I’m in your* fellowship hall, choreographin’ your** danz.
1 minute down, 6 minutes to go.
I should prolly video this so I don’t forget any details?
*Okay, the fellowship hall of Saint Andrew’s Episcopal in the Highlands.
**Okay, okay, my danz.
Category Archives: balllet
Danseur Ignoble: Back on the Bus
There’s something deeply satisfying about the long, golden light of an October morning at this latitude.
I live in Kentucky now, but I’m a Yankee by birth and long heritage (one of my maternal great aunts has been known to make noises about “those Mayflower upstarts;” her side of the family — Québécois, Métis, and Iroquois with deep pre-Mayflower roots in this continent — still only half-jokingly regards the English as a bunch of arrivistes). New England suffuses my blood; informs my bones — and here, now, briefly, this glorious light reminds me of home.
The memory of bones runs long and deep.
It’s good, also, to be back in the rhythm of my normal routine, heading to Monday class. It’s good to be wearing one of those ridiculous outfits in which we arrive at class on cool mornings; good to be stuffing apples in my face as quickly as possible between busses.
Curiously, even though part of me has been bathing itself in chagrin, selectively recalling all the worst parts of my audition (seriously, sometimes my brain is like an obnoxious roommate who won’t turn off the TV), another part of me feels significantly more confident as a dancer simply because I got up there yesterday and tried (okay, the one really precise and gorgeous turn that Denis caught on video doesn’t hurt, either).
I suppose in part it’s a function of suddenly having this very concrete goal — I am making a dance, and I know it will be a good one once I nail down the choreography. It will force me to home my technique to a degree that probably should seem daunting, but doesn’t.
And even if it isn’t selected for this performance, I will keep working on it, finish it, and bring it somewhere; do something with it.
Anyway, I’m almost to class, so that’s it for now.
More later.
Danseur Ignoble: Saturday Class At Last
You guys, Brian is amazing.
Today, we spent most of barre working slowly without accents. Very different feeling, but exactly what I’ve been needing.
Working workout accents forces you to focus on doing the entire movement correctly — so if you’re working a tendu from fifth, you make all the stuff in between the two pictures (“fifth” and “out”) really, really count.
I realized, for example, that when I tendu a la seconde from arrière, I don’t always bring my heel through, and thus I wind up losing some of my turnout.
We also tuned up balancés. M., who has only recently joined Brian’s Saturday class, wasn’t super clear on them, and Brian said, “Don’t worry — I’m 33 and I’ve been dancing since I was 14, and I’m still working on balances.”
He also gave the single most concise balancé exercise ever. I’ll have to create a little video of it — it’s amazingly easy and makes balancés crystal clear.
That makes me feel much better about my slowly-improving balancé — which, coincidentally, was 100% better when I walked out of class than when I walked in.
Little jumps were beautiful this time (Light! Buoyant! Quick!), and going across the floor I tossed in some cabrioles, a few of which were good (and at least one of which was horrible).
I think I liked our adagio and pirouette combos best, though — they were as follows:
Adagio (ish, anyway):
Balancé – quarter pique turn (x4)
Promenade
Repeat on opposite side
Pirouette:
Tombe
Pas de bourré
Arabesque turn
Failli
(repeat the above twice; on the third repeat, add a double pirouette)
So there you have it. Not bad at all for my first class in a month, I think, though my port de bras was a bit chaotic.
It’s good to be back.
Danseur Ignoble: Shadowlands Begins
Pas de Don’t
Please forgive the Giant Stupid Whiny Rant to follow.
Yesterday, I had an absolutely lovely conversation with my therapist about trying to learn to sort of honor what I am, including the delicate-respiratory-system part.
Today, I’m just frustrated.
I feel like I make so much progress, then get sick and lose so much ground, and like this is an ongoing thing for me, and like the smart thing, the good-zen thing, the Good Mental Health thing to do would be to learn to accept and embrace that.
And then another part of me is all, “Ain’t got time for all that, I’m a dancer. Dancers gotta dance.”
(The painful corollary: if I’m not dancing right now, do I cease to exist as a dancer? What a freaking terrifying question.)
I have written, occasionally, about Making Dance Accessible.
I am forced, now, to admit that my own internal prejudices, or whatever, have left a potentially huge group of people out of that thought process — that is, people like me, who are talented and have been given bodies that look and in most ways act like classical dancers’ bodies but who are afflicted with chronic illnesses that make sustained training problematic.
Truth is, I don’t see a workaround for someone like me. Or, well, yes — here’s something. Short-term projects; an approach to training that recognizes that even the longest spell of good health will eventually be interrupted by illness. A willingness to be flexible about classes; to step it down a level when the body demands it.
I admit it: I don’t feel ready for the physical demands of Brienne’s class yet — and a part of me is angry about that; just furious that my body has failed me.
Another part understands that it doesn’t help to think of it that way; that this is just another wave in the ever-changing ocean. After the ecstacy, as it were, the laundry: after a stunningly-long period of quite good health, the pneumonia, the period of recovery.
And still it is painful, yet again, to run up against the limits of my being; to be reminded that I am working with mortal clay and all its host of flaws (though, on the flip-side, I remain grateful for the great gifts I have been given, and I recognize that if this is the price, or only part of the price, I have so been given an amazing bargain, here).
I also recognize that the day I accept these limitations will be the day they stop hurting me so often: I’m like a stubborn horse that doesn’t want to stay in its field, startled every time I run headlong into my fence*. The fence is always there; if I just accept that, I won’t crack my legs against it anymore.
For what it’s worth, I was thinking about backing out of the audition (haven’t felt up to extended rehearsals with Denis), but instead I think I’m just going to change horses midstream, maybe: channel all this into a dance, albeit indirectly.
It may not be a dance about all this; I have something else in mind, though something equally topical in its own way — it relates to my other ongoing struggle: how do I learn to live as the androgynous person that I am when, in a very real sense, I’m afraid to do that for reasons even I don’t understand?
That, or else something about living with bipolar (perhaps unsurprisingly, that was my first idea anyway).
Either way? Cue Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.“
Notes
*This is actually a terrible analogy. With few exceptions, horses don’t do this kind of crap unless there’s a good reason to get out of the field in question. Will they bolt through an open gate just for a lark? Sure. When they bash themselves repeatedly against a fence for absolutely no reason, though? Better check your pasture for locoweed (or scary plastic shopping bags — horses be cray).
Danseur Ignoble: I’m Feeling Much Better, Really?
Okay, so as always, this recovery process has been slower and more annoying, with more minor setbacks, than anticipated.
Someday, I’ll learn to take the Hoped-For Duration of Recovery and simply multiply it by three or four.
“I’ll be over this in a week or so” will then mean “I’ll be over this in, I dunno, three weeks or a month, give or take,” and I’ll be much less frustrated when, after a week, I’m not Good As New.
Anyway, I am feeling much better, but still not perfectly well. Still also tenaciously clinging to the hope of having something worth auditioning on the 4th. If we bust our buts (yes, pun intended: You know, “When the deadline’s neeeeeear, and it don’t look good — Who you gonna call? BUT BUSTERS!”), we might … maybe? … SHOULD! be able to at least put together a respectable audition, if not one that will make everybody say OMG WE MUST HAVE THESE GUYS!
Maybe.
In other news, we saw The Scorch Trials today and spent the whole movie making Burning-Man related jokes.
It actually wasn’t too bad: its storyline was fairly predictable “twinks versus the old ppl conspiracy versus alien zombie plague” fare, but both installments in the Maze Runner film adaptation series have done a good job mostly avoiding cringe-inducing romantic subplots whilst providing enjoyable visuals and action scenes, even if elements of those action scenes do frequently make one ask, “Haven’t you guys ever seen a movie? Hey, maybe standing around and waiting for all of the alien plant zombies to awaken within two meters of your tasty still-fully-human faces is a bad idea. Wait, what the … WHY ARE YOU CLIMBING THE STAIRS?!”
Oops, potential spoilers below for ppl who care about that kind of thing, so here comes a More Tag:
Quick Update
Visit with Dr. B went well.
So while I still have some fluid rattling around in my left lung and may, in fact, have had a mild, early-stage pneumonia rather than just plain bronchitis (Denis is convinced of this), I’m mending well.
We decided against further antibiotics unless things look to be taking a turn for the worse again, since I’ve had a great response to the antibiotic I finish today.
I got a steroid shot, which really made me appreciate those “ballet muscles” in my hips 😀
Dr. B also prescribed a different cough medication, since after the first night the original one didn’t help. The new one is the standard codeine-based uber cough suppressant, and I imagine it will do the job.
Since it was time for a re-up, I also picked up my Adderall script.
Part of me was amazed that I was able to walk out of the pharmacy with not one, but two controlled substances from two different substance groups. It took a couple hours to get the scripts filled, but that was because the cough medicine was out of stock but had just arrived with a new shipment.
We had a good dinner at a local Mexican restaurant while we were waiting, so it all worked out.
I also bought more facial tissues. For some strange reason, we’re going through them at a frightening clip of late.
So now we’re on our way down to Nashville to complete our Porchlight Express cargo run for 2015. Woot!
Tomorrow I need to finally purchase or ballet subscription for this season. One of the spring productions will involve a world-premiere piece set to music composed by our Orchestra’s wunderkind director, Teddy Abrams.
I’ve been really impressed with what he’s been doing for LSO. Likewise, Robert Curran’s influence on Louisville Ballet has been nothing but positive, so I’m really excited about the spring production.
That’s it for now. The steroid shot is helping, so assuming that I sheep this weekend, I’ll probably back to class on Monday, but I’ll be taking it easy. A little at a time.
Danseur Ignoble: Back to the Doctor
…Sadly, there’s no DeLorean involved.
I’ll have to preface this with an, “I’m not dead yet! … I’m feeling much better.” (Apologies to the Python.)
That said, I still have the world’s most annoying cough and (as a result) can’t sleep for more than a couple hours at a stretch, both of which are interfering quite seriously with my ability to dance.
Denis, of course, can’t sleep either: it is hard to sleep next to someone who sounds like a robotic sea lion. I offered to sleep in the guest room until this blows over, but he told me that he would rather have me right next to him so he knows what’s going on with me.
He has been incredibly sweet and forebearing every time my cough has awakened him. Instead of being all GRAAAAAR GO SLEEP IN THE GARAGE OR SOMETHING FFS, he’s like, “I’m so sorry, baby, that sounds like it hurts.” (He described the sound of my cough as “mechanical” and, at one point, “like glass breaking,” which suggests that it sounds much worse than it feels.)
Meanwhile, I am more worried by the precipitous drop in my weight — 2+ pounds since Wednesday in addition to the 2 pounds in the previous few days.
This wouldn’t worry me if it had been preceded by an uptick; my weight fluctuates like that all the time. In fact, it has been known to fluctuate by as much as six pounds after century rides as I regain equilibrium — but always in an up-then-down pattern.
The fact that I’ve dropped four pounds below my previous “floor” is the worrisome part. The last time I lost weight this fast, it turned out that I had pneumonia. I also felt a thousand times worse than I do now, though, so I don’t think I actually do have pneumonia. It just makes me nervous.
Denis told me this morning to call our doc and get them to fit me in, and since he rarely gives me a direct order, I gathered that he was quite worried.
Needless to say, I am going to see our regular doc today at 2:30. (Ironically, Denis called them for me because I finally feel asleep around 8:15 AM and turned off my alarm at 9:00 AM without properly waking up. ._.)
In other news, I came up with two dances for the audition, one of which is a serious ballet and one of which pokes fun at the seriousness of ballet.
I asked Denis if he’d like to do the second piece with me (it requires one fairly skilled dancer and one dancer who’s willing to camp it up and clown around, but doesn’t have to be all that great at actual ballet), and though I assumed he’d say no, he agreed rather enthusiastically. Have I mentioned that I adore this man?
I can’t wait to get a video of the dance in question; I think it’s going to be pretty great. The music for the piece is the second movement to Beethoven’s Piano Sonota Number 8 in C minor — that is to say, the adagio cantabile from the “Pathétique.”
Go listen to it and then try to tell me there isn’t a built-in Charlie Chaplain Does Ballet thing going on! (Here’s a link: https://youtu.be/yyelz5Q0Z9w)
Denis is going to wear his fabulous tutu costume; for the performance, I’ll have to come up with a Serious Ballet Is Serious costume. I haven’t decided whether to go with the traditional “Ballet Prince ” look or an Austere Contemporary Ballet ensemble.
Perhaps I should take a poll! (HINT, HINT.)
So that’s a go, and we’ll be rehearsing the choreography starting next week, provided that I do not, in fact, have pneumonia (which I’m quite sure that I don’t) and can get some sleep between now and then.
In still other news, this post was supposed to be short. Ha! Will I never learn?
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: 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 