This afternoon, things went well. “And So It Goes” (got the title wrong before) sets really nicely for an adagio dance trapeze piece. I roped Denis into doing some acro for the opening, though it was awkward because our portable crash mat is mas squishy — not particularly stable.
The performance piece was very much a work in progress. I forgot to do a couple of things I meant to do, which meant there was more improv than I intended, but the improv resulted in some nice moments, so I really can’t complain.
Our friendly photog, Kevin, shot pictures, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing them. After I finished, essentially everyone wandered up to em and said, “I wish I had your back flexibility.”
I am learning to basically just say, “Thanks!” without launching into a long and boring explanation of how one achieves that kind of thing.
Secretly, inside, I’m like, “BALLET, Y’ALLS.”
Well, okay, ballet and genetics.
But mostly ballet: ballet will make the most of whatever genetics you’ve got. The secret isn’t so much flexibility — it’s strength. Nothing teaches you to use your back like ballet. If you want to be able to draw your body up into an arc while dangling from one knee, do a billion arabesques (but they have to be good ones).
Anyway, after I did my thing on the trapeze, we also got to play on the lyra and do some crowd-pleasing acro. We had extra time because we all kept forgetting that we had 10-minute time slots 😛
That’s it for tonight. I’m itching to see the pictures, but also completely exhausted.
Sep 13
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I’m not afraid of heights per se, but standing high above the ground on an unstable surface can certainly be a workout for the adrenal system. Especially when you’re standing on a surface made from steel punched with little cut-outs that lead to a kind of flexing beneath your feet as the wind blows up […]
Really kind of looking forward to the tights, as I’ve recently figured out that I don’t hate dancing with stuff between my shoes and my feet after all and part of me is like, “YAY, ACTUAL BALLET TIGHTS.” Definitely plan to add suspenders/braces for Lyra purposes, though now I have to figure out where to find said suspenders/braces if they don’t come with the tights (which are the kind that can be used with braces or rolled down a million times).
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Turns out I’m squarely in the middle of the weight range they predict for guys my height, which makes me a Sansha size 6. But still. Wow. They are definitely thinking Kirov ladies, here. If I was a girl, I’d be an XXL and wouldn’t be able to buy almost anything from Sansha’s website. Bleh.
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Also ordered a pair in white for the Showcase performance.
Got a wild hair and added a pair of the stretch canvas shoes, because at this point I’m like, “Might as well,” and also because I was $9 or something short of the minimum order. Maybe I will love them?
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Anyway, I should’ve been in bed a billion years ago, so that’s it for tonight.
On Sunday, I banged out what turned out to be a kind of very rough first draft of the choreography for an upcoming Lyra performance that opens with a bunch of ballet.
I video-ed the initial draft choreography and discovered that, at least for me, video is a really useful tool for the choreographic process. It let me analyze my own dance from an audience perspective (only one: the person sitting at the corner of audience R, heh), which in turn helped me figure out what worked and what needed to change.
Today, I worked the ballet part again, and I think I’ve resolved some of the problems I ran into with the first draft — particularly the excessive repetition and the fact that I’d boringly choreographed everything down the same diagonal and back.
I didn’t record video today, but instead wrote the choreo down by hand. This is progress; I used to have trouble doing that because I couldn’t always figure out what to call intermediate things.
Now I just write “step through in coupé” (or short-hand “step thru coupé) or whatever best describes the action if it doesn’t have a really discrete name.
Also, I no longer get my Eighty-Seven Cardinal Directions of Ballet confused (thanks to Company B), which makes it soooooo much easier to write out the instructions.
I just realized, though, that for some reason I dropped one of my favorite sequences (your traditional:
pique arabesque – chassée – tour jeté – something else
…So maybe I’ll put it back in on the next iteration, with or without the interesting little pivot that kept appending itself to the landing of the tour jeté.
That said, I also added a tombé – pas de bourrée – glissade – Pas de Chat Italien into a balance à la seconde.
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This iterative process feels very comfortable, which surprises me.
As a choreographer, I’m apparently quite happy to just bang out a very rough initial draft.
By contrast, as a writer, my initial drafts tend to feel pretty finished because I work into the diction and sound and feeling and imagery of the writing so much.
This means that my initial drafts as a writer take foreeeeeeeeevar, while an initial choreographic draft can be accomplished in a few minutes for a short piece (obviously, you’re not going to choreograph a 3-act ballet in 10 minutes, unless each act is like one minute long).
I think we have another Open Fly session tonight, so I might shoot some video of the second draft of my choreography, and possibly also the lyra choreography, if I’m feeling up to it.
Maybe this time I’ll remember to bring an external speaker so I can have video and sound AT THE SAME TIME!!! O.O
I think I will, in time, post my various iterative videos here. I haven’t ported the first two (both first-draft videos, but recorded in two separate phrases) over to the YouTubes yet, though.
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In other news, yesterday’s rest day went well, and I learned that one of my favorite dancers and instructors is also an incredibly good cook. Like, somehow, in the midst of teaching and rehearsing and generally being amazing, he also found time to make two really good pie crusts from scratch and fill them with amazing savory pies also from scratch.
I already knew that he was a really lovely human being … only, now I’m not so sure that’s accurate.
Specifically I am not entirely sure he’s actually a human being; he might really be a unicorn in elaborate biped drag.
Friday was interesting: I had no zip in conditioning and technique because I was running on three hours of sleep (did I write about this already?); variations went well because in those three hours I seriously only dreamed about Albrecht’s variation.
Today’s performance was okay — I think I should have gone a bit easier last night; as such, my jumps weren’t awesome.
Also, I kept sort of forgetting what to do with my arms and just kind of waving them around in more or less the directions they were supposed to go, more or less. Jeez.
I know this because there’s video. I’m annoyed with myself for forgetting to just carry my arms through the opening two steps of Albrecht’s variation. Also for doing the world’s worst tour jeté and tiniest tours, but I understand why those happened.
That said, there are some nice moments in both pieces (one is the double turn that goes to attitude on the second rotation), and I’ll try to take KvN’s advice from Cincinnati and focus on those things!
Edit: I’m thinking now about ballet goals for the rest of this year, so I’m going to write them down.
The first rule of performance is: AS YOU REHEARSE, SO SHALL YOU PERFORM.
So I need to stop rehearsing my arms incorrectly, duh.
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So there you have my ballet goals.
Oh, and also: my turnout muscles are tired for realz. I suspect they’ll be very happy to know that they’re getting a day off on Monday.
One last edit: I think I actually forgot to do the turn from fourth to second at the end of my solo and subbed in a regular turn from fourth, but it worked out anyway.
This week involves four hours of class in the evening, so I suspect I’ll mostly report in the morning.
Yesterday, after a great class with Ms. T of Advanced Class, I took B out for a celebratory lunch, then dithered around buying the things I had meant to buy already but forgot, then hopped into my trusty Subaru and drove to Lexington.
After a near-miraculous parking space appeared (in which I parallel-parked like a boss), I snagged a tiny salad at a nearby Panera*, crammed it into my face, and wandered back to ArtsPlace, where the Ballet makes its home.
A quick aside: under most circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend “tiny salad” as the ideal energy source for four hours of conditioning and dancing. I was still feeling fairly stuffed after my enormous lunch calzone, which I nearly finished.
As a fueling strategy for this particular schedule, “Huge lunch; light supper” works brilliantly. I think, though, that I will also bring a light snack to eat before rep tonight.
We’re a group of fifteen or twentyish, and I am not The Onliest Boy this time — there are two of us, both fairly well matched in terms of technique and ability, though quite different in build (C is much more Hallbergian than I, and also a head taller).
Class began with an hour of Pilates-based conditioning led by Ms. A1. I spent the hour reflecting on how grateful I am for the conditioning we do at Suspend, without which I might very well have silently wept through most of the hour in question.
After a brief break (and a small wrestling match with my dance belt — I wore the oldest one, which is now slightly too big, which in turn frankly boggles my mind), we proceeded to technique class with Mr. J.
He explained that he’d be giving a fairly basic class so he and Ms. A could get a sense of where we were as dancers.
He kept his word, but it was still a very good class — I enjoyed his barre, centre, and adagio combinations, felt good about turns and terre-a-terre, and the tempo of the petit allegro (simply: glissade – assemblé, glissade – assemblé, glissade – changement – changement -changement) was such that, instead of being an ongoing train wreck, I got to show off some beats here and there.
It was also such that I didn’t crash and burn when I discovered the inevitable slippery spot on the floor.
I enjoyed the heck out of our medium allegro — the famous sauté arabesque/sauté passé that I love so ridiculously – and added cabrioles because everything needs more cabrioles.
Grand allegro was equally pleasant, and for once my saut de chat was fully functional, if a bit Third Reich-ish about the arms at times. Of course, there was also pas de chat, which is, at the moment, the joy of my existence.
After another brief break, we divided by gender for variations/repertory. Mr. J gave the two of us a lively, vigorous dance based on Petipa, with just enough bravura to make it shine but not so much that we won’t be able to master it by Saturday. I’m enjoying it immensely, even though it took me the entire class period to get my head around the fact that I’m supposed to do my first turn more or less backwards.
It should make one heck of an interesting foil to the ladies’ piece — the famous entrance scene from “The Kingdom of the Shades.”
We got to see their piece (which was totally unfair to them, as we didn’t show them ours!) and I was quite impressed with how well they had it down, this being only the first night, and theirs being a much larger group with a much greater range of skill. The moments that always give me chills succeeded in doing exactly that. I can’t wait to see the final performance!
I’m much less stressed-out about rep here than I was in Cinci. First, it’s ballet, which is my “mother tongue,” so it’s simply easier to memorize. Second, it’s a shorter piece than we did, and I don’t think there will be as much adding of a whole new scene on the day before the performance!
I feel like we’ll have our piece not only learned, but well-polished, on Saturday.
Funny little sidebar: in class, I noticed that C was wearing white shoes and I was wearing black ones.
Does that make me the bad guy? 😀
…And it was basically one of the best weeks of my life, even though I felt all shy and weird and awkward at first.
I even took notes (and occasionally remembered to apply them in class) … though they’re still in the car right now, because yesterday I had an epic (and completely unnecessary) meltdown on the way home from Cinci and then did a cube workshop (pictures to follow). Needless to say, I was kind of tired when I got home.
Some quick highlights:
The masterclass series. I keep finding myself being like, “Jeanne’s masterclass was THE BEST!” or “Demetrius Tabron’s masterclass was THE BEST!” or “Gina Walther’s masterclass was THE BEST!”
In fact they were all THE BEST! for entirely different reasons — and that, my friends, is how a masterclass series should work.
Every master teacher reinforced concepts we worked on with the others, but every one also brought unique insights. In short, Mam-Luft & Co knows how to assemble a masterclass series.
Remembering the choreography (or not). For basically the whole week, I thought I was the only person in the entire class who didn’t have the choreography 100% down in rep. I was wrong. Almost everybody was missing bits here and there, it just took me ’til Friday, right before the final showing, to figure that out because I was too busy being anxious about not having it down (and about that whole eldritch god thing; see below).
Partnering. I freaking love partnering, y’all. I think I already said that, though. Partnering class was the first one in which I felt really confident; that transferred to the parts of rep where we lifted people.
There was one part of the choreography in which we collectively lifted G into a high side-plank lift, and then, as everyone else stepped away, I wrapped my arms around her and lowered her slowly to the floor. The moment when our instructor Susan said, “It’s okay, guys, he’s got this,” was literally one of the best moments of my life.
You guys, there was a time not all that long ago when I figured I would always kind of suck at partnering because, frankly, upper-body strength has never been my strong suit. Turns out that has changed considerably. It is good to feel capable, and it is amazingly good to feel capable of adapting myself to meet a goal.
Wednesday. Basically, all of Wednesday was pretty awesome for me. That was the day when I started being less terrified that my fellow students were, like, going to sacrifice me to an eldritch god or something. (Seriously, WTF is wrong with me?) Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was also the day that my brain went, “Oh, wait, this is dance, we can do this.”
Ir probably helped that ballet went well (Triple turns on demand! Like it was no big deal! …Which was totally not the case on Friday, btw, but that basically owes to a nasty blister* in a horrible spot which consequently made me super-stiff — I was constantly afraid I’d rip my foot open and render myself unable to dance).
“Cheetah eyes.” At lunch on Thursday, one of the other students mentioned that one of her teachers once said something like, “If you were a cheetah, your spine would enter your skull in a different place, and your eyes would be in a different spot in your skull. Imagine you’re a cheetah, and imagine where your eyes would be. Now go back to being a human and use your cheetah eyes (as well as your human eyes, obvs).” No an exact quote, but I hope you get the gist. Holy crap, did this ever fix the frack out of my alignment.
Release technique stuff. We do a lot of this in Modern T’s class, and bits of it had clicked here and there — but I discovered in Cinci that I actually really love it when I get out of my own way. In Leslie Dworkin’s masterclass, especially, I was able to briefly stop being an incredibly shy, uptight ballet nerd and just really use my whole body.
Repertory class. I started out feeling downright timid about this class, and it ended up being a highlight (and a bit of a crucible, I think).
I walked in afraid that I would literally never nail down the choreography; that I’d be so freaking bad at it that they’d ask me not to dance in the showing.
By the end, I felt like I knew enough to try to start making something out of some of it (though I still forgot to add the whole performative element to one of my parts, feh). Not that I didn’t make some mistakes during the showing (the most glaring one being the part where I wound up on the wrong leg in a static pose).
Also, we all kind of bonded over the lift-y parts and turned into a cohesive group. That was just plain cool.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that I automatically adjust my game to the level of expectation — when, for example, our ballet instructor called for triple turns in a combination on Wednesday, a small part of me went, “I don’t know if I can do that,” but a bigger part went, “Welp, better crank out some triples.” So I did.
This didn’t happen every time, but on average, when I got the hell out of my own way, things went better than I expected them to. When I got all tense and weird, things did not go so well.
I need to learn to hang onto my confidence in the things I do well and not freak out about other stuff.
I’ll try to post my more detailed notes later. Suffice it to say that I had a blast, learned a great deal, and will definitely be going back next year.
*nasty blister picture below the cut, because seriously, if you want to know what happens when you start to get a tiny blister right on the ball of your foot and then don’t think to tape it, this is what happens
I’ve been trying to sort out the unique flavor of my feeling of anticipation about my upcoming trapeze performance, and I think I’ve finally sorted it.
I was surprised by this sense that I don’t want the next few days to slip away too fast — I’m not prone to stage fright. Rather the opposite, in fact: I’m essentially a giant show-off by nature, but shy around strangers in small groups. Give me a stage or a podium, and I’m good.
So why, I kept wondering, is my anticipation not the unadulterated OMG OMG I am going to explode if Saturday doesn’t get here soon! of my childhood?
And then I got it: this is the feeling of knowing that it will be over as soon as it begins. We get one night: for me, 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It will be amazing — and then it will be over. It would be easy to get so caught up in eager anticipation that I actually don’t experience the actual thing, let alone this whole week.
I don’t want to get caught up in the anticipation of this singular moment in the future — our first-ever trapeze performance — and miss now.
Right now, my summer looks a little like a running start off a cliff into a wild, exhilarating wingsuit flight. It would be easy to miss the whole thing if I let my monkey mind run away with me. Anticipation has its merits, but it can definitely take the but in its teeth and run.
So I’m going to work on being present for the next few days. Really, I guess, that’s work we should be doing always — but some moments make better examples than others of why that is.
Shamelessly stolen from Hendy Mp/Solent News via The Telegraph.
So, in short: here is good. And I’m going to try to be here, now.
YouTube: BOSU Balance Series
danseur ignoble 