"It's what I've always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance." ~Martha Graham

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I'm Back Home


 I apologize for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks. We had recital, and then all of a sudden, time slipped away from me. Recital was amazing. That's pretty much all that I have to say about it. I think I danced well, we all had a great time, I made some new friends. Doesn't get much better.  If you are wondering which girl in the picture is me, I'm the one in the upper left corner who's hairpiece doesn't match most of the other girls.

Anyways, two days after recital, I started Summer Intensive at a ballet school about an hour away. I went 6 hours a day,  5 days a week, for 2 weeks. That just finished, and now the rest of my summer looks like this:

I go to the ballet school 2 hours a day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Then on Tuesdays I drive from Ballet School back to my normal studio to assist Creative Movement. Then after ballet school on Thursdays I drive back to my normal studio to take Jazz. I have that schedule for the next 6 weeks. Then, the next week, we have our week-long Company Repetoire Camp, to start learning our Company numbers. Then we have company rehearsal twice a week for the next like 3 weeks. Then we get a one week break, then classes start again in the fall.

Well, I got to come back to my studio to assist Creative Movement for the first time since before recital. I missed my studio terribly while I was at intensive at the ballet school. I walked inside my studio's building, and sat down, and the director came over to me and said "Jasmine, would you mind grabbing a broom and sweeping the studio for me?" and my immediate thought was "Yep, I'm back home!" I love my studio, the teachers, the students, everything really.

I saw a quote on a plate once that said "Friends are the Family we choose ourselves." And for me, my whole studio is the family I chose myself. :)

Friday, June 1, 2012

A Bad Dress Rehearsal Makes a Great Performance...

^If that's true, we will have a stellar performance tonight! In case you didn't get it from that last sentence, dress rehearsal really stank. At least, some of the dances did... So here's what happened.

We had Jazz first, and our teacher was pretty dissapointed with us, I hope that I do better tonight. It's so dark, and you literally can't see ANYTHING during that dance. I just felt all the wobbly and off...

Tap was about as bad as it gets. Our teacher wasn't there, we NEEDED her there. It's just not really possible for us to be able to block this 20+ person dance on our own. We were all so concerned about our blocking that the rythymns were totally off...

Pointe was pretty good I think. I thought it was good, and our teacher said it was good. The spacing is pretty easy, and I thought that I did the choreography very nicely.

Ballet was also good, I stumbled a little bit on a part where we are in tendu derriere and then we fondue and bring our leg into a parallel passe and extend it back out into an arabesque, right out of a double pirouette. Nothing difficult really...

The Duet was nice, but I don't have much to say about it.

Lastly, was modern. I thought we did awesome. We were on the music, and all together, and just awesome in general. :)


As it was dress rehearsal, I'm going to show you pictures of some of the costumes used in the show:

Creative Movement Ages 3-5
Mice

Tap Intro 2
More Mice!

Creative Movement Ages 6-7
Announcing the ball


PreBallet
Hugarian Princesses

Ballet 1
Royal Procession


Cinderella's Stepmother

Ballet 5
Girls at the Ball

Cinderella's Rags


Modern 1&4
Bippity Boppity Boo


Creative Drama
Cooks

Tap Intro 1
Maids


Tap 1
Horses


Creative Movement Ages 5-6
Fairy God Mother's Little Helpers


Modern 2
Flower Girls at the Wedding


Ballet 2
Spanish Princesses



Those are just a few of the many costumes used in our show!