Sandi and I at PNB
Hi winger readers. Like so many other contributors of the Winger, I too have my excuses for my lack of contributions to our favorite website! But I do want to share more of what has been happening in my life, which is a lot. So here is a start.
Sandi, as you know, is in Seattle performing Camelot. So we got to meet each other on Friday. Sandi came to an open rehearsal at PNB to watch the final rehearsals for Pacific, a Mark Morris premiere for PNB, and a piece called Sense of Doubt, choreographed by Paul Gibson.
Thursday is the opening night for “The Seattle Festival“. Peter Boal organized this incredible festival where we are performing two weeks of Carmina Burana and Pacific and one week of three different programs with choreographers from the Northwest.
So that is what I am doing right now. But I do need to catch you up on some of the incredible things that have happened to me in the past three months. So please stay tuned for some really cool pictures that I will be posting very soon!
Arc School of Ballet
I would like to share with everyone a little bit about the story of Arc School of Ballet and how I got connected with Marie Chong. Marie is the artistic director of ARD Dance Productions and director of Arc School of Dance. After Marie ended her career as a professional dancer she decided to continue in the dance world by creating her own company. Her company has performed here in Seattle for the past 8 years and in 2004 Marie decided to open her own school where she could train dancers of all levels. Arc School offers dancers more than just ballet. Marie provides them with modern, jazz, african, pilates, gyrotonic and even aerial dance (low flying trapeze!!!).
So I ended up meeting Marie at a time in my life where I feel the desire of teaching dancers and sharing with them what I know. And that is what is happening in my life right now. Besides from dancing at PNB I now teach at Arc School of Ballet on my days off, in another words, on Saturdays and maybe during the week when I have an easier schedule. Today was my third class at Arc and it has been a pleasure being there and exploring this side of me and my new students.
This is the main studio at Arc School and some of my students changing their shoes from point to flat shoes so they can take jazz class. As you can see the studio is huge and full of light. A very inpiring place to dance.
Marie’s mom, mama Chong, working at the reception of the school. Marie’s family are all involved with the school. It’s a family affair!!!!
Little bailarinas
Marie teaching two little bailarinas her steps for the Nutcracker. They are performing the Nutcracker on December 8th, 9th and 10th .
This is the poster for Arc Dance Productions next performance. They are performing October 20th and 21th at 7:30pm at the Shorecrest Performing Arts Center. Marie is presenting pieces from Betsy Cooper, Jason Ohlberg, Christina McNeil Dobson and 2 new pieces that she just coreographed. If anyone is in Seattle I would really recommend going and seeing the performance, I will be there!!!
You can go to her website and learn more about the shows and about Marie and the school at:
www.arcdance.org
Here is a upclose of the beautiful poster for the DANCESCAPES- A Mixed Repertoire.
Update, finally!!!
Firts of all I am sorry I disappeared for a while!!! Of course I have great excuses, but before I give them bear with my little reflection on a dancer’s life.
Part of being a dancer is having the ability to make serious decisions when we are very young. One of the most difficult decisions most of us have to make is to decide to leave our families to pursue our careers as dancers. In my case I left Brazil when I just turned 15 to come to NY and study at SAB. It’s been 10 years since I left and since then I get to see my parents maybe once a year. I just wanted to take this moment to thank them so much for being so strong and letting me go and fufill my dreams.
So I’ve been busy ever since my parents came to visit me on Sep 16. They also flew my sister and her boyfriend to Seattle since I had not seen her in more than two years. And they did all this to share with me a very important date: my promotion to Principal Dancer at PNB. It happened at PNB’s Gala and I am so glad I could spend this day with the people I love, them and my partner John and friends.
This picture is of one of my last rehearsals for Swan Lake, which I performed the White Swan pas de deux with Casey Herd, who also got promoted to principal that night. Here Peter Boal is coaching us at our stage rehersal. The picture was taken by Angela Sterling. She is our official photographer and she also works all around the globe. You can check out her work at www.angelasterlingphoto.com. She is an extremelly talented photographer and we are lucky to have her.
Saying all that, now that my family is gone life is back to normal: lot’s of work, just the way we like it!
Mike van Sleen
![Carla_K_rbes__Mike_van_Sleen[1].jpg](http://www.phontographer.com/winger/archives/images/Carla_K_rbes__Mike_van_Sleen%5B1%5D.jpg)
While I was at Jacob’s Pillow I had the pleasure of working with Mike van Sleen. Mike started to work at the Pillow in 1997 as a Audio Supervisor. In 2001, after being amazed over and over by all the people that passed the Pillow and seeing all the incredible records of dancers and artist, he decided to register this moments on his own way, continuing the tradition of capturing people and the artist inside them. Mike’s portraits are very special and are able to capture people very deeply. You can go to his web site and learn more about him, see some of his work and even buy prints of pictures you like.
www.mikevansleen.com
This picture is the result of our play time together.
Signatures
The dressing rooms at the theater are full of signatures of the dancers that have performed there. This was my spot at the dressing room.
PNB left a nice mark on the wall next to the stage with all the company names together. Maybe some of you can see it next time you go there.
Dancers view
This is the dancers view of the theater, the stage and the audience. Here is James rehearsing his steps and Peter Boal giving some last notes to Noe and Olivier for Duo Concertant.
The theater has about 620 sits and it was a pleasure to have almost all the shows sold out. It really fells very personal to dance in a small space like this, you feel connected to the audience in a different way, more relaxed and intimate.
The rock
It is a tradition that all the companies that come dance at the Pillow take a group photo at the special Jacob’s Pillow rock. So here we are, dancers, Peter Boal, coreographers and musicians, all together for the record.
Stretching
Here are some of the dancers stretching before class at the studio inside the theater.
Only fifteen dancers were able to come since the stage is too small to fit the whole company. Maybe in the future we can bring everyone and take over the Pillow for a week!!
