident about getting accepted into one or more DMT programs and quite confident indeed about being able to really polish the PLX website now that I have time. That really rather puts things in perspective for me!
Anyway, I’ve stopped coughing up furballs for now, so I shall try to go back to bed.
Wish me luck?
Danseur Ignoble: the Playa Plague
We had a rough burn this year – lots of chaos during setup week, then I came down with what we’re calling “the Playa Plague,” which closely resembles a proper bout of ‘flu. I spent the last two and a half days of burn week in bed, feverishly griped my way through tear-down, departure, and all the airports, then went back to bed for another two days. I’m still coughing and “feeling puny,” as it were, but the fever at least seems to have abated.
Needless to say, ballet-related Playa plans were greatly modified over the course of the burn. We had fun doing the first couple of barre classes; the performances, on the other hand, didn’t get off the ground this year because it’s really pretty hard to direct a performance, let alone perform, when you’re in bed with a fever, hacking cough, and no voice o.O
I’ll have to plan for that contingency next year — somehow, it hadn’t even occurred to me that being rather seriously ill on the Playa was even a possibility. I also think I’m going to schedule less stuff — one or two Open Barre sessions, a Taupe Party (which is the logical follow-up to Wednesday night’s White Party), and one performance event, for which I’ll have to appoint a deputy director in case my immune system decides to crap out on me again.
In other ways, this year’s burn was possibly the best yet for me. During the time that I was still up and about, I rolled around the Playa with our camp family on an amazing Mutant Vehicle while our friend John DJed an awesome set, had an utterly transcendental 4AM walkabout with amazing friends, provided ice-schlepping services and improvised dance performances at Arctica, and danced for hours with complete strangers to hits of the disco era in our own little cozy dance bar.
…And even when I was lying around in bed being “pale and interesting” (and mostly asleep), in the moments that I was awake I concluded that I’d still rather be where I was than anywhere else on earth.
I did crawl out of bed on Sunday night for the Temple Burn, which meant a lot to me. We’ve never actually been on the Playa for the Temple Burn before, and at the end of the day I feel like the Temple is a locus of significance.
It’s hard to explain why: as in any sacred space, I guess, each person’s experience is different. For whatever reason, my heart and brain have chosen to invest the ever-changing, transient Temple with particular meaning.
I was surprised by that, the first year. Prior to my first burn, my inner cynic staunchly refused to assign spiritual potency to the Temple simply because it’s the Temple; turns out that once we arrived, my inner cynic had no say in the matter. If there’s anywhere on earth that you discover what it means to take things as they come, it’s in the ephemeral cosmopolis of Black Rock City.
Which is, in the end, what this year’s burn was all about, for me: taking things as they come. Things didn’t go as planned (okay, at Burning Man, things never go as planned, but this year they really, really didn’t go as planned) in so many ways, and yet even in the moments of deepest, grumpiest frustration, I would check myself and ask, “Is there anywhere else I’d rather be on earth right now?”
The answer was always no, which reminded me yet again to be here, now.
Which, in the end, is the only way to take Burning Man — you have to be here, now, because it is much more pressingly clear that later on, the here you’re experiencing won’t be.
The same is true, of course, in every other place on earth: it’s just more obvious in a city that’s built, thrives with the vivid intensity of a post-rain desert bloom, and then is demolished again in a matter of weeks.
~~~~
PS: There were bugs. I counted exactly three: two different wasps (one of which seemed terrifyingly determined to be my BFF, or something like that) and some kind of lacewing-ish thing.
The stinkbugs and seedbugs had moved on by the time we arrived on Monday of Build Week.
Also, the high desert through which one passes to reach the Playa was decked in heartbreaking, shimmering green. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wrote some more coherent thoughts about it, but I’m not sure where I stored them.
Such is life.
Danseur Ignoble: Gotta Get Myself Connected
Things are very much coming together in class, but at the same time, there’s a lot of room for improvement.
Saturday’s class is usually easier (sometimes much easier) than the weekday morning classes, and today was no exception. Barre felt very solid. I had no trouble remembering the combinations, so instead I spent a lot of time focused on working through my feet, maintaining turnout when tendu-ing and so forth arriere, making my port de bras more graceful, and being awesome at doing the fondu-into-grand-rond-de-jambe bit. That has been a mess for the past few weeks, coming back into the intermediate classes.
Going across the floor, I had the combinations, but wasn’t really dancing with control (which was ridiculous, since I tossed off a really, really nice turn like it was nothing while we were learning a combination). I was kind of all over the place, particularly in my turns.
I need to keep my head together in class, buckle down, and really focus on honing my technique. (The music didn’t help today. Brian had a new CD that turned out to be really kind of terrible, and we all found it rather hilarious.)
My turns should not be sloppy ever at this juncture … at least not singles. My jumps should be tighter (to be fair, my little jumps sans beats look quite good, and my glissade is finally more or less back in shape; likewise, my assembles always look great, though I need to work on doing smaller ones when the music is quick).
My entrechats should just plain be better: I only did a couple today, and they started out well, and then for some reason, I stopped pointing my feet halfway through the beats. What’s that about*?
*It’s about still being a little freaked out about landings, I suspect. I’m afraid of re-injuring my toe, though I seem to be over worrying about my calf. Having spent basically half the year mostly unable to dance, I am now completely paranoid.
At least my port de bras is generally less wacky now. Every once in a while, when I’m jumping, it gets a bit over-enthusiastic. Rarely I get it backwards during adagio. On the whole, though, it’s pretty good.
Likewise, I am no longer getting tangled making it from sauté arabesque to glissade, and not just because I’m faking it better. I realized I’ve been slipping in a pas couru kind of thing after my faille instead of collecting myself for the jump (I guess it helps when I think of ballet in horse terms?)
I think this is an issue I had fixed before and then it, like, broke again. Like my freaking shower handles (well, I don’t fix those; Denis does — the best I can manage is to fiddle with them ’til they’re more or less operable).
The hardest combo today was deceptively simple:
Fondu
Extend
Soutenu turn
Fifth
Tendu back (to 4th)
Passe balance
Close to fifth
Repeat
Plie
Extend
Soutenu turn
Fifth
Tendu back (to 4th)
Passe balance
Fifth
Plie
Double turn (en dehors)
…And then repeat the whole combination until you run out of music or room.
This was challenging for me because I tend to want to really spring into my soutenu turns, but the music was slow, so that wasn’t an option. It was necessary to really step into them with control and stay on your leg. I was not all about being in control and staying on my leg today; I was kind of all over the place. I also think I kind of let my core go. You really can’t dance without core muscles.
So, in other words, this really shouldn’t have been a challenging combination, but it was, because I was a mess (if Ms. Margie was teaching, she would have said, “Use your technique, don’t lose your technique!”).
I’m going to chalk some of today’s chaos up to sleep deprivation, but a lot of it is simply that I need to focus better in class. Like, stop thinking, breathe more, try not to get distracted by shiny moving things in the mirror (SQUIRREL!).
Right now, I feel like that little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead — you know: when I’m good, I’m very, very good; but when I am bad, I am horrid.
Oh! I also totally ganked the barre-stretch leg-strengthening exercise that Kit over at Ballet And/Or Bust described, and I think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered for getting my developpes higher. Right now, they’re back to progressing reasonably well, but it’s still definitely a question of strength and muscle balance.
My thighs remain pretty unbalanced as a result of years of turning the cranks on the bike, which is pretty much the opposite of what you’re doing when you developpe properly. The “eight lifts, then float the leg off the barre” sequence should really help. I’m better on the left side, right now, but that might just be because something had made my right hip (which is usually the tighter one anyway) super, super tight a few weeks ago. It’s almost back to normalish, now, though not yet back to full-splits-on-both-sides normal. I do have a full split back on the left, though.
One last bit.
Do you guys out there in Adult Ballet Bloggerland do that thing where you see a picture of yourself ballet-ing, immediately think, “Wow, I look awesome!” and then start picking apart all of your faults?
Because I am totally doing that with my pictures now 😛
To be fair, I was aware of most of the faults in question at the time (especially the fact that I wasn’t all that turned-out), but unable to really correct them because gravel footing is apparently just as scary when you’re trying to arabesque as when you’re on the bike, descending at 35 MPH. I’m less annoyed by the fact that my passé is kind of low and not super-level because I wasn’t really trying for a perfect passé.
Regardless, I’m still pretty pleased with myself. I had to hoooooold that arabesque and the passé in the other two pictures, and it was tough, what with the shifting gravel and so forth.
My balances are really improving now, though.
Today, in addition to a bunch of very respectable coupé balances, there was one that worked so well that I just, like, hung out there for what felt like ages. I didn’t even do that thing where you go OMGOMG I’M BALANCING! and immediately lose it. My passé balances weren’t quite as solid, but they were still pretty good.
If I can replicate that and improve on it going forward, that will be a really good thing.
Danseur Ignoble: Amazing Ballet Pictures by Marge Ely
I think I mentioned that we went to a pre-Burn party last weekend, and I may have mentioned that photographer and fellow Burner Marge Ely took some pictures of us (and others who volunteered) while we were there.
Marge sent us the pictures today. Two of them are delightful; one is really quite stunning (seriously, I’m like, “Wait, that’s me?!”).
So, without further ado, here they are:
Denis (R) and me, working the passé. …By the way, it’s hard to get into a really solid rélève in these shoes. Photo by Marge Ely, August, 2015.
Edit: I knew Denis was taller than I am, but not, “I’m on demi-pointe and he’s still taller!” taller.
This was actually the first of the two passé pictures, but I think I like the second better. Photo by Marge Ely, August, 2015.
This one’s my favorite, I think (yeah, I’m kind of a shameless narcissist sometimes). I’m still stunned, both that I am capable of looking this good, and also that I can arabesque that well on gravel in stiff-soled tennis shoes 😀 I’m not even making weird faces! Photo by Marge Ely, August, 2015.
So, there you have it. Amazing, beautiful pictures by an amazing, beautiful photographer. She’s hoping to mount a show of these, and I really hope she does, because I’d love to see the whole collection together in a gallery!
When I get a chance, I’ll post a link to Marge Ely’s facebook gallery from the party.
No class today because of packing, but I’ll be doing class tomorrow (Brian is teaching! YAAAAAY!).
Danseur Ignoble: We Got The Beats
Mostly good class this morning; the usual blend of hard work and good cheer.
I didn’t hose up any combinations too badly except the ones that everyone hosed up because the music was faster* than we expected o.O’ Also, got off a bunch of double turns, some of which were nice (and some of which were a bit wild).
My frappés were literally better than they have every been, but my grand battements were weird and wild. I realized at the last split-second that I needed to turn because I was in a corner where I was likely to battement the crap out of the barre behind me and got off my balance and off the music. We détourné-ed right into the next side, so my efforts to get fixed were a tad frantic (though the second side was better?).
Wheeee! First world ballet problems, I guess?
Did the first set of little jumps with reasonable facility, then the second set of little jumps with beats, though I started to feel it in my toe and sort of petered out at the end.
For fun, after class, a few of us did leaps; I threw in a couple tour jetés just for the halibut (insert lame joke here: fishes love tour jetés).
I read an article not long ago about how ballet dancers are not masochists. I’m not sure I agree at all: when your ballet teacher goes, “This is mean, and it’s going to hurt, and I’m sorry,” and the whole class sort of giggles maniacally, it suggests at least a little masochism on the part of the dancers.
Someday I will create a ballet about ballet class. It will be called “The Rented Mules,” or maybe “The Merry Mules.” It will not be as good as Paul Taylor’s ballet about ballet class, but maybe it will be funny.
To Remember:
1. Keep that back together in pique arabesque.
2. Practice adagio turns to développé. These look really cool, but right now mine are kind of a mess: I need to down-rate my force in order to arrive in plié in the right direction on one leg while already extending the working leg (through fondue).
Brienne points out that to do this, you think of it as “just a spot” (presumably instead of going ESCAPE VELOCITY GO!!!, which is how all my turns begin except when I remind myself to channel Baryshnikov and Find A Still Place first).
3. Go to the dance store and get fitted for shoes after Burning Man. All my shoes are officially pissing me off for various reasons except the little El Cheapo shoes from eBay, which are going to the desert, where they will, without a doubt, be summarily destroyed by the Alkaline Dust of Doom.
In other news, you should come to Summer Intensive with me next year in Lexington! 🙂
Addendum:
Progress in ballet, like progress in life, seems to take place stepwise.
Step 1: Thinking, “What the heck is — how do you even do that?”
Step 2: Giving it a try by broadly approximating whatever you’re trying to do.
Step 3: Feeling fairly confident about your broad approximation even though you still have to kind of remind yourself what frappé or soutenu or pas de basque is.
Step 4: No longer having to remind yourself as often, but realizing that your broad approximation leaves a great deal of room for improvement.
Step 5: Beginning to improve by making the large, visible adjustments.
Step 5: No longer having to remind yourself almost ever.
Step 6: Continuing to improve via medium adjustments.
Step 6: Transitioning from “improving” to “refining,” because you no longer have to remind yourself what a step is or about the improvements you’ve made thus far and you’re now making quite small adjustments.
Step 7: Getting the steps “into your body,” so they begin to feel instinctual and to link instinctually to other steps (this is so cool; sometimes you can predict a significant part of a combo before it’s given to you).
Steps 8 — ???: Further iterations of the refinement-and development-of instinct process.
Step approximately 1,000,000: Mastery (not perfection, which may not exist even in Ballet Paradise, since dancers like to have something to work on).
For what it’s worth, the development of a kind of “ballet sense,” a (still highly-limited) ability to predict what will make up part of a combination based on the music and the preceding steps, has greatly aided my ability to remember combinations.
Notes
*When in doubt, mark it out! … Even at barre.
Danseur Ignoble: Night School
I set my alarm wrong, so did night class today.
It went brilliantly, except for two parts — first, the part where I misunderstimated my travel during petit allegro and nearly ran the dude next to me into the piano twice … TWICE!!!; second, the part where I hosed up the final combo because I didn’t quite grasp what was supposed to come between the flying pas de basque (not to be confused with saut de basque) and the saute arabesque/cabriole.
I’mma have to practice that flying pas de basque thing. It’s fun, but my legs go a little Baby Giraffe Mode getting from that to other steps.
Brian taught tonight. His teaching style is playful and energetic, so his classes are fun.
Seriously; while this is probably not something that he would really do, there’s something in his personality that makes me think he’s going to come around and tickle us: that makes you stand up REALLY FREAKING TALL, by the way. Some atavistic part of my brain that is stuck in pre-school pre-ballet is like PULL UP TALL SO THE TICKLE MONSTER CAN’T SEE YOU!!!
Pro Tip: If you pull up tall, the Tickle Monster can’t see you.
The best general bit of advice (not really a correction, because we hadn’t broken out the passés yet) tonight? In passé and retiré, imagine a meat hook grabbing and lifting the muscle at the top inside of your thigh. Yeah, kind of a gristly image, but it works brilliantly for me. It makes me stop thinking ROTATE ROTATE ROTATE and, predictably, going CLENCH CLENCH CLENCH.
Clenching makes balances, like, 1,000,000% harder, you guys.
Oh, and I did all three bazillion little jumps and only screwed up the petit allegro a little**. Yasssssss! Getting that back has been surprisingly difficult, so it’s good that it finally felt like dancing.
**This was the point at which I realized I was going to run the guy beside me into the piano and completely panicked o.O’ Sorry, Guy Beside Me.
Also, the little jumps looked good. So there’s that.
Now! Other business!
I heard back from Lexington Ballet, and their adult SI was a resounding success this year, so they areplanning on doing it again, and they would very much welcome out of town dancers. I’ll keep an ear to the wind for updates on that.
I’m going to see if I can get a group of LBS students together to go (Field Trip! … Er, Week-Long Field Trip!). If not, I’ll still go by myself; it doesn’t conflict with any of the Sun King weeks that sound interesting.)
Our Tutu Tuesday costumes are complete (mine is packed, even!) and look fabulous. I am not allowed to post pix until our camp-mates have seen them, though, so the whole internet is just going to have to sit on its hands until then (because I know nobody has anything more important to do that wait for pictures of our tutus).
I am totally miffed about this, really, because I now have the most adorable picture ever of Mr. Merkah playing in Denis’ tutu*** and I can’t post it until we get back.
***…Which is precisely what The Momma predicted the Merkah would do, by the way.
That’s it for now. I really need to think about finding something to eat and then going to bed. Between mowing the lawn, riding the bike, and dancing, I have Burned All The Calories today and am Way, Way Tired.
Danseur Ignoble: 11th Hour Costume Fitting — Literally
Tonight we went to pick up our Subaru from Denis’ brother’s house in Elizabethtown and then to my Mother-in-Law’s house for our second fitting for Burning Man costumery things for TuTu Tuesday. We got there at 11 PM, no joke. We are usually in bed by 10:30 or so, so that’s saying something.
Fit on my bodice is now spot-on (it was huge before), so it’s ready for lining (in the pix, it’s wrong-side out). The shrug/bolero thingy is coming along nicely as well, but I didn’t get pictures of mine. Denis has pix of the green lining fabric of his; the outside isn’t constructed yet. My tutu isn’t ready yet, so I didn’t get to try that on, but Denis’ looks respectable.
We opted not to go full pancake, because it is already going to be a grade-A beast getting these things to the Playa and managing them there. Besides, there is a part of me that really feels like I’m not a good enough dancer to deserve a pancake tutu (even in drag :P). I’m in that weird spot where I dance well enough that I feel weird rocking the ironic look, but not well enough that I feel like I can go Full Pancake and really own it.
In short, I am not ready for the Trocks to call just yet 😀
Anyway, here’s tonight’s photodump!
The bodice, wrong-side out. We opted to do three pieces: bolero jacket, bodice, and tutu. We’ll probably both wear them over unitards.
If anyone isn’t sure why I love this man, here you go.
The final version of the bolero jackety thing will be lime green on the inside. It will also look incredibly cool.
I just included this one because I like it. Doesn’t really add much to the equation, but my shoulders look awesome.
Also, I’m wearing my glasses in this shot. Amazing! (I usually wear contacts, because peripheral vision is awesome.)
Denis and our costume department: Aunt Beverly at left and Phyllis — aka “The Momma” — at right.
They told us to say that if anyone asks, they’re retired.
Oh, and I got my hair cut yesterday. I had it cut extra, extra short so I won’t have to get it trimmed before we head for the desert.
Tomorrow we’re driving to Nashville on Porchlight Express business, so I’ll be doing double class on Saturday again. Saturday night, we’re going to a partay! w00t!
I will, of course, post pictures of the whole shebang when it’s ready. I am, as you’ve probably figured out, not what one would call camera-shy, though I am pretty sure that these pictures are about as close to naked as I’ve ever been on the internet. So there’s that.
Oh, yeah — and this is because I just can’t resist meming my husband.
Danseur Ignoble: Insert Joke About Having A Lot Of Class
I got my hair cut, hung out in the world (mostly riding around on the bike), then did tonight’s open house class with Ms. E.
It was, in a word, awesome. Barre was solid, adagio was solid, we did cool waltzy things across the floor (fairly nailed the first; didn’t quite catch the combo on the second so I basically faked it: nothing like faking it in the first group :P).
I like Ms. E’s teaching style — she’s fun, but still precise, and really encourages us to dance.
We did two fun little petit allegro combos, the second of which I really enjoyed (glissade, assemblé, glissade assemblé, glissade, jete [to coupe], relève, relève).
I feel like I’m gaining a better sense for where my body is in space now: I can feel it when my arabesques are on sideways, when my feet are really working, and so forth without everything else falling apart.
Likewise, a year ago I would never have guessed that I’d be picking up combinations as quickly as I am now. It’s still not perfect, but I’m much, much quicker than I was. I figured that would be the hardest part for me. It might still be, but I feel pretty confident about it now.
Part of it is not really having to think about the individual steps; part is, I think, just practice making … well, not perfect, but better.
My toe is a little sore, but not too bad, so tonight it will get a much-deserved rest. Tomorrow, since Denis graciously gave me a whole day for ballet, I will Do All The Chores.
I expect to sleep like a baby tonight. I’m quite tired — though not exhausted like I was on Saturday.
I would, however, commit vile acts of inhuman depravity for a really good slice of pizza right now 😉
That’s it for today. Ballet feels very exciting right now. I’m looking forward to coming months.
Good night, and keep the leather side down.
danseur ignoble 