More Ballet!

Alison Lee, [stage name Helene Lineva and star of the Original Ballet Russe, 1939-1940, posing in the studio and dancing on the roof of Dupain studio] photographed by Max Dupain.

It's hard to believe, but I've actually been taking ballet classes for 4 weeks now. I go once or twice a week depending on how brave and motivated I'm feeling. And sometimes... I actually have fun! I'm still struggling with a lot of the material and I'm sure I will for a long time, but slowly I'm becoming more comfortable. It helps that the teachers at BreakOut are really nice and encouraging.

One reason why I'm taking ballet, even though I'm currently bad at it, is that when I get things right, I feel beautiful. I have long legs and arms, which sometimes makes me feel awkward in bellydance class (I always pull my arms in when I turn, for fear of hitting somebody), like I'm taking up too much space. But when I relax and allow myself to take all the room I need, and when I can do a full extension and just reach with my arms and legs, I feel lean and elegant. Ballet class is helping me develop proper form, strength, and flexibility to add those moments to my belly dance. 

Cross-training: Ballet

I needed a ballet picture for this post so I went to The Commons on Flickr and found this. Wow!

Valentina Blinova in L'Oiseau de feu [The Firebird], Ballets Russes, Sydney, 1936-1937 / Max Dupain

 

I went to my first ever ballet class yesterday. I've been meaning to go for months and months. It's something that my teacher Jolie has been encouraging me to do to improve my belly dance. But as I've confessed before on this blog, I am very nervous about doing new things. So every week I'd say "I should go to Beginner Adult Ballet on Thursday" and when Thursday rolled around, I'd make an excuse not to... too tired, not feeling well, want to laze around the house with my husband because he's had a stressful week at work. Well, now there's Beginner/Intermediate Ballet on Mondays, so I made myself go. I found out about it yesterday, so I had no time to make excuses.

 

Being in ballet class was totally different from being in bellydance class. Most of the class was spent doing exercises at the barre. The teacher Christy would explain what we were going to do and then watch us do it, rather than leading, which meant I spent a lot of time putting my ITS peripheral vision to use to "follow" the students who seemed to know what the heck they were doing. On the other hand, since Christy wasn't leading, she was walking around the room giving corrections, and she was very nice and encouraging about it.

 

I probably should have gone to a straight-up beginner class rather than a beg/int one, because there seemed to be a definite expectation that the students already knew basic ballet terms and had some familiarity with what they were supposed to be doing. This meant that some things that we already do in bellydance class made sense to me, and others I just kind of stumbled along and hoped no one was looking at me. There was also a bit of material that is pretty difficult for a newbie, such as pirouettes (which we do sometimes in bellydance but I still suck at) and some fast jumping.

 

That said, since Monday at 4:30 is a pretty convenient time for me to go to class, and since I like a challenge, I think I might keep throwing myself into the deep end. Besides, we did exercises to Star Wars music, so my inner nerd was pleased even while my inner dance critic was crying "we're so BAD AT THIS!!!"

 

By the way, speaking of my inner dance critic, I have a message for it: Of course we're bad at ballet. We're new to it. We were bad at ITS when we started, and we were bad at Tribal Fusion when we started. Everything has a learning curve, so just shut up and be patient.

EDIT: I have no idea what Blogger has done to this post. What a mess.

It's so BIG!

Tonight was our first troupe practice in the new BreakOut Studios, and WOW! The room is so BIG! And bright! And beautiful! Wooden dance floors, new mirrors, freshly painted walls... And it was warm enough that I danced in a t-shirt. I'm in looooove.

I'm also excited because we have new troupe members! And old members who were busy are coming back! It's a nice big, robust group again. We worked hard on the new choreography that we started before the break, with hopes of having it finished soon so we can start on yet another one. I'm happy to be working on new material for all of our shows that are coming up.

Speaking of shows, Denim Day is coming up on Saturday! It's at Fluxx Studios off of 4th Ave and runs from 7pm-12am. I'm not sure where we are in that, but it's a fundraiser show with artists showing their work and probably other performers, too, so if you can, plan to be there all night :)

Good Bye, Studio A

Well, tonight was our last night of class in Studio A at the 4th Avenue location of BreakOut Studios. When classes return for the new year we will be in the new studio. It's bigger. It's warmer. It has better speakers. It doesn't have that really weird mirror where there's a strange raised part off the wall.

There are a couple of things I will miss about the current studio. I will miss having a convenient place to park on 4th Ave. I will miss being able to walk to all the great restaurants, cafes, bars and shops after class. I will miss the "Secret Dance Garden" behind Studio A, and showing up 20 minutes early for class to hang out with my troupemates on a nice Summer night.

But in general I am REALLY excited about the move!

A lot of people showed up tonight, maybe because it wasn't as painfully cold as it was last night. It was good to see some familiar faces who hadn't been around in a while, and to have a big group. It was a nice send-off for the room that has been our (sometimes awesome, sometimes awful) home for over a year.

So much dancing!

I have been so busy that I forgot to tell you to come out and see Skirt Full of Fire and Fire & Gold perform today! We were part of the BreakOut holiday show, which always coincides with the street fair. Although this will be the last one in this location, I suppose, because BreakOut is moving! I'm very excited because the new studio is not only bigger, it has central heating and cooling! But the Fourth Ave location was not without its charm, and I will miss it (and not only because it gave me a convenient place to park on Fourth).

The show itself was great, I feel like we danced really well. Sadly, this is Kamrah's last performance with us, as she is moving away to Chicago! I will miss her greatly because she is such an incredible dancer and a very nice person to work with, and her husband is one of the most supportive guys in the community (you can see his elbow in this pic as he is filming us). They're a great couple and Chicago is lucky to get them!

Thursday's Open Stage was also AWESOME! What a great crowd! People really got into it, even though a lot of them were originally just there to watch football on the big TVs at Sky Bar. It turns out that when given the choice between sports, and beautiful women dancing, a lot of people will choose the dancers. Sky Bar gave us a nice big space to dance in, which was great, and the drink prices were awesome! I look forward to performing again next month.

I have two more gigs next week and then I think I am done for December, unless any last-minute holiday parties crop up. Whew!

Always doing something!

Don't let the quiet around here fool you into thinking that I'm not a busy, busy dancer! Friday is the only day this past week when I didn't do anything dance-related, and that was because my dog had minor surgery and spent the night recovering from anaesthesia while sprawled out in my lap.

Yesterday I didn't dance, but I did go to BreakOut to see their Street Fair show (well, part of it... lunch was a SNAFU!). Not only were the junior and senior troupes amazing dancers, but I got to watch Jolie do an entirely improv number in her sparkly purple costume. She's such an inspiration on how to own the song and the crowd. Oh, did I mention that it was totally improv because she had never heard the song before? I'm in awe of dancers who can pull out an amazing show to unfamiliar music. Bravo!

Today I also haven't danced yet (but I will!), however I spent a couple of hours at a joint meeting of our local belly dance community group SABDA and the AZ chapter of MECDA. It's so important to be an active member of the community if you're even remotely serious about dance! Otherwise you'll never know what events are going on and where to see people perform and who is teaching what. I really liked the fact that today, most of the members of the MECDA board came down to give a presentation and answer our questions. We want to have a better connection with the Phoenix community and AZ as a whole.

Also there were Lebanese sugar cookies which are delicious.