Baby Step Piourettes

I'm sure I misspelled that.  I could google search it, but I got 7 minutes before I gotta go to work, so I'm not gonna bother with it!

Dance with Dawn last night and we were working on Piourettes in the centre today.  I've worked on these before with Jonathan, and I'm pretty bad at them.  I'm trying to think of an image, but the closest thing I can think of is imagine you are drunk, and you decide you want to do a one legged turn.  You successfully turn around in 360 degrees, but everything else in between is just shambles.  I can't get my foot to go behind afterwards, I'm sure my non spinning foot is not where it's supposed to be.  Basically, I need to practice in this area.

Dawn had us practicing the preparation for one and then little quarter turns, four in a row so you'd go right around.  Jonathan don't pussy foot around with his piourettes, it's all or nothing, he's not interested in your silly quarter turns.  Thankfully Dawn is, as I finally be able to get the feeling of what I'm supposed to do with my feet.  She had some arm work in there as well, but I gave up, better to focus on my feet for the time being, arms will sort themselves out later  (though I think I was still trying to do the arms, but they sorta just flapped about, as they do.)

I'm looking forward to my new wood floor, because I will be doing quarter piourettes till the cows come home.  So pretty and ballerinaish!  I'm like the little ballerina in the music box, only one that stops part of the way through, then starts again.  A slightly broken little ballerina in the music box.

What a Weekend

So it turns out, that I really enjoy being on stage.  Last time I was properly on stage was my Junior year of high school and I was in a play called And they Danced Real Slow in Jackson.  It was a great show, so good we got to go to the high school theatre convention and perform it for a group of our peers.  I had a good sized supporting role playing an eight year old and despite sporting 50 yards of duct tape and three ACE bandages to flatten my money makers out (bullet proof folks, nothing getting in, nothing getting out, no shapely figure for my character) but it was experience of a lifetime, figured that was the last time I'd be on stage.

Then rolled on Friday. After a rough dance reheresal, I went home practiced, ran steps through my mind at work and did port de bra in the streets.  And it came time on Friday for me to get to the side of the stage and I nail it.  Didn't miss a step, didn't get lost, remembered to not look at my feet but at the audience.  When it came time for the bow, I was so pleased I could have burst.

Saturday would be the day my most beloved boy, my friend and her male friend who was in town, would be in the audience.  I was a lot more nervous on Saturday, knowing this.  I was a bit shakier, but remember a moment when I finally listened to that advice to pull in my tummy muscles and there we are, solid again (crazy how that works!)

Then afterwards got a bit sad.  Yeah, the shows over, which is always a bit sad, but I'm moving soon, and I've just gotten into the swing of my Edinburgh ballet routine. I'm sure I'll figure something out for when I get to Belfast, but quite sad to be leaving here, but anyway.

Sunday brought a day of packing and Jon was off to Notheren Ireland himself with one of my kitties in tow.  And now I'm alone (well, one kitty left!) and very glad I have ballet class to keep me occupied. 

Very bittersweet.  I'm such a weenie.

And on another note, greater ballet public, any thoughts for classes for in Belfast, Northern Ireland?  Google isn't giving me much hope.  Looks like it might be me and some 10 year olds, which while that will be ok, not necessarily ideal.

Dress Rehearsal

The end of year show for Dance Til Dawn is this weekend (omg I know, right!?).  This means we had a dress rehearsal yesterday to run lighting checks and basically see what kind of shape we were in for our paying audience.

And there's all sorts, little girls from no older than 3 all the way up to us old timers.  It seems to be organized chaos, but I stride on in there with my chinese takeaway in hand and I am pointed to the adult dressing room, which is a kitchen.  Which is handy, cause I need a fork!

Anyway, unload my stuff, meet some of the other ladies I've never seen before because they do tap, jazz, contemporary, etc.  I get changed into my costume and realize that I've not brought my makeup and I make a mental note to pack that along on friday, as I was looking a bit pasty in comparison.  And after all, stage lights wash you out and if you're not wearing loads of makeup, you're not doing it right.

Because I'm in the second half of the show, I take the opportunity to watch the other dances.  And let me just say, the little girls and the girls who are younger than me, but far better than me, are my favorites.  The little girls just sorta flail adorably and say hi to their mums and dads who are beaming with pride.  The older girls just remind me of what could be.

Stroll back to the dressing room to don my sarong and get my slippers on.  I follow my classmates backstage and we await our turn in the dark amongst the curtains.  And then our music comes on and the lights change for us and we classical walk our way out there.

This is when everything went wrong for yours truly.

My feet have decided that they're done for the day and they're not having any of this dancing nonsense and just give up.  My arms, however, troopers that they are, desperately try to remember what they're supposed to do, but they're about 10 counts behind and just waving uselessly about the place.

I'm blinded by the lights and and trying to catch a sneaky glance of the others to try and catch up, but it's over.  I'm facing the wrong way, just lost on stage.  And while I can't see much, I'm sure I can feel Dawn's eyes of disapproval on me.

Feeling utterly embarrassed with myself, vowing to practice this at least one thousand times when I get home, we leave the stage and the next group comes on after us.

We're all crammed backstage now, the next dancers doing their thing and we can't find the door.  10 grown women and we are stuck, where loads of small children succeeded before us, we failed miserably.

Of course we're laughing, because it's been about 2 minutes now and if we don't figure this out, we're gonna create a massive jam.  Suddenly light floods in and we're free.

Head back to the kitchen/dressing room for a debrief on how we did, thankfully I wasn't the only one who wasn't feeling terribly confident for our upcoming performance, but they have other things to do and are off.

I start to practice.

Screw You Twilight

Thus have passed my two favorite days of the week:  Thursday and Friday.

Thursday class with Dawn went well, I can't quite remember the centre work we did (the barre seems to have gone missing since Easter holidays, which is a bummer)  but I had a feeling of it clicking just right and keeping up with the arms/feet/head work and feeling very accomplished that I didn't have to stare at her and I could do my pretty ballerina look (which is more likely to look like me being confused and slightly constipated, but I feel pretty, and that's what counts)

We got our costumes for the show, which is a black sarong and for me some tan tights, as Dawn did me a solid and gave me some free tights, cause I'm only in the one dance.  Was slightly offended at first that she gave me large (don't call me fat!) tights, but upon getting home and trying them on, turns out I am a large ballerina and they fit like the sausage casings they are.

Our costumes were presented in a darling plastic bag with "I'm a star!" written across the front and with lovely name tag with the name of the dance you're in.  I felt like I was in elementary school again, and I tell ya friends, it felt good.  I mean, that's my bag, set aside for me.  That makes me feel good.

Anyway, I finally was able to discover the name of the song we're dancing to.  It's instrumental and for the life of me, I'd never heard it.  Was practicing the dance with Dawn's handy youtube videos and asked Jon what he thought the song was, also didn't have a scooby.  Well, my neat costume bag had "Jacob's Theme" on it, and I still didn't get it.

Got home just now, remembering that that was on my "to google" list and typed it in.  And lo and behold, it's from Twilight.  You know, those shitty vampire movies/books that make any one under the age of 16 all hot and bothered  (and if you're over 16 and those movies/books get your hot and bothered, you really ought to be ashamed, I'm just sayin')

I have desperately tried to avoid anything to do with Twilight as I found it irritating and frankly not worth my time.  Matter of fact, wasting too much on it now.  Needless to say, I'm a bit bummed, particularly as the dance immediately before mine is to Adelle's "To Make You Feel My Love" and I'm very jealous.  I've liked that song since Garth Brooks yo.

Oh well, I will dance away and then find a similarly paced song to dance that to in the future when I feel like doing more than just plies!

Wow, I rambled a bit there.  I think I shall leave today's class for another post (which will likely immediately follow this one, after I eat and have a cuppa).