Dance informance!

Hiiii!
The semester is alomost over!!
We've finished our informance choreography in ballet--unfortunately, no tombe pas de bourree glissade saut de chat for me. Instead I am do partnering though, which will be really fun! The choreography is really great and its going to look so good! So far it seems that the only thing I have to practice a bit more is the balonces (sp). it something Ive never done before and I feel like I look a bit silly doing them. Other than that, I have the choreography down and I just need to practice performing it. I can't wait!
SO, to wrap up the semester, I had a great time in my three dance classes. I only have 1 ballet class left before the final, and I have 2 classes left in Modern and Jazz. I feel like i have learned SO much this semester, in all three classes. In ballet, I learned a lot about my body awareness, now to hold my muscles a certain way when I'm dancing and many building blocks and vocabulary words that will help me so much next year. I still need to work on maintaining my turn out at all times, and remembering to hold my abs in!
My favorite things I learned this semester in Ballet was learning to do ballet pirouettes correctly (I liked the combo: tombe, pas de bourree ,pirouette), as well as learning the tombe....saut de chat combination (even though I didn't get to do it), improving my flexibility, and of course, the informance choreography!



xx Natalie
I can't wait until this summer and next semester when I can learn even more!

tombe, pas de bourree, glissade, saut de chat

So, dance has been pretty awesome the past few weeks. In Ballet and Jazz, we are now to a point where we are spending nearly all of the class time rehearsing for the Dance Informance, which I LOVE. Jazz's West Side Story is going quite nicely; very fun, upbeat and exciting.
For ballet, our informance piece is to a quick latin song--quite a contrast from the traditional classical music one might be used to hearing. It is great because it combines classical moves in a way that goes well with the latin music and is very fun and exciting. Last week Amy asked me if I could do tombe, pas de bouree, glissade, saut de chat across the floor (something more advanced than the regular Ballet 1 coursework). I knew how to do each step of it, but i had never assembled them. So my job over Easter break was to practice and see if i could put it together. If not, I will be doing chaines across the floor instead (no fun!)
So I have been practicing, and I think ill be able to do it! it really fun. Heres a video, at least of the glissade and saut de chat (the beginning is a bit different):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSigOhHDJ2Y

yay! hopefully I can do this is the informance!

Update!

Here is another prompt from our syllabus:

What combinations have we been working on? Which ones are easy/fun to do? Which ones are the hardest for me? Why?

Some of the things we have been working on are:
Barre work:
Tendus and degages
Plies/ balance in retire
Rond de jambs en terre and en l'aire (90 degrees)
port de bras (circular) and cambres

Center:
tendu, degage, grand battement
Balances
Pirouettes (1/4, full)

Across the floor:
Chasses
Chaine
Pique Turns


I really enjoy tendus and degages, because they force me to focus a lot on holding my turnout and it helps me to improve on that. I also like rond de jambs, because I have flexible legs and I love doing arabesques. However it is also something I want to improve--I do not have a very flexible back and I'm doing yoga now to help with that.
Balancing on one leg is harder than I thought--doing it in first or fifth is completely fine, but once I have to go up to retire or passe it kind of all fall apart. Some of it is that I am not all that comfortable in ballet shoes--I know for a fact that if I were in jazz shoes I would be totally fine (I've tried it!). It feels much different in ballet shoes...it actually hurts the ball of my foot A LOT which is why I can't hold it or balance. Something work on...I might look for new shoes as well as mine do not fit great.

As for center, I love doing our battements because I've always loved kicking! Its taking so getting used to to use only my abs and legs, as opposed to a plie or prep like in jazz and cheerleading. I also need to remember to slow it down a little bit and not have it be a really fast kick. I also really like learning to turn but it is something I need to work on. I used to have a pretty good double but have kind of lost it. I also really do not like turning on the floor in the studio, because I am used to turning on hardwood for dance team. My main problem is FOCUS and its something I am trying to work on! (I feel like yoga is starting to help me with that).

Same kind of goes for doing chaine and pique turns. Im working on focus so I can spot accuratly and for piques, I need to work on keeping my body tight and keeping my working leg in the correct placement (heel forward, toes on knee, and not sticking my hip out). Once I can remember that I think my piques will be pretty good.

Overall, with over half the semester done already, I am feeling pretty good. I think I have improved a great deal and am looking forward to taking classes this summer and pushing myself harder.

xx Eugenie

Feeling

I am IN LOVE with these pictures. They all have so much feeling. Defiance, trust, love, bravery, thrill, lonelyness, beauty. I love them.

Some songs I love to listen to, dance to, or just remind me of dance in general:

Emily Jane White: Time on your Side

My favorite lyrics:

She's a dancer

And when she dances she is free

And free in the moment

And clouds rise in the east

To Frank Sinatra which your parents put on repeat

On repeat

Quiet: Rachael Yamagata

Favorite lyrics:

All the waves of blame arrange as broken scenery

As they steal your best memories away

What if I was someone different in your only history?

Would you feel the same

As I walk out the door

Never to see your face again

Damien Rice: 9 Crimes

Favorite Lyrics:

Leave me out with the waste

This is not what I do

It's the wrong kind of place

To be thinking of you

It's the wrong time

For somebody new

It's a small crime

And I've got no excuse

Is that alright with you?

Give my gun away when it's loaded

Is that alright with you?

If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it

Is that alright with you?

Give my gun away when it's loaded

Is that alright with you?

With you...

These song all sound really depressing, I'm sure, but I love just dancing alone, slowly to them. The songs hold so much emotion and feeling that it can't help but carry over to my dancing.

xx eugenie

A jumping (leaping) off point

So I've decided to go through some of the possible prompts my ballet teacher gave us for ideas for our blog as a jumping off point.

What am I enjoying about this class? What is frustrating?

I am definitely enjoying the consistency of always having a class and always having some consistency in our combinations and barre work. (Im never gonna have a class without a tendu, without a plie, etc). It creates a great stability and regularity within my crazy and often unpredictable life. To always be able to come back to the barre is great within a life of countless hours of work, class, homework, papers, friends, a boyfriend, working out, etc etc etc.

I am also really enjoying the challenge of it. Because of my spotty training, I try not to take anything, even a tendu or a plie that I know I'm pretty good at, for granted. I try to absorb everything, trying to fill in the holes of my dance education.

The frustrating things I'm finding is how far I have to go to reach some of my goals. As much as I do love and am challenged by this class,  I want to feel like a good dancer, I want to be able to say "I am a dancer" and not have people question it. I feel that I have the passion but lack a lot of the training. I also have a dream of being en pointe. While I realize that pointe is by no means the be-all, end-all of ballet, I realize that beautiful dancing is also done in flat shoes, it is nevertheless a dream of mine. I know that I have the determination to do it, but I get so worried when I get sore feet or can't hold my releve in a certain position of a very long time. I worry that if I can't even perfect these basic things, I won't even get on pointe.

More to come :)

Let us dance in the sun...

Almost forgot:
If you are wondering about the title of my blog, it's from the quote
"Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair..."~Susan Polis Shutz, an American poet.

I love this quote because of the feeling beauty, passion, love and freedom it invokes, which are the same things I feel when I dance.

If only I had some wildflowers....

First blog EVER! + finally in a real studio again!

Not only is this my first blog ever, it is also the inauguaral post for my ballet blog for my ballet class at school. This is quite exciting for me :). I am taking a pretty basic ballet 1 class but its definitely helpng my gain the formal training that I lack. My dance background is something of a mismash of teachers, locations, sytles, intensities, etc, etc. the last time I took real studio class I was probably not older than 6 or 7. Even then, I was at a "dolly dinkle" type school--It was in the same place as my gymnastics gym and there was not any kind of pre-professional track or syllabi to follow. In fact, I am not even sure that they had class for people older than 6 or 7. Rambling.... Anyway, I pretty much stopped dancing all together and played soccer and continued with gymnastics. It wasnt until 6th grade that any sort of dance reentered my life in the for of a mini-cheerleading camp run by the local high school. I fell in love with it and BEGGED my mother to let me do "All-Star" cheerleading (which is UNGODLY expensive) she finally agreed to let me do it with my friend in 8th grade. I loved it and remembered how much I enjoyed dancing. I auditioned for the Varsity Pom Squad at a local private high school in 8th grade and unfortunatly, did not make it. I still remember feeling so unprepared at the auditions, with only cheerleading knowledge in a gym full of girls who had been trained in their studios for years. I instead tryed out for the cheerleading squad at the public high school and made Varsity. Freshman and sophomore year I worked as hard as I could to be the best cheerleader I could be. I managed to maintain and better my flexibility through all this as well as gain strength, which I think is helping me a lot right now. However, I still had a nagging feeling that dance was my passion. I read up on it, devouring every bit of information I could and even going as far as to buy "Ballet for Dummies." I could see the passion and light when I watched dancers on stage and knew that I had to feel that too. At the end of my sophomore year, my high school pioneered a dance team/pom squad. I called and e-mailed back and forth with the new coach expressing my interest. When auditions roled around in the fall, I was surprised to not only make the team, but to be offered the spot of captain for this brand new squad. I did not return to cheerleading that year and finally was a 'dancer'. We attended dance camp, learned countless routines, performed at football and basketball games. I loved every minute. Senior year, I tryed out for my schools competitive Show Choir, a musical theatre class that competed and performed singing-and dancing routines, often from Broadway musicals, all around the state. Again, I could not have been happier.

(new paragraph! whew!) When I was getting ready to attend college, one reason I choose Loyola over Boston College was the dance program. It was new and maybe a little rough, with no major option or auditions, but it was also perfect for me. I was able to get in to a Jazz 1 class in my first semester of freshman year. I loved it and was extremely surprised when I wasnt falling behind, as I expected to be with girls with years of studio training. In fact, I was told by my teacher a few weeks in tothe semester that I would have been fine in Jazz 2. I was estatic. My the end of the semester it felt even too easy.

For my second semester (now) I decided to take 3 dance classes: Modern 2, Jazz 2, and Ballet 1. I had been dissappointed with the fact that Ballet 1 had been full the semester before and then a spot opened up, I took it immediately (even though it is at 8:40am!). Again, I surprised myself. The countless hours spent reading my silly Ballet for Dummies book, stalking the dance.net forums, using my kitchen chairs as barres and doing countless tendus and plies, really helped. while I don't think it replaced studio training, I feel confidant in ballet class, even while learning new, foreign things. I think my determination and immersion on dance and ballet culture gave me a huge stepping stone into the world of ballet and dance, and now I'm living the life, dancing 4 days, 6 classes per week. Love it!