Preparando
This is me a few minutes before getting on stage to dance Marzipan (or dance of the flutes) once again. It was some sort of dance festival but it wasn’t a competition. I was dancing as a soloist in this one for the first time (some students left ballet, so we had to make some changes and I ended up being soloist by myself, as before we were three.)
We also danced the Waltz of the Flowers, which was changed a little bit also.
Overall, it was good but the place wasn’t the best nor was its organization. But I guess it’s part of a dancer’s life to perform in the most different venues, etc… They had problems with the sound and the ‘’stage” was in a basketball court.
But it counts as stage experience - we always gain more maturity the more we perform!
Now next week I’ll perform the Blue Bird variation and Kitri’s 3rd act variation! I’m so excited! It’s not very very good yet, so I have yet to rehearse a lot. It’s funny because they are quite different in terms of the character and such. But both are fun, I love it!
Well I’ll be back soon!
Bye bye,
Cathy Godeghesi
Virada Cultural
Well here I am again, after a long time!
Now life is really on its tracks again, after that UN model that I have mentioned in my previous post. So I’ll start by telling how it went.
As I said, after ballet this is something that I really like. Participating in the simulation was a huge experience for me (especially when representing the US, it was a hard job!)
I was in the General Assembly and our theme was The Religious Issue. We discussed for five days and then wrote a huge document recommending solutions to the nations concerning the matter.
It’s really hard to defend point of views that are not yours, especially when these are so polemic!
But I had fun and it was unforgettable!
I was pretty busy before that because I had to research about the United States position, and then EVERYTHING about the United States, and then about religious issues in the world, and so on.
My school colleagues also loved the experience, and we learned so much.
Well during this period in which I was studying, etc, I could barely go to ballet, and now I am finally back!
We have three performances coming up and it’s time to rehearse. We are dancing the Waltz of The Flowers (again) and also each girl will take a variation. I’m rehearsing Kitri, although we also learned Blue Bird and Flower Festival in Genzano.
Also, there will be an open class to parents and anyone else who would like to watch us, so we’ve been practicing the syllabus by Royal Academy of Dance (our examination is only in September, though).
My city held something really nice last week, a huge event called Virada Cultural. It was a 24 -hour event that went through the night, and there was absolutely everything: music, cinema, theater, exhibitions, dance, etc. And everything was free and spread around the city.
I attended some of the dance ones, in a stage in the Vale do Anhangabau (you know this already! I’ve shown it in another post).
I watched three pieces, the first one was Les Sylphides, danced by the girls from Escola Municipal de Bailados, which is the “municipal school of ballet” that belongs to the theatre and feeds to Balé da Cidade de São Paulo (”São Paulo City Ballet”, but they’re pretty much contemporary nowadays and don’t dance classical anymore; however the school teaches just classical).
They made a short adapted version and it was very nice and clean. I had never seen their work before and the girls are beautiful, they have amazing lines and they’re soft, and were so ethereal.
This school is free so the students come from poorer communities in the city, and I find that amazing. To give these girls the possibility to have such great education in ballet and to open so many doors afterwards.
The second piece I saw was by the choreographer Ivaldo Bertazzo. Guys, if you ever have the opportunity to see his works, DON’T MISS IT. Seriously, this man is awesome. It’s contemporary and he gets inspiration in Africa and India, and mixes with brazilian sounds and contemporary technique.
Also, he is another one who gives shots to people that don’t have money to take dance classes and are envolved with drugs and things like that. His dancers come from an NGO, and he trains them and does the choreographies. They are really strong and great dancers!
I think there could be so much more things like this here in Brazil. Arts don’t get much attention in general, but they could really be used to help a big part of the population.
As we’re on this subject, I don’t know how many of you know about this but Bolshoi Ballet from Moscow has a school here in Brazil (in Joinville, southern brazil).
They pick children from poor communities from all over the country and give them this unique chance to study at the Bolshoi.
It’s the only school from Bolshoi that’s outside of Russia. If you want to know more about the work, visit their website, it’s completely worth the visit and you can see many pics showing very talented kids.
I admire them so much for doing this! Take your time and read about it, it’s beautiful.
Dear wingers, now I leave and I promise to be back soon showing my performances!
Bye!
Joca, and more
This is Joca, and he says hi to the winger. He’s a baby! We got him a couple of weeks ago and he has grown so much since then already!
I haven’t posted in ages, because since school started I needed to organize life and such, but now apparently everything is settled down and in its tracks.
As to ballet, I’m taking more classes now, which has been quite tiring, but pretty amazing. We have started repertory classes. It’s once a week and we’ve been learning some variations from different ballets.
The first one we learned was from Flower Festival in Genzano. The footwork is rather fast, typical of Bournonville ballets.
This week we have started learning Kitri’s variation from 3rd act. I’ve been asking my teacher to do so for years and if it gets good, I might dance it in competitions. It’s my favorite variation ever (Don Q is my favorite ballet), so I am very very happy. Me and a friend are planning to make a video out of it, so I might post it here!
School is driving me insane. This is the year that we take the exam to enter universities, but I’m not really in a rush for this, so I won’t stress myself because of that. I can take another year, because I don’t want to enter it right now. So i’m dedicating this year to ballet, I guess.
I’m also involved in a project that is a United Nations simulation. I’m pretty excited about that because I really like these things. And apparently I’m going to represent US, so it’s going to be a difficult thing. Right now I’m preparing, mostly reading things.
Well wingers, for now this is it. Now that I’m back into tracks, I’ll be here more often again!
A Tour of Old Sao Paulo
Dear readers, I invite you all to join me on a tour around old São Paulo. As this big and cosmopolitan city has turned 453 years old on Janurary 25th, why not visit where it was born?
So, as I am sure most of you know, the Portuguese were the founders of the city, as they ”owned” Brazil at that time. Specifically, Portuguese priests, who came here to convert the Indians to Catholicism. Therefore, the first building in the whole city was a church and a school, that we call “Pátio do Colégio”, which translated means school’s yard, or something like that (unfortunately I don’t have pictures taken by myself, but you may open this link and see an official picture, found in the city hall’s website).
Of course, this is not the original building from 1554, it has been rebuilt in the past, but there you can still see some old walls preserved. Something curious about this place is that in the past you were able to see the sea, as it is located in a very high place (the city is over a mountain and therefore kind of far from the beach itself). Nowadays, unfortunately, that isn’t possible anymore, due to several reasons that you may guess (stuff built in front of it, pollution, etc etc).
Now that you know a little bit of the history (I’m not sure if you all already know this, but I’m a bit of a history geek, so I’m stopping here because otherwise I’d get very happy writing and this would turn into a monography 
).
Shall we see some of the beautiful old buildings then?
So, I got the subway in the station near my house, and got down right in front of the Mosteiro de São Bento, after around 15 minutes. This church and monastery was built in 1598 and it’s one of the oldest in the city. Its interior is VERY beautiful, too bad we aren’t allowed to take any pictures. Nowadays the monastery still works and they also have a university in which they offer theology courses.
Now, a block ahead we have an important place in the city. The very beginning of Avenida São Jõao (avenue).
This is Edifício Martinelli. By the time it was built (1922 to 1930), it was the biggest in the city. Nowadays this is not true, of course. A curiosity: the person who built it (the Martinelli guy, a rich italian), had a house on the top of it (a mansion, actually). No, not as a penthouse, but literally, a big house built over the “edificio”. He did that so that he could prove it was safe.
New Yorkers, can you guess what the inspiration to this ”edificio” was?? Anyway, it’s not as big as the ”original”, but it also used to be one of the tallest of the city (it has 38 floors). A bank works there.
Looking at the opposite side of the same avenue, this pic shows the Post office. This building has just been restored. You can also see some old fashioned street lamps.
If we walk some more blocks… we end up in the very famous “Vale do Anhangabaú” , or “Anhangabau Valley”. See the thing with the green roof resembling a little bit L’opera de Paris?
Let’s take a closer look.
My favorite spot in the city! The THEATRO MUNICIPAL. Or, translated, Municipal Theater. Guess you can figure now why it’s my favorite!
And, if we take a walk inside of it… look who has been here!
Hey, Paloma! Too bad I was very young when it happened, it was in 1996.
Anyway let’s go back to the ”valley”.
Here we are on the top of “Viaduto do Chá“, a bridge. Translating: “Bridge of tea”. And why is that? Well, back in the past, there used to be a plantation under it. And yeah, it was a tea one.
Now let’s look at the other side, opposite to the theater’s one:
That white short building is the city hall.
Wingers, our trip is over. I hope you have enjoyed it. This is just a small part, because I haven’t shown the cathedral yet, for example. But this will be some other time, another part of the ”tour”!
Quebra Nozes!
So apparently it’s the nutcracker season on the winger! I hope our wonderful readers aren’t tired yet!
Finally the professional photographer pictures are ready. I have over twenty plus the ones my parents took, and of course I only picked a few to show… And obviously the ones I considered that my technique was reasonable, afterall, I’m still a student with a LOT (yeah, a LOOOOOT) to improve, and considering there are AMAZING dancers on this site…you know the feeling!
But I would like to tell about my wonderful performing experience. I danced as the Snow Queen for two nights only; I had the Pas de Deux and a solo, with the snowflakes. When I knew I got this role, I was really happy once the ‘’snow part” of the nutcracker has always been my favorite.
Above photos by Fulvio Oriola.
Well, a few weeks before the ‘’season” begun, I was very, very, very nervous. First because it was my first time performing as a real solo! (Before I only had a simple one as the indian in Peter Pan, and I was so not happy with the result of it. I was immature last year in terms of stage and unexpressive). And second, I was having tons of tests at school at the same time, and conciliating both things was being quite hard. To tell the truth, I didn’t pass in 4 subjects, meaning that I had to take exams in order to pass. And yes, I passed!
Back to Nutcracker… I was also really really anxious. I was happy with the choreographies and loving it so much. The costume was simply amazing, everything was making me more and more anxious.
Gladly, I was feeling pretty safe as we had rehearsed every part so much.
So the night came! =D
My friend, Carol aka Sugar Plum Fairy, made me a beautiful bun! She’s an artist in all kinds! Everybody helped a little bit on the makeup (an embarassing fact about me: I’m very very bad in terms of make up and hair, whenever I do them in myself…a disaster. I know, I know, I MUST learn. A goal to next year, perhaps???) and of course I wore the huge eyelashes =P
And then I was ready! So I ran to the other wing of the stage, and breathed and relaxed preparing to enter the stage. My partner, who is also my pas de deux teacher, was very supportive and helpful to me. As a matter of fact, it is great to dance with him because he is confident on stage so you can feel very safe with him.
At the moment I stepped into the stage… I really became the Snow Queen. I felt safe, and everything went so right! (well, no mistakes in the choreography, but I saw the video and there are several flaws in my technique, of course =/ stuff that I know I’ll have to improve from now on. )
I felt very happy, it was such a great feeling, a feeling that actually is so hard to explain in words! I was really satisfied with my results.
Later that day, I found out that I literally made the audience cry. People that I didn’t know cried!
And that made me feel much better… Because I believe this is what art is about, isn’t it?
The following night was pretty much the same, although a few details in technique were better, and some people liked my expression in this day better, while others liked in the first.
Above photos by Fulvio Oriola.
I shall congratulate all my friends too because they all were absolutely stunning. We all together know how much effort this has taken!
Every single one of them made a wonderful job. They deserve so much!!! The two sugar plums, spanish, arabian, all the waltz + flutes ”team”. Great and tough times we had!!
It was a huge responsability to dance this role. But I’m really glad how I did it well, and how all my endless effort during the semester definitely payed off. Every rehearsal, every test I didnt pass (hehe, not a good example!) was worth it.
And being on stage is just…magical. I can’t explain. And I’m sure a lot of people around here can relate to this.
Well, I shared my Nutcracker experience too now!
Right now, I’m on vacation, it’s summer here in Brazil (talk about summer, I’m almost melting. Guys, could you please send some cold to me? hehe), so no ballet (2 months without it, that’s gonna be a problem, you can bet) and no school anymore!
Enough of me, right? That’s too many pictures of myself, I apologize about that. You know how parents are, they only buy pics with me and only take ones with me too…so you get the result.
I wish you all wingers and readers a wonderful xmas and a very happy new year!! =)
Nacho Duato’s Compania Nacional de Danza in Sao Paulo
This weekend the Compañía Nacional de Danza, directed by the choreographer Nacho Duato, was here in São Paulo and I went to the theatre to check it out. I was really curious to see his works, as I had heard a lot about them. Plus, it was another opportunity to see more of modern dance, and now, the more I can watch, the more I like and learn to appreciate it.
Nacho Duato has been their artistic director since 1990, and what he wanted was to innovate, and create an identity to this company. So, he added to the repertory many of his creations and works by Jiri Kylian, Forsythe, and many of the nowadays world-renowned choreographers.
The evening consisted in three choreographies, all of them by Duato: Por vos muero, Castrati and White Darkness.
Por vos muero is a work that was inspired by the Spanish Music from the XV and XVI centuries, Spain’s golden age, and also poetry by Garcilaso de La Vega.
The women were in dresses with very long and big skirts and the men in shorts. The music was very nice, and the choreography was light, soft, and beautiful. There were several small pas de deux and also the whole group dancing together.
Castrati is about male sopranos who suffered the castration during puberty in order to keep it as a soprano, so it would never get mature. They were common in italy during the 16,17 and 18 centuries.
A very interesting theme to explore in a choreography, and I must say, the result was a very very strong choreography only with men. They entered the stage wearing black outfits, and showed their powerful technique. The audience was in awe and moved. The language used in it to show this process made the suffering so clear in the dancers face and movements, and the choreography was fast and demanding. It was actually my favorite in the night. It was the kind of thing that you simply can’t take your eyes off, and you start to feel it with the dancers. It was quite magical.
The company has very good dancers and their technique is really clean and well worked.
White Darkness ended the evening with emotion and a lot to think about. A very polemic theme: the drugs and their effects over the society.
Indeed, all I can say is that it really makes us think about.
The music is by Karl Jenkins. It starts with a beautiful long-limbed dancer running across the stage to reach the powder that came from the ceiling. She tries it and is immediately affected: other dancers enter the stage, make crazy steps, and then, they also run towards the drug that was lying on the floor.
From this part to the end, it is shown how that woman becomes completely dependent on the drug, and the choreography gradually becomes something sad and dark.
The finale was the peak of the entire day: the same dancer under a rain of a lot of powder over her head, and it doesn’t stop and the light is just on her.
I believe now that dance can bring to us subjects like this for example, that is present in everywhere in this world, and although being polemic and painful, all it did was to make us think. How a single choice can change a person’s life forever (and also the people around this person), the consequences, and if there’s a way to solve it or not, and many other unanswered questions.
What I liked is how he didn’t show HIS point of view: he created a whole situation and the audience was the one responsible to judge and make its own perception over the subject.
And once again I was amazed by modern dance. And in this evening it was clear that it’s a language that has no limits, how you can create dance over any subject.
This image was an attempt to get Nacho. Didn’t work very well though as my camera is still acting weird
Performing
First, I’m going to tell you about my first performing experience. I don’t have any pictures, though. Lots of things have disappeared around here since I have just moved to a new house, so it’s going to take some time until I get everything figured out.
Well, I was 8 years old, and the ballet was La Fille Mal Gardée. I was one of the peasant kids, friends of Lise. The costume was really cute, a typical orange leotard with a typical peasant skirt, plus flowers in our heads that matched the outfit. By this time of the year, I had already gotten injured, so consequently I couldn’t attend many rehearsals, I missed lots, and I got sick too. Not a very fortunate end of year, as you may see. So, considering my lack of rehearsals, I was pretty much lost and didn’t know the choreography very well.( Just a note: The choreographer I worked with at this time is the same one that has been working with us in my current studio! ). Well I can’t remember many details, but in the performance day I was the ”late one”, and did many of the things wrong =P But I remember mom did my make up at home, and all my family went to the theater to watch me. Sadly, after that, I had to leave ballet due to the injury in my feet, and that took me 3 years to come back!
About my first performance after this long break, I can remember way more details.
I had to dance with younger girls, what made me a bit frustrated in the beginning, but later on, I didn’t care. Afterall I had found out how much I loved what I was doing.
It was Swan Lake, and we were princesses. My teacher had to choose a few of us to stay on stage after the dance, while the odile’s pas de deux was happening. I was chosen, and you all can imagine how happy I was!
I would stare at pointe shoes wondering how was that feeling. Whenever I had the opportunity, I would watch the older girls rehearse. I was always amazed, they were such beautiful dancers, how could they do all those difficult things! And pointe shoes, pointe shoes… Of course my goal from that time on was to finally be able to wear them (that happened a few months later - I quickly became a very strong dancer. Hard work!!)
I remember all the dress rehearsals, how fantastic they would be. Seeing all the costumes, the girls in their tutus. First time I could really FEEL this atmosphere.
The outfit was a blue and shiny dress, not my favorite costume, definitely. But I was happy anyway.
Ah the feeling to be onstage again was also really good. But I felt the lights on my face and how WARM they are and how they make us sweat! (A fact that eventually we get used to, don’t we? haha ) I danced with so much pleasure, and this time I did know the choreography!
And 5 years later …
I will be performing the Nutcracker, and there’s SO MUCH to tell! But this will be my next post, as I am waiting for the cd with the pictures shot by the professional photographer (my own camera collapsed, I was so anxious to take BACKSTAGE pictures, but the thing decided to stop working! )
Nutcracker Starting Soon!
So around here it turns out that in about two weeks The Nutcracker starts! That means I’m getting a bit nervous already, and that rehearsals are getting more and more exhaustive. My saturdays are almost all taken up now because of them. But of course it’s worth it! The results are that the choreographies are looking great already, but there’s always some cleaning up to be done.
Fun part is, the new tutus are done. We got them this tuesday, and we loved them so much that some girls even started to cry (of happiness, of course.)
I’m not putting up many pictures because more will be shown in my future backstage pictures, but I’m just so excited I had to show them.
Above: Me and the sugar plums. Oh yeah, can you believe that the tiaras were included with the costume? In this picture you can see the Sugar Plum Fairy’s. So that means we will have to go back downtown only in order to get HUGE eyelashes. Fun! And erm…yes I’m very white! Almost as white as my tutu…
Doesn’t Anna look lovely? I guess I don’t even need to say that she’s going to be spanish. It looks so Kitri-ish! I love it!
Yes, I finally have become the Snow Queen. It’s more than official now. And yes, I do look tired =P
Coroas
Today the two sugar plums and I went downtown to find crowns for us… actually we have no idea whether one will come included in our costumes or not, but we went there to take a look.
It was a fun tour, we went to the Chinatown Sao Paulo version, which is actually called “Liberdade” (means freedom, liberty). It looks quite similar to NYC’s chinatown, but with typical lamps on the streets and a few gardens around (I didn’t take any pictures because I was afraid that someone would take my cam away! We were three girls, you know, better be cautious! Next time I’ll try, I’ll have to go back there anyway).
And a small fun fact: Brazil has the biggest Japanese population of the world outside of Japan!
As we couldnt find anything there, we took the subway and went to another neighbourhood, in a very crowded street where carnival costumes and accessories are sold.
It’s quite hard to walk there actually! But anyway, we went to all the stores that we could, we would even go up in buildings to look for the crowns.
Can we say… lots of crowns?
Of course we found lots of options, but we ended up noy buying. But we had some fun trying them =D
It’s hard to tell what will look good on stage and so on, at least I don’t know much about this, and I haven’t seen my outfit yet.
As for ballet and rehearsals, we had our first rehearsal on stage, with all the school, so we rehearsed the entire ballet.
It was nice, but apparently we will need to have a lot more of rehearsals in the theatre because well, let’s say the waltz is looking a bit messy in terms of ”organization”. Meaning diagonals are almost snakes. =P
That’s it for now!
Seventeen, and everything that comes with it
In terms of pictures, I don’t have many today!
This is Joana (aka sugar plum fairy) embarassed, playing with the nutcracker that we found today somewhere in our studio. Fun times rehearsing! I asked her to say hi to the winger but she blushed a lot and didn’t want to. There she is anyway!
Apart from rehearsing the Nutcracker more than two hours every single day - and trying to conciliate school with it - many new things happened to me in these last weeks since my last post.
I turned seventeen on September 29th, which was a friday, and on sunday, October 1st, I voted for the first time in my life - and for president! (The second round will happen on October 29th).
Well that made me feel like a real citizen - it was MY vote!
Many things have been going on inside of my head too, it is that time when have to make hard decisions that we aren’t used to making.
I bet many of you out there can relate to this, as you all have been through this once in your life!
Besides that, the doubt of what to do in the future, as in a career, remains, but harder than ever.
I never had any doubt that ballet is my biggest passion, it’s what moves me everyday.
Life is funny. When I first started dancing, back when I was only 8 years old, I didn’t enjoy it that much. My mom wanted me to do it so much so she simply put me in the classes.
After one year taking classes, I got injured, and it had become something impossible to do. I had to stop.
Three years later, after trying to find any activity that would suit me (that includes tennis, swimming etc etc), I wanted to take ballet. I wanted to dance. Ballet would be a preparation to take something else later such as jazz. However, in my first class after all this break, I started to recall all the movements and the technique. It was a click: I immediately fell in love. I was around 12 at the time.
Since then, I have taken classes every single day, hoping I could recover all the lost time.
Fortunately, with a lot of dedication and effort, I reached an advanced level.
But this is not my problem at the moment, what is making me a little bit frustrated.
It is simply that I don’t attend a TOP pre-professional school, and consequently it just makes it harder and harder if I wish to become a dancer. There aren’t schools here in my city. The only good one, which belongs to the government, just takes little kids.
To go abroad would be the only solution, but I’ll have to wait until I finish high school, which is November next year. And I believe it is already too late; i’ll be 18 at the time.
I do have other options, which is going to law school, but dance is dance!
I guess I wrote too much today, I’ll leave some more to my next post =)
Bye bye!
