Left out the most important part on Monday – did temps levée without blowing a tendon again (and it felt good!).
Huzzah!
Blog Archives
Ballet: Examining the Details
I’m home now, with many lessons learned.
Taking class at the Joffrey reminded me both how far I’ve come since I started dancing again and how far I still have to go (which has very much become a recurring theme for me): yesterday’s intermediate class, in particular, proved to be both a sound indicator of the progress I’ve made and, at times, a stark challenge.
I’ve improved the most in port de bras, adagio, and — surprisingly — turns.
The first of these, port de bras, represents a place where there was a great deal of room for improvement — as a kid, I’m not sure I grasped the importance of port de bras, or at least I didn’t grasp why it was important in and of itself.
Adagio, meanwhile, is simply something I didn’t really think about much in the past. I was the little kid that saw the Nutcracker’s Russian dance and went, “Where do I sign up?!” I was all about the fireworks.
My appreciation for adagio is, shall we say, more recently acquired.
I’ve come to look at it, in a way, as similar to dressage: just as dressage forms an ideal formation for any equestrian discipline, adagio is foundational in ballet.
The control, poise, balance, discipline, and lyricism necessary to good adagio are also essential for good allegro; moreover, you can fake your way through allegro if you’re physically strong, but it will never be graceful and balletic if you don’t have the foundation that adagio requires.
Imagine, if you will, the difference between grand battement with a solid core and grand battement with a jiggly core (must be jelly, ’cause…): grand battement initially really feels more akin to grand allegro, but it’s adagio that teaches you how to sustain core strength while executing controlled extensions. Likewise, grand battement done well is controlled on the way back down, and that control is strengthened by the sustained work one does in adagio.
That said, taking class with instructors who have really forced me to calm down, pay attention, and learn to do adagio well has in turn fostered a profound appreciation for it in and of itself. It’s like what I always say about promenades: you can pick out the dancers in an audience by listens to who applauds the promenades. Non-dancers have no earthly idea how freaking hard promenades can be, as often as not, they’re like, “Lolwut?” Meanwhile, every dancer in the audience is like, “OMG DID U SEE THAT PROMENADE EN DEHORS IN ÉCARTÉ ARRIERE?!”
Learning how difficult good adagio can be has really transformed my understanding. I certainly still enjoy the fireworks of grand allegro passages, but I have come to really appreciate adagio in its own right.
Besides, it feels good to have gained a great deal of ground in an area that, historically, hasn’t been the locus of my strength (in short, A.A. Milne never once wrote, “Adagio is what Tiggers do best!”).
As for turns … actually thinking about how to execute turns cleanly and elegantly has really helped. When I first started dancing again, I tended to forget to spot (which is weird, because as a kid spotting came to me very much by instinct). I also tended to lose my core, over-spring, and do all kinds of crazy things with my shoulders.
I’m not going to say all of those things are 100% fixed (because that would be a big honking lie).
They’re not — but I seem to have regained the “spotting instinct,” as evidenced by the chainés in last night’s class. Chainés have been the bane of my balletic existence in part because I have tended to forget to spot them; last night, my chaine&ecaute;s weren’t great (my legs were all WTF for some reason), but I spotted like a boss.
Meanwhile, I’ve really come a long way with those other details as well.
The areas where I’m weakest, relatively speaking, are quick petit allegro sequences and some of the leaps — particularly grand jeté and, to a lesser extent, saut de chat.
Quick petit allegro sequences, I suspect, will simply come with time and repetition. I can do the steps, and I can do them well (though I don’t always use my plié as I should); now I just have to do them a million times — and do them well — to reinforce the circuitry and muscles that power them. The challenge is to increase speed without sacrificing lightness and buoyancy.
Likewise, as Brienne pointed out, I need to adjust for my particular body: the bendy feet and hyperextended knees that make my legs look awesome when they’re working right also mean I need to be quicker in order to reach the end of each movement within a step. That means I need to practice, practice, practice (like, I should be doing the 8-8-4-4-2-2-1-1-1-1 exercise 17,000 times every day).
I tend always to focus on completing movements — using what in baseball would be termed “follow-through,” I guess. If you watch professional dancers, there’s always a sense of reaching beyond the terminus of any given movement, in a way — as in degagé, you’re always reaching, reaching, reaching through the leg and foot (while at the same time holding your core together, your hips in alignment, etc.: this is why ballet is not for the faint of heart, heh).
I realize that this is both a strength and a weakness of mine: I’m forever running into dancers who are much better at actually getting all the steps in (which is to say, quicker) than I am, but not as good at the follow-through part, if that makes sense — so while they get all the steps in without fail, I manage to look more “balletic” when I do get it all in*.
*FWIW, sometimes I go waaaaaay too far off the deep end, in this regard, when doing adagio: I let my flexibility take over, over-extend things, and lose the lines — recognizing that has been a key feature in improving my adagio, though I lost sight of it from time to time during yesterday’s class.
There’s a missing piece on each side of the equation; I just tend to notice the piece that I’m missing.
I haven’t encountered this problem in a Beginner class in ages, for what it’s worth, which suggests that it can be solved.
I suspect that, like the “drill it to you kill it” vs. “fake it ’til you make it” dilemma, this is a question of focusing on … er. I’m tempted to say “style versus substance,” but that might not quite be right? I feel that, in ballet, style and substance are mutually inclusive. Perhaps it’s “style versus speed,” or something like that.
As for leaps: I think I dissected that pretty well the other day. I’m not using my plié right; instead, I keep trying to launch from my upper body.
Some of this is a direct function of something that should be a strength: my feet. Cycling, gymnastics, and the way I climb stairs have left me with ridiculously strong feet and ankles (though there’s still always room for improvement).
You guys, just because your feet are strong enough to launch your whole body doesn’t mean that they should. Somewhere along the line, though, I developed a bad habit of launching from my feet, which is A) ridiculous and B) a bad idea.
I’ve now sorted this out in little jumps (my calf injury pretty much ensured that would get resolved), but it’s still the number one thing I get corrected on where big (and medium) jumps and leaps are concerned.
This is doubly frustrating, because I know I can do these things correctly;
it’s just that I’ve developed a bad habit that I now have to un-learn.
Fortunately, that’s what class is for. Now I just have to get my behind back into the studio on the regular, three days per week or better.
I’m planning on hitting Brienne’s class tomorrow and advanced class on Saturday morning. That will allow me a two-day break between, which I suspect I’ll need. Depending on how advanced class goes, I may just keep that one in the rotation and leave myself a two-day (Thursday – Friday) gap for the time being.
First World Ballet Problems
Yesterday, I struggled to get my développé to 90 degrees, let alone above. The muscles whose job it is to carry the legs just said, “90 is all you’re getting today, and you’re only getting it at the cost of immense effort.”
I blamed my lack of condition, of course — which was fair, but missed a critical element: the cross-training problem.
” Cross-training” means training until you’re feeling cranky and irritable, then kvetching at your poor innocent husband for no good reason.
Wait, that’s not right.
“Cross-training” means, in short, mixing it up to keep things balanced — tossing in a little cycling if you’re a dancer, or a little dance if you’re a cyclist.
The operative phrase, here, being “a little.” Or, well, “just enough.”
Last week, I banged out several hours on the bike, including a bunch of zippy climbing sprints, and basically none in the studio.
Should it come as any surprise, then, that I’ve managed to lose a bunch of the ground I had gained in correcting the muscle-balance problem attendant in being someone who, for several years, spent around twenty hours a week riding a bike and did essentially no cross-training?
I am lucky, in a sense, in that my body adapts very readily to exercise — but I tend to forget that, as in everything else, if I want the balanced muscles necessary for ballet, I need to make sure I’m not essentially overspending in one area while underspending in another (an aside, here: it says a great deal that autocorrupt — ahem, that is, predictive text — recognizes overspending as an existing word, but not underspending).
While a trained cyclist does make some use of the muscles that flex the thighs, it’s paltry in comparison to the use made of those that push down (I’ve touched on this before). Especially for someone like me — one who straddles the line between light rouleur and climber, and thus relishes his ability to crank out brutal speed on short- to medium-climbs — it’s all too easy to lose sight of how quickly that can add up to a disaster at the barre.
When I wrote yesterday’s post, I had forgotten that a couple of Saturdays back I was enjoying easy extensions well above 90 degrees even though my right hip was still weirdly tight. A couple of classes before that, I wrote about the fact that getting the leg higher made a promenade en dedans in écarté derriere (or was it avant? I’ll have to check that later) much easier — and when I said higher, I meant “hey, my toes are basically at shoulder-height right now!”
So basically, I’ve now created a situation in which I’ll need to overcome a muscle balance problem again, one which I’d sorted before.
In short, this means dancing more and riding less (and more gently; probably no more 20+MPH sprints on the rolling climbs for a while) — in short, shifting the balance back so I’m actually allowing cycling (which I do as a matter of course, although I love it) to act as cross-training for ballet (which may be the one thing I love more than cycling).
I’m not sure yet how to achieve this balance — or, well, the exact details elude me.
The “pushing down” muscles in the legs already get a greater workout in daily life (one word: stairs!) than the “pulling up” muscles (or the “pushing up” ones that lift from beneath the buttocks and thigh in ballet), so I need to take that into account.
Regardless, this is entirely a First World Ballet Problem. I recognize that it’s the result of something in my body actually working well (maybe too well), and I’m grateful for that (not that I feel grateful right now, but I’m rationally aware that this is a Good Thing). I also recognize that “développé at 90 degrees” is a goal that many adult dancers find elusive, and I shouldn’t complain too much.
Yet again, I’m reminded that ballet is a great analogy for life (tl;dr: It hurts, and there’s always someone yelling at you — wait, no, that’s not the analogy I wanted ;)). You have to work to keep everything balanced (and not just when your instructor hairy-eyeballs you and growls, “You know you can balance in passé relevé without the barre.”).
So, um, yeah. There we go.
I plan to write about this a bit more, as there are tons of articles out there that day,” Cross-training is good for you!” but not too many aimed at explaining how to figure out how much cross your training actually needs. I should probably Ask Denis about it and just post an interview. Maybe even a video.
Speaking of which, I have not forgotten that I owe all you guys a ballet video about balancé. I’m trying to figure out where to film it.
So that should be coming along soon, too.
Ballets Tropicanos de Louiscarlo
First up, finally back in class … again. I’m going to Chicago this week, so I’ll be doing Wednesday Class at home, then classes at the Joffrey on Friday, Sunday, and Monday (and possibly Saturday, depending on plans).
Today we used contretemps (which is a fun little transitional step) for directional changes in a zigzaggy combination. I got the contretemps down beforehand, but didn’t nail it in the combination (I was, predictably, overthinking it).
I worked it out in the grocery store after. The lady who was stocking the drinks aisle probably thinks I’m crazy, but, you know: priorities.
In other news, we wore our tutu outfits for Hallowe’en, because why not? We also wore them around to the Hallowe’en parties at the various day centers where Denis sees his clients and brought much joy to all and sundry 🙂
One of Denis’ friends from work finally got a decent full-length shot of us, as well, so here you go:
Our tribute to the Trocks!
I’ve dubbed us “Ballets Tropicanos de Louiscarlo.”
Please forgive my deplorable fifth 🙂
I feel like I should’ve gone all-out and done my makeup as well, but I didn’t know I was going til the last possible second, so I skipped it to save time.
In other news, I need a haircut, y’all. And Denis needs to get his shoulders down.
PS: The bodice, bolero, and tutu were all hand-made by Denis’ mom, Phyllis, and his aunt, Beverly.
They said that if anyone ever asks of they’d be willing to make another set, we should “tell them those ladies are dead.”
So mad props to all you costumery types out there who make (and maintain and repair) these for a living, because evidently tutus are a giant PITA.
Some Days, Bipolar Wins*
…Though on other days it starts out feeling like Bipolar is going to win, and then it’s a draw, or then I win. But, you know. That doesn’t invalidate my title, I guess.
Monday was kind of, in many ways, one of those days for me. Yesterday was also kind of one of those days, though it was exacerbated by the fact that I couldn’t sleep on Monday night, took a sleeping pill at 3 AM, and woke up … um, kinda late.
Today started out feeling like a Bipolar Wins kind of day: I woke up at 8 AM, said, “F*** a bunch of life right now,” and went back to sleep, which is uncharacteristic.
Later (at 9:30, when it was too late to leave on time), I woke up again and berated myself about how I could have and should have gone to Wednesday class, and how I am never going to accomplish anything I am trying to accomplish because I’m apparently constitutionally incapable of being consistent, &c.
And then I read for a while (because that’s one of the things I can do even when I’m depressed) and then I got out of bed and took a bath and read in the bath for a while (because that’s another thing I can do even when I’m depressed) and then I decided to shove myself out the door and finish up the yard work that we started working on this weekend.
That felt like a small victory. When you’re really, really depressed, you can’t even shove yourself out the door. Sometimes, you can’t even shove yourself out of bed.
Anyway, while I was out there in the yard, chopping and bundling bits of the trees that Denis cut down because they were growing too close to the house and feeling sorry for or maybe about myself, something occurred to me:
Some days, Bipolar Wins, and that just kind of how it is, and that’s okay.
Right now, my goals feel a billion miles away. I’m not making it to ballet class on the schedule I “should” be. I’m only writing intermittently (but, on the other hand, wow, have I made some progress in the past month). I’m only sort of on top of the housework, which I guess is progress, actually?
A lot of the time, I wake up and think, “What’s the point?”
A lot of the time, I don’t want to go out into the world because my social persona is so, so very far from who I am right now.
A lot of the time, I’m frustrated by my own lack of forward momentum — or, well, of continuous forward momentum. Like, when I have moment, OMG, do I have momentum … but then when it goes away, it’s gone. For a while.
And then I have these moments of clarity and insight, these moments in which I understand that this is who I am, when I remember that trying to fight my own nature isn’t going to really solve the problem.
I can beat myself about the head with a stick all I want, but it isn’t really going to accomplish anything.
So often, resources written by people without Bipolar treat these moments of clarity as if they should, like, magically solve the problem — and I think that’s because, for a lot of non-Bipolar folks, they do.
Like, often, if you can identify and begin to understand a problem you’re experiencing, you can begin to solve it — but Bipolar Affective Disorder kind of doesn’t work that way.
This is where all that psychobabble about acceptance comes in handy (if not easily, because our minds like to resist things like that, and I think BPD affects cognition in ways that only increase that resistance).
I think that, in the past, I’ve seen acceptance as a synonym for “giving in” — that I’ve seen it as the equivalent of telling someone who’s just had an amputation at the knee, “You can forget about running marathons.”
Yeah, well — it turns out that amputees can run marathons if they darned well please, thank you very much.
I am trying to learn to accept that BPD makes me inconsistent; makes me constitutionally unable to really be consistent in the way that I might have been if I didn’t have BPD, or maybe if medication was a more workable option for me — while also remembering that the inconsistency inherent in my existence doesn’t mean I’ll never do the things I’ve set out to do.
What it does mean is that I’m good at getting back up when I fall down (you guys, I have had a ton of practice at getting back up when I fall down).
What it does mean is that it takes me longer to reach my goals, maybe, than it would take someone else. My Original Life Plan was School => High School => College/University => Write some books and who knows what else?**
**I was never one of those kids with any kind of concrete career goal. I was never even the kid who’s like, “I wanna be a fireman!” I was the kid who, in pre-school, would tell grown-ups that I wanted to be a horse or a unicorn or a cheetah or a t-rex when I grew up, and then point out that they didn’t ask me what I could be.
It didn’t actually work out quite that way. It was more like:
School => Mental Breakdown => Psychiatric Hospital => Psychiatric Hospital High School => Non-Residential Psychiatric Hospital High School => Arts Magnet High School => Win A Bunch of Scholarships and Walk Away Anyway Because I Just Couldn’t Even => Wander Around In A Haze For A While => Pick Up A Few Community College Credits => Moar Wandering => Computer Networking Certification => Work At One Job I Loved (Playing With Horses And Getting Paid For It!) => Move Another 79 Times => Work At a Few Jobs I Mostly Either Didn’t Like or Hated => University => Well, Here I am.
I’m actually kind of in a better spot than I’ve ever been, in one regard: I have something more closely resembling a long-term vision of What I Want To Do When (If Ever) I Grow Up. Dance-Movement Therapy! Writing! Baking Bread! Ballet! Choreography! Art! Maybe a PhD in Neuroscience! Definitely Travel!
The thing is, it’s probably going to take me longer to get there (wherever There is) than I want it to … and the road might look a lot different than I think it’s going to look.
The hard thing is knowing that, in the darker places, I won’t remember this.
Maybe I should make it into a poster and stick it on the wall, like one of those affirmation things.
Come to think of it, maybe I should make a bunch of those, because (even though I know they work for a lot of people, and I am total not judging) they make me feel really silly, which makes me laugh, and anything that does that is worth keeping in your anti-depression arsenal.
The long and short of that is that accepting the limitations that come with Bipolar disorder means, for me, being willing to countenance the fact that I’m going to have to take different routes than I thought I would; that I’m probably going to have to arrange my work and creative life differently than I expected to (not, to be fair, like I ever had much of a set of expectations about having a traditional work life; that hasn’t really been one of my major goals, to be honest).
The overall output of my creative spark might be smaller in volume than it otherwise would have been. That doesn’t mean it will be less significant (though it feels weird to think of myself as someone whose creative work will harbor any significance at all in the world — but that’s a topic for another time, as I always seem to be saying).
Meanwhile, I need to stop panicking when I fail to make it to class for a week or two. That is the nature of the beast, and it doesn’t mean I’m not eventually going to absorb all the stuff I need to learn. Over the course of ten years, it doesn’t even mean it’s going to take all that much longer (if anything, sometimes I come back from one of these unexpected Mental Health Breaks and discover that something I was struggling with has magically sorted itself in the gap).
I’m not sure how to wind this all up. To some degree, it’s just a reminder to myself; just me thinking out loud, as it were, in this 21st-century-specific way we have of thinking out loud now.
To some degree, there’s something that feels New and Important about these thoughts — not in the sense that they’re New and Important in a universal way, because, like, All of Buddhism has had this down for centuries. It’s just that I feel like I understand this stuff in a way I haven’t really understood it before, which I guess is what Life and Adulting and stuff are all about.
It’s all leaves of the lotus or layers of the onion, depending on whether you prefer boating or cooking, I guess.
So there you have it. Ten years from now, as long as I keep dancing, I will be ten years better at dancing than I am now; ten years from now, as long as I keep existing, I will have ten years’ more experience and wisdom under my belt — and that will be the case even though I am going to take breaks, and fall on my butt, and generally be a screw-up sometimes because that’s how I am; that’s how my Bipolar is.
So there you go.
Some days, bipolar wins — but usually, in short, it’s not the end of the world.
Mixing It Up
At my studio, we’re ostensibly proponents of the Paris Opera school — which isn’t to say that we think Paris Opera is The One True Ballet, just that that’s the style that the company employs, so that’s (technically*) what we study in class.
*In fact, our instructors are forever noting that, “And the Vaganova school does it this way, while this other thing over here is more typical of the Cecchetti method, whereas…” and then pointing out that You Might Use This Someday So You Should Learn It, Too.
That said, I owe much of the improvement in my turns to Balanchine’s technique, and I feel that’s worth ruminating on a bit.
I am not the world’s greatest natural turner — not the worst, either, but in a world where we tend to be stronger either in jumps or in turns, I am definitely in the “jumper” group.
In short, my problem is that I tend to approach turns in the same way that I approach jumps — that is, with rather a lot of athleticism (read: power and momentum). When jumping, it’s easy to translate that power and momentum and make it do what it’s supposed to do (most of the time, anyway) — curiously where even jumps that involve turns (tours en l’air and jetés entrelacés, for example) are concerned.
I suspect that it comes down to elasticity — when you begin a jump with too much force and momentum, you can pretty easily channel the excess without losing grace and élan and all that stuff. When you execute a turn with too much force and momentum, there’s less wiggle room — more or less literally.
When turning, I tend to apply way, way more force than is entirely necessary — and I tend to apply it in a way that knocks me off my axis.
It’s easy to power through a fast single turn — or even, once you get the hang of it, a fast double turn — that way**. You won’t look as good as the best turners in the class (because you’ll probably be turning with your back arched and you’ll be slightly off your axis) but you’ll look all right if your basic technique is clean and you have good legs and feet. You can complete the turn before things go terribly awry, so you probably won’t fall out of your turn or, worse, fall over.
**For what it’s worth, come to think of it, that’s probably why my pique and stepover turns always look pretty stellar — the excess just goes into the travel bit, and my passé is high, clean, and turned out, so it all comes together nicely.
When it comes to adagio turns, though, an excess of power and force — especially an excess of power and force that throws you off your axis even a little can really hose things up for you.
This is where Balanchine technique comes in.
Mr. B’s technique is famous for its emphasis on the UP.
When you see Balanchine choreography done well, the jumps tend to be very vertical, whilst the turns are precise, tight, and … um … tall, I guess?
Not that almost any turn, ever, should fall away from the vertical in ballet — but the strict emphasis Balanchine’s technique places on the vertical forces dancers to pull straight up, the way you’re technically supposed to anyway, without the shoulders breaking back from the central axis***.
***This is great for the core.
I will be the first to admit that my worst fault in turns is still (STILL!!!) a tendency to throw my head and shoulders back in my preparation. In short, that’s part of what I do with the excess of force and momentum.
I give it a big ol’ DERP HO! and try to eject it through the top of my head by throwing everything back from the shoulderblades up.
Needless to say, this is not what one might call Best Practice.
The funny thing is that, when I’m thinking about (and attempting to emulate, because sometimes ballet instructors like to mess with us) Balanchine technique, I don’t.
Instead, I keep my core pulled together and pull UP — which, coincidentally, makes it much easier to turn, since I’m not then creating a situation in which the very laws of physics are going to knock me off my leg.
Oddly enough, under those conditions, it’s suddenly quite easy to execute lovely, precise turns — even adagio turns (true fact: ever since I figured out how to do adagio turns without falling apart, I do them all the dingdangdarn time, because they’re impressive — they even feel impressive).
So, anyway. This is a thing I discovered during one of our brief excursions into Balanchine technique, and I think that’s worth noting.
A lot of us get really invested in studying one method or another (though this is less common for adult students, who often wind up taking a grab bag of classes at different studios), but each method offers something we can use.
Of course, there’s something to be said for developing a sound foundation in one method — it makes learning the basics easier (remember that thing about third position arms versus fifth position arms?).
There’s probably also an important Life Lesson here about Diversity and Learning From Unexpected Teachers and so forth, but I’ll let you glean that bit yourself.
As for this post — it’s something I’ve been thinking about. Once you’ve got the basics down, branching out and taking a class that’s couched in a different method (or even, gasp, a different discipline, like modern dance! *swoon*) might be a good way to patch up some of the holes in your technique.
Just, you know, make sure your instructor knows what she’s talking about, and stuff, the way you normally would.
That’s it for now.
Danseur Ignoble: The Search (This. Is. Looooooooong.)
I noticed today that, for this week, the top search that led someone to my blog was “why should ballet dancers be an ectomorph?”
Grammatical awkwardness aside, I think that’s a good question, and one that I haven’t touched on in a while.
The short answer is:
“Because that’s the trend.”
My full answer to this question is really long, so here’s the TL;DR version up front:
They shouldn’t, necessarily — but because fashion and function influence each-other profoundly in the performing arts and especially in ballet, trends in the art form stemming from the mid-20th century have created a situation that makes it easier for ectomorphic dancers to succeed as professionals. Likewise, I would posit that choreography has evolved to best suit the ectomorphic bodies currently in vogue.
Since professional dancers broadly inform our cultural definition (“what a ballet dancer is“), we have come to think that ballet dancers should be ectomorphs — but really, there’s no overwhelming em>functional advantage.
Functionally speaking, some advantages exist — ectomorphs are usually light, and thus easier to lift when partnered — but disadvantages also exist — ectomorphs are more prone to osteoporosis; they’re less likely to be good at explosive movements like jumps. The mesomorphic and endomorphic body types also come with advantages and disadvantages in dance.
At the end of the day, it’s really a question of fashion.
…And now, on to the “Really Long, But Feel Free To Read It Anyway” version:
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 