Sylph Wings and Tutus and Programs, Oh My!
This weekend I’m performing in the latest student showcase at the Ailey Extension Program! It’s this Sunday 3/29 at 4:30pm and 7pm at the Ailey Citigroup Theater (the day after fellow Winger Kate Mehan finishes her season at the same theater )
I’m dancing in excerpts from Les Sylphides and Napoli, but the program has lots of other fun stuff. We have guest stars Les Ballets Grandivas and works from Vic DiMonda, Ashley Carter, Tracie Stanfield, Ginger Cox, Funmilayo, Bev Brown, Sue Samuels, and more! And it’s our first time putting it all together in an actual theater - yay! Those in the past have only been in the big studio, but now we have the real deal…
(in Les Sylphides corps when I was 12)
I’m officially billed as assistant to the director, which is exciting. I’ve been pretty involved in helping here and there with these things since our first one last February 2008 (with only 20 people in the studio audience!). It’s exciting to see how it has grown since then (the past two we’ve done have sold out weeks in advance, and we upped it to two performances each time. And just today I heard our 4:30pm show this time is already sold out!) and I’m honored to be such a close part of it, both as a dancer and a…helper. All week I’ve been working not only on cleaning up my sylph arms and feet and going over counts for Napoli’s partnering, but I’ve finished making 30 pairs of wings, found the best safety pins for the cast, steamed my romantic tutu and the extra one, ordered last minute men’s shirts, written some PR blurbs for Facebook etc, and - the most time consuming - coordinated the program order (and name spelling) of 150+ dancers. Phew!
(the lonely audience of our first show in Feb. 2008. my family makes up about half that center section, haha. this weekend it looks like we’ll have literally almost 25 times that amount!)
But I love doing this kind of thing.
I grew up with my family running their own dance studio with annual recitals every spring. My mom and my grandmother did EVERYTHING by themselves for that, from what I’ve mentioned above to securing theater space, hiring janitors, hanging the backdrop, taping off reserved seats, cueing the music, and more. Because of many things I was unable to help out there the past two years, and I suppose the first three years of my life didn’t count - so for about 15 years I was kind of the assistant in training to the directors, haha. After watching my family as role models for wearing many hats and doing so myself for so long, it really comes natural to me now to step in and try to take care of as much as I can with the performance. I’m really happy when I can contribute beyond what I give onstage (and boy am I happy to be onstage again!). Sunday is going to be a great test of my multi-tasking skills, dancing and organizing simultaneously (which - I may have mentioned before - I’m always at my best when I’m absurdly busy). As always, I’m VERY grateful for the opportunity.
(from past showcases)
Besides the behind the scenes work, of course I’m thrilled to be performing. In the earlier show I’m in Bournonville’s Napoli Pas de Six, which is one of my favorite favorite things to dance. We did an extended version of it including the tarantella at BAE a few years ago, but I only understudied this section. It’s fun to be back on the same stage where I was a corps dancer now doing a bigger part.
(in Napoli, 2006)
There’s two casts for Napoli, so that’s only for the 4:30pm, but in both shows I’m doing a sort-of-principal part in an excerpt of Les Sylphides. By that I mean, we really don’t have a hierarchy in the way we work this program because it’s an open class with mostly adult students (which is FANTASTIC. I wrote about how much I admire these non-professionals here). But I come in and out here and there doing some fun things around the corps.
It should be a really great performance, so if you’re in town do buy a ticket!
The 4:30pm show tickets are here (though I hear we’re just about sold out).
The 7pm show tickets are here.
More updates and pictures to come after Sunday. I plan to be live-tweeting all day so check in on Twitter, too 
Also, since my Winger posts seem to have now cohesive continuity, here’s some more you can check out that’s happened since my last post: Dancing in Concert with David Byrne @ Radio City!
A Very Happy Holiday
Just wanted to share a few more pictures from Radio City as the season comes to a close! Our last day is this Tuesday, Dec. 30 and it’s a four show day. I can’t even imagine what that last curtain call is going to be like…sad! I’ve enjoyed every minute of this experience and hope to return next Christmas!
Will blog in more detail after New Year’s (or you can check in here on my other blog). Hope everyone had a happy holiday!
(i’m the middle ballerina bear)
(i’m on the left on top of the cart thing)
(many pairs of ballerina bear pointe shoes dyed brown)
(my costume for the scene in Central Park)
(one of many quick change rooms backstage)
(the old fashioned control panel by the stage manager’s desk)
(ah, the stage)
(oh how I will miss that view of the audience)
(these are from when we took pictures of the whole company…including animals!)
A Milestone, and Radio City Pictures
Hi all! The past month has been absolutely insane, and absolutely the best experience of my life.
Besides the amazing-ness of being onstage for 16 shows a week at Radio City (!!!), this week brought a different kind of excitement: I FINISHED MY MASTER’S DEGREE!
It’s a huge relief to be done, but it’s also very scary to know I’m no longer a student. I’m not sure what a 20 year old with a master’s degree in publishing (a troubled field right now, unfortunately) does next, but January will bring change, I’m sure.
Radio City will also be over by then, which is so sad to think about! We only have two weeks left of shows, and as exhausting and physically painful as it’s been, I wish this show would last forever. I have no words to express how thankful I am to have this experience…it’s been unreal.
Until I find a moment to write more about how shows are going (and I will! soon…) here are some fun pictures from backstage
This is when we were decorating our dressing room. The two casts are named Blue and Gold, so between us all we’ve gone a bit crazy with blue and gold Christmas lights and tinsel and so on.
This one is from a notes session after one of our dress rehearsals. It’s in the lobby of the theater.
This is us as “Santa’s Helpers” during the show. That’s “Mrs. Clause” in the middle, and I’m on the left. Costumes are such fun.
In our “New York at Christmas” scene, we come out from the choral stairs on the sides of the theater and walk down to the stage. I’m in the yellow sweater there.
The most amazing view ever.
Ballerina bears! Us in our bear suits without our wonderful bear heads.
Oh boy. This is me in my Santa costume. Those glasses stay crooked like that for the entire dance, as the stage raises up and down and we ride the turntable and act jolly. Picture it: we change from that yellow sweater costume above into this Santa suit (bear, wig, hat, boots, suit are all separate pieces) in one minute flat. All 36 Rockettes and all 14 of us in the ensemble. Crazy!
My mirror in the dressing room
On With the Show!
(me in front of Radio City Music Hall on opening night!)
Yesterday was our official opening night of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2008!
I’ve already said this a thousand times, but this experience has been a dream come true, and we’re only at the beginning. We still have over 100 shows to do in the next 8 weeks, but I’m already dreading the end. I want this to last forever, haha. Between having audiences for dress rehearsals and opening for previews last Friday, it seems like we’ve been doing the show for ages already. I loved that opening night excitement, though!
(dancing in the Central Park scene. Tonya took this picture at dress rehearsal last week I’m in the middle there in the pink)
So far all the performances have gone well. It’s a tough show for all in terms of stamina. When we’re not onstage pounding out choreography we’re running around the wings changing costumes super fast (at one point all of us in the ensemble and all of the Rockettes have to change into big fat Santa costumes in under a minute and a half!). The entire crew and wardrobe workers are incredible in their organization. I can’t get over it - everyone is working SO hard to put on a great show! And having fun at the same time
(part of my quick change area)
(I took some friends on a backstage tour and here’s Alice with the camel that comes out in the Nativity scene, haha. The animals are so cute but sometimes…they smell so bad!)
Here are a few pictures from last night’s opening night party. It was such a nice night! The lobby of the theater is gorgeous with the hanging Swarovski Christmas tree, and everyone was all decked out and all. It was so nice to be a part of it! More pictures and fun here.
In other news, a newspaper back home printed an article about me being in the show, which you can read here. It’s funny - usually I’m the one interviewing other people. So it was kind of strange for me to be answering questions, haha. And to see how I sound in the finished article.
And in even more news, in just over a month I will have completed my master’s degree!
Onto the next hundred shows
(Christmas)Time Flies…
Hi all!
First, I wanted to thank everyone for the immense support following my last post about my crazy few months resulting in a dream come true: getting a part dancing in the ensemble of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular! I am still so excited about and so grateful to all those who commented or emailed
The past two weeks have flown by so fast! We began rehearsals just two weeks ago today, and we’re already about to start tech rehearsals in the theater. Time flies when you’re having fun!
This experience has been surreal thus far. I can’t even express how much I’m enjoying it and how thankful I am to have this opportunity! The cast is amazing - the Rockettes, the actors, the singers, the other dancers in the ensemble with me, the directors, the musicians - everyone has such talent and energy and is working SO hard to put on a great show.
The show is not all ballet (obviously) so it’s pushing me way WAY beyond my comfort zone. Rehearsals have been a huge challenge, both in the actual choreography and in the learning process in general. They work very fast and are extremely focused on details (how else do the Rockettes look so perfect???). We dance a LOT throughout the whole hour and a half show, and remembering steps and spacing and counts is tough when you only go through it once and then leave it the next day to learn a whole new piece. Of course I’m used to this from ballet stuff, but this requires a different kind of effort that I wasn’t used to. And it’s also very different, in a good way, working for a union production rather than other experiences I’ve had.
We’ve been going 8 hours a day for 11 days of rehearsal in the studio, ending today with a full run through of the whole show in the studio. As for my roles…the first time I come on is during the Nutcracker scene (how appropriate ) where I am a “ballerina bear.” In their condensed version of Nutcracker, Clara dances with all of the traditional Act II divertissements but they are all dancing teddy bears! It’s funny. There are 3 of us who dance Sugar Plum on pointe (I’m in the middle, which is nice because, um, you’ll be able to tell which one is me under my bear head!). We did it in costume in the studio the other day and it’s so hard to dance with the bear head on. I have new respect for those theme park people who have to stay in character costumes all day long. Although they don’t do it on pointe! Haha. Well, I may be a bear but I’m center stage at Radio City Music Hall dancing Sugar Plum - what do I care if there’s a little added weight and impaired vision 
haha. No, it’s not so bad.
After that, we (the ensemble) come on as people on the streets of New York City before the Rockettes do their very cool number on the sightseeing tour bus. Then their “bus” stops in Central Park and we do a big partnering piece. It’s so fun, and my partner is great (he’s done the show for 5 years now!). After that comes my favorite scene of the show: the Santa number. (See a section of it here. Having technical difficulties embedding youtube clips so just click and watch). All of the Rockettes plus all of us dancers are dressed as Santa Clause and we do this very long, very aerobic dance as if we were clones of the real Santa. I can’t help but smile and nearly laugh every time we start this dance. It takes your breath away within the first minute and it’s a true adrenaline rush. By the end we’re as red as Santa’s suit but as jolly as ever!
The Rockettes dance some more following that, and then we return as Santa’s helpers in a scene called “Magic.” (Go about a minute into this video and we’re the people carrying the candy cane poles.) We all enter the North Pole as if it were a parade, and one other girl and I are wheeled in kicking and singing on this giant cart. Another moment you’ll actually be able to see me :). After this scene comes the finale where we stand and sing a bit (yes, sing! eek!) and then the famous Nativity Scene, where I am a shepherd, hehe. And finally, the curtain call, which is such a wonderful finish to a fabulous show.
I’ve loved every minute of rehearsals, hard as they may be, and I absolutely cannot wait to get onstage starting this weekend for tech rehearsals. Today we had a full run through of the show while the other cast watched, and it felt like a true performance even though there were only 50 or so audience members lining the studio mirrors. At the end, everyone stood up and was clapping wildly - both casts. It was this incredible moment of satisfaction and excitement and energy and gratitude and joy and teamwork. You give so much while dancing, and those moments of actual performance are sublime. Your mind goes blank and your body takes over and it’s pure movement and music radiating from inside.
But wow, that moment immediately when it’s over. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the shakiness of muscle fatigue or the sake of being so very in the moment. But there is no feeling like that. Today I wanted to close my eyes and stop time and just savor those seconds of incredible happiness. I haven’t felt it like that in so long, if ever, to that extent. Nothing else but performance can do that, to me anyway.
The clatter of applause drowns out all noise and time freezes with a smile, and then the warmth of joy melts you back to reality. Fulfillment and emptiness coexist. You have everything and yet gave it all. A few minutes later that moment is gone, forever. Ephemeral. I can only imagine what it will be like experiencing this moment onstage at Radio City Music Hall with 6,000 people clapping. I can’t believe the best is yet to come.
More updates to come soon! More about the rehearsal process here. My show schedule here. Shows start November 7! Tickets here.
PS- to make up for the fact that I have yet to take any pictures of any of my experiences, I will face the embarrassment of this hilarious picture of me in front of Radio City when I was about 7 years old. Check out the bun right on TOP of my head. Glamorous
A Jolly Twist of Fate
(photo by Julia Shapovalova)
(I seem to always start my posts with “Sorry for not posting for so long…” but when you read this, you’ll understand! This is a super long post, but the best part is at the end, so I hope you make it through ? I made the important parts in bold for your reading convenience…)
Over the past few months, I had two lifelong dreams come true, and then had them snatched away before my eyes. And then, this week, I got more than I could have ever asked for.
Let’s start from the beginning. Since I graduated from college months ago, at the end of the school year I had to move out of my dorm and find some other place to live in the crazy NYC real estate market. That was a project enough, but I finally found a small, affordable place and had my whole family come down from Boston to help me move. I had to buy furniture and the works, but I was so excited because now I had my own real life New York City apartment. Life long dream number 1, check!
(Me in the new apartment right after moving in)
About the same week I signed my year-long lease I was taking class and the director of Minnesota Dance Theatre in Minneapolis came and watched. After class, we spoke and she basically offered me a job in the company on the spot. After much discussion, two weeks later, on my 20th birthday, to be exact (seriously!) I received a contract to dance in a professional ballet company. Not an apprenticeship, an actual position. Happy Birthday, haha! I was SO thrilled. Life long dream number 2, check!
Well, I received the contract on July 31. Rehearsals were supposed to start August 4. There was so much to take care of…dropping out of my last semester of grad school, working out the logistic kinks of moving across the country on short notice and, more importantly, finding a place to live.
(with friends on my birthday)
Here’s the part where things get rough.
Everything seemed to be okay. I made the decision that this was what I wanted to do, even though it meant giving up New York and postponing my masters degree (does a 20 year old really need a masters??). BUT the problem: the apartment. I moved in one week before receiving the contract, literally getting the email about wanting to hire me as I hung up the last picture frame in decorating the place. No matter - I could just put everything in storage.
Or not. The issue was with my lease. I signed it for a full year, and it was illegal to sublet under it. We battled with the landlord every which way to try to get out of it so that I could go dance. After much drama, I was forced to give up the contract and stay in New York, where, at that point, I had no plan set for anywhere to dance/perform in the fall. Life long dream number 1 dead, check!
Recovering from that, I spent much of August catching up on some writing, taking class a lot, and spending some much needed resting time in my new apartment.
Until the day I came home from grabbing my morning Starbucks and found huge rats scurrying around my couch!!! Eek! Yes, rats in my room after living there 2 weeks. The next day, a giant cockroach the size of my hand (no exaggeration) crept across my floor as I walked in. Eew! Apparently, the building was infested because the place next door had been knocked down a few months ago. They knew this before they rented me the apartment but failed to inform me I’d be welcoming new rodent roommates into my life. Eew!
It was SO bad. So gross. I did everything in my power to not be at home during the week I discovered my new wildlife friends while, we thought, the building tried to get things under control. In the end, they did nothing and finally allowed me to break my lease and move out with 5 days notice if I didn’t want to live with the possibility of rats. Life long dream number 2 dead, check!
So now, I had no place to live, AND the thing that kept me from my job dancing with a company full time was gone. Oh timing is everything! If only the mice had come 2 weeks sooner and they had let me out of my lease in time to go to Minneapolis!
Suck it up and move on. I had no time to be upset because I had to find someplace else to live, haha. I was VERY LUCKY to have an incredible support system of family and friends who helped me out, and I stayed with the most generous of them all, my ballet teacher, haha.
(a student showcase I was in the week all this happened, haha. i’m in the front there)
Making a long story shorter, I found a new apartment, went through the hassles of moving (to storage first, then again to new apartment), and finally got settled. I started my last semester of grad school, and even got a paid internship at a major book publisher. And I was asked to return to the company I did Nutcracker with last year for another Christmas season.
Then, this week, my life flipped upside down yet again, but for the better. The best, actually.
I’m sitting at my desk at a pretty slow day at my new internship. It’s about 11am and I glance at my cell phone to see I have a new voicemail. I go to the kitchen in our office and listen.??
“Hi Taylor. This is Radio City Musical Hall calling. Please give me a call back as soon as humanly possible! It’s about the show.”?
My heart FLIPS.?I auditioned for the dancing roles (not to be a Rockette) in the Radio City Christmas Show back in May and surprisingly made it through all of the cuts and callbacks. I went on a whim but was thrilled just to make it as far as I did, because most others were a lot older and more theatrically experienced. When I called after a few weeks to get the results of the audition, they politely informed me that they didn’t have a place for me. Ah well, another rejection.??
As you can imagine, I was even MORE surprised to get a call from them months later.?Stealing a few minutes from my work day, I called the happy voice that left the message back.??
“Taylor, we’d like to offer you a role as a dancer in the New York show of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular!!!”??
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!??
Apparently someone dropped out and they needed a replacement, and for whatever lucky reason I happened to be the next in line.? Of course I accepted on the spot, gripping myself to the chair so as not to jump in excitement in the middle of the publisher’s office where I was supposed to be working!??
After about an hour I still literally COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. I honestly and truly had to keep looking at my cell phone call history and re-listen to her voicemail to confirm that it did indeed happen and I wasn’t just daydreaming the whole thing. Seriously.?It didn’t fully click in until later that night when I got an email asking for my pointe shoe order info.
Since then, I’ve filled out paperwork and gone for shoe fittings and everything. Rehearsals begin in a week, and shows start November 7. I sign the union contract on Monday!
I am SO happy and excited about this. All the performances…all the dancing…and all in New York! What a round about path it took for me to get here, but it was all worth it!
I’ll do my best to post about the exciting process as it happens…more about what’s been going on here.
Moving and Memories
As usual, I’m WAY behind on blogging! This has been a crazy summer with thousands of things going on to update about. I’ll try to post soon about some of the excitement from the past few months since I last posted…highlights include attending ABT’s College Intensive, going to the Dance Critics Association Conference in DC, finishing my internship at The New Yorker, working on the summer issue of movmnt magazine, and loads more.
But right now the big event going on for me is moving to a new apartment (still in Manhattan, thank goodness). It’s been a slow and painful process dealing with New York real estate, haha, but I’m excited to be moving out of my college dorm and into my own (small!) space.
In the process of packing up my life from the past 2 years in order to transport it 40 blocks downtown, I had to go through piles and piles of old programs, photos, pointe shoes, and memories. Tedious as it was, I got a lot of laughs from going through everything and I thought I’d share some old dance memories I came across because they’re just too good to pass up The others in these pictures might kill me for posting them but it’s worth it, haha. They’re especially funny as I approach my 20th birthday next week, haha.
More blogging soon! Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!
(As a Polichinelle in Boston’s Nutcracker…I was 9 I think? I’m second from the right standing up)
(As a Little Swan the summer I was 13. Looks like this could have been taken yesterday…I look the same age! haha)
(”Practicing” ballet in the dorms of The Rock School in 2003. What’s a dancer to do with their free time?)
(”Practicing” ballet at Christmas time at The Rock School 2004. We couldn’t stop 
(Valentine’s Day at BAE last year…we got creative)
(Before Divertiment No. 15 last year at BAE)
(In class on Halloween this past year. I am Dorothy, and yes, I have a yellow brick road )
And last but not least…my first ballet class. Can you guess which one is me?
Viewing Dance from Pen and Ink
(Cedar Lake’s “Glassy Essence” - Since my camera wasn’t working I borrowed one of Matt’s photos already posted on the Winger here.)
Over the past week I have been at the theater every single night – not performing, but watching, and writing.
With my second career (dance being the first…ideally…) starting to blossom, I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of dance writing lately, both for print and for the web, and both features and criticism. I’ve been lucky enough to see a LOT of great performances with my pen at hand recently, where before I would never have even considered looking for entertainment. Most of my life I was trained to believe that ballet was the only option, the ideal option, in the dance world. But now that I’ve joined the New York City dance scene from a position besides “student” – now being professional and a writer – I’ve had my eyes open to a slew of other opportunities just as exciting as pure ballet.
Here’s just a sampling of some of the works I’ve been to over the past week…I go through spurts of time where I hardly make it out of the studio or away from my laptop to see anything, and then I have periods where I can’t get my hands on enough tickets to the theater…like now!
There are so many performances I could include here…Ballet Tech,The Kirov, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, Yasuko Yokoshi, and more…but here are a few in detail…
*Cedar Lake’s Glassy Essence was very cool. I missed the Blogger Preview fellow Winger Matt and others posted about, but got to see it last weekend. You can see other blogger reviews here from Matt, Evan, Philip, and Tonya. And the Times review here.
An excerpt from MY review on ExploreDance.com:
As the dances come out and step off the dance floor into the crowd it’s like they purge from a magic mirror. Suddenly an idolized image becomes real. The dancer is a person, not a fixture on an untouchable stage. And yet they remain in their own reflective world, refusing to make eye contact but sifting through the audience with high sensitivity. The audience revokes as if the dancers’ auras cast them aside…
(Petronio’s “Beauty and the Brut” photo by Chris Woltmann)
*Stephen Petronio’s Company at the Joyce a few weeks ago was also great, in a different way.
My review excerpt (full review here):
His style changes throughout the evening, keeping the eye intrigued. A common theme is his juxtaposition of movement versus stillness, where a single dancer holds a pose as if anchoring down the nearby storm of legs and arms. His dancers often cringe and repulse as if a weighted marble were traveling through their bodies. It falls out of nowhere, slips through the path of their veins, gains momentum, and rolls out a fingernail or toe for eternity.
(Take’s “Looking for Water” photo by Phil Echo)
*I also went to a blogger preview of Take Dance, a company founded by former Paul Taylor dancer Takehiro Ueyama. Their performances will be at the Miller Theater at Columbia University May 15-17 at 8pm. He also has a piece in The New School’s spring performance at Ailey next weekend.
It was such a nice morning. Take’s choreography is very free and released, with lots of swinging and throwing of the body. All the dancers looked like they were enjoying themselves so much. It seemed so natural for them, almost to the point that they were so comfortable it seemed they good be improvising just from their own internal impulses of movement. I wanted to get up and move! Everyone was extremely gracious, and we even got pieces of bamboo symbolizing good luck as a departing gift.
It was interesting to see the process as well, as they worked through lifts and tough spots in between running the pieces. Being that close to the dancers was cool too, because you could share their energy entirely, feeling the landing of their jumps through the floor of the Duke studios.
With the obsession of our culture with behind the scenes action (“the making of…” special features on DVD’s, outtakes, blogs, etc) it seems so right that dance companies reach out like this and expose their process. Through open rehearsals like Take’s or online outreach like Cedar Lake’s glassyessence.com, the creative internal processes of the dance world are starting to spread. Isn’t it what happens behind the curtain what makes life interesting for us artists?
Writing about dance has given me new ways of accessing performances and thinking about these issues surrounding dance. Does anyone else find it easier to understand abstract movement when translating to words? I’d be interested to hear about other people’s opinions and experiences at these and other performances!
A Preview - Rebecca Kelly Ballet
As I’ve mentioned before, recently I’ve been dancing as an apprentice/understudy with Rebecca Kelly Ballet, a small contemporary company here in NYC. Their performances are this weekend at the Gerald Lynch Theater at John Jay College, so if you’re in the city try to swing by and see them! I’m not performing, but it’s sure to be a great program.
I wrote a full preview article for ExploreDance.com that should be up soon, but here’s a taste of what to expect from the thematic ballets…
(Therese Wendler in “Adirondack Elemental”)
“I always have much to say about what is on my mind that generates the energy for creation,” says choreographer Rebecca Kelly, whose 27-year old contemporary ballet company will present its theme driven spring performances April 24-26. “But my words are usually directed to the dancers to encourage them to go deep to understand the motivation behind the piece, to find something that rings true to them, or to find what they have to bring to the idea.” Rebecca Kelly Ballet distinguishes itself with a force of culturally significant issues behind the dancing. “Or just to help them be courageous,” she adds, “because it takes great courage to be a dancer.”
This courage is explored in the first ballet on the program, the premiere of “Writing in Water.” A metaphor for the ephemeral nature of dance, the work features 5 dancers intertwining in various combinations and phrases to music from Beethoven’s “Grosse Fugue.” The concept motivating the piece is that a performance is a moment in time you can never get back. Like trying to write in water, it is fleeting, transient, and gone almost quicker than it came. That feeling when you surface into the spotlight, out of the shadows of the darkness drowning you and into a state where no thought occurs but being alive – it can never be felt the same again. And if someone missed seeing you dance, that moment can never be returned. You are back in the endless stream of dancers in New York City wading desperately through to reach your dreams, resisting the tide of failure and rarely coming up for air.
This is the piece I have been understudying, and from my (admittedly biased) point of view it is amazing. The process was fascinating to be a part of, observing the development of relationships amongst the dancers onstage and their reactions to space and movement within context. If you’re a dancer you’d definitely be able to appreciate its message.
(”Long Time Passing” photo by Adrian Buckmaster)
Passionate about issues outside the world of dance, Rebecca will also present a heart rending work relating to the Iraq War, called “Long Time Passing.” Exhibiting particular cultural and emotional depth today, it is based on a series of letters received from Iraq from First Lieutenant Nolan Albarelli, brother of company dancer Kate Albarelli. “It was his words and his eyes, his bravery and despair, and his humanity that he was able to share with me that caused this dance to come into being,” says Rebecca, “back here, safely in the U.S.”
(”Tear of the Clouds” photo by Todd Bissonette)
The ideas behind her choreography are what she stresses most, and it is quite obvious from her extensive repertoire that environmental concerns are also at the top of her agenda. Timed for the celebration of Earth Week, the season’s program includes two ballets reflecting earthly themes. “Adirondack Elemental” is a ballet in three sections: Water, Earth (see excerpt here), and Air. Together the segments, through meaningful movement, bring awareness to nature’s beauty. “Tear of the Clouds,” her first environmental ballet choreographed in 1989 returns to complete the 2008 program, depicting the slow death of a forest from acid rain.
The program is ambitious in its tackling of such a range of hot topics, but Rebecca’s enthusiasm and the great dancers should make for an evening of deep thought within dance, an effective medium for expression of such important themes.
I’ve learned so much from understudying and working with them, and I’m looking forward to seeing the final result of all the work in rehearsals this weekend.
The details: The Gerald Lynch Theater of John Jay College (899 10th Avenue at 58th St, NYC.) April 24-26 Thursday at 7:30pm, & Friday and Saturday, at 8pm. For tickets call Ticket Central: 212-279-4200. (416 W 42nd St., 12-8pm) or click here. Student and Senior discounts are available, and student rush tickets - so take the time to go!
More Winger updates from my crazy life coming soon…
For now you can see some recent reviews I’ve written for ExploreDance here (Ballet Tech’s Mandance) and here (Stephen Petronio).
Catching Up
Wow, I’m way behind on my blogging this month! I try to update often, and then somewhere between grad school classes, rehearsals, article deadlines, and technique classes I get lost in time! Since there’s a ton to write about since my last post, I’m going to try to keep it brief by summarizing some of the stuff that’s been going on over the past few weeks…and it’s been a lot! My goal for the next few weeks is to stay on top of my news and blog in a timely manner, haha.
*My last post was about a blogger get together hosted by movmnt magazine. Since then, I’ve already started working on my next articles for their summer issue coming out in June. I received my assignments (3 articles this time = yay!) last week, and I’m already scheduling interviews with different people from the dance world. It’s so cool that I get the chance to speak to such interesting people and share their stories…that’s one of the things I love about writing, especially writing about dance.
movmnt magazine spring 2008 cover, courtesy of David Benaym, movmnt magazine
blogger get-together at movmnt’s office
Speaking of writing about dance, did anyone hear about how the LA Times recently eliminated their Chief Dance Critic position, held by Lewis Segal? Given all my research on dance criticism last semester and my aspirations to continue to write about dance in the future, I’d say this is a huge let down. Apparently staff cuts at the newspaper made them drop the position…it’s too bad dance isn’t given all the publicity it’s worth!
*Rehearsals started the past few weeks for Rebecca Kelly Ballet, a contemporary ballet company I’m apprenticing with. More on this in another post to come, but their season is at the end of April and it’s going to be a great one! I’m just an understudy at the moment, but their whole rehearsal process, especially of their new work, is so interesting. It’s so great to have the opportunity to learn like this…
*I’m teaching! One of my teachers at school last semester runs a dance program at this NYC public high school, and she asked me to choreograph for their spring performance in May. It’s my first (feeble) attempt at choreography besides little solos for myself back when I was younger, but it’s fun so far. The group of kids is a mixed bag of high school juniors and seniors with various levels of dance training, so it’s been a challenge to adapt my ideas to suit them, but my piece is coming along. I’m using the theme song from the American Beauty soundtrack (love that music…I danced my first pas de deux that I ever performed onstage to it back many many summer intensives ago) and we’re about 2 minutes into the dance. I only get to work with them once a week (and half the allotted time is spent giving a warm up class), but we’re pulling it together.
*In spite of all the craziness of my schedule I found time last week to take a quick getaway “vacation” to see two of my best friends out in Salt Lake City. They’re at the University of Utah in the ballet program now, but even though they are far away from me I still consider them some of my closest friends (we were roommates at The Rock School…when you live, eat, sleep, go to school with fellow dancers you become like sisters!) It was refreshing to experience the mountains of the west for the first time and I came back to New York after only 3 days feeling renewed and inspired.
being inspired by the mountains in Salt Lake City
*My teacher that I work with most often (okay, obsessively often) recently started putting together these little student showcases that will happen every 3 months or so to give her adult students a chance to experience performing. It’s nothing major, and only held in a big studio with a fairly small audience, but we had our first one at the end of February. We performed an excerpt from Swan Lake, and I did the Gamzatti Variation from La Bayadere. It was fun…
This time around she got a “real” choreographer to come in to create a new solo on me that he’ll use for his demo reel as well. We had our first rehearsal yesterday and it’s definitely interesting…more details to come as we progress. Also, I’m officially her “webmaster” now, and we send out a bi-weekly newsletter with dance news and info about her classes/students, which is always amusing. Subscribe if you’re interested, or just check the archives.
Sorry to be so sporadic in this post, but that’s kind of how my life has been since I finished college in January! There’s more to catch up on but I’ll leave that for another post sometime soon…I have so many things going on and so many different schedules and dates running through my mind that it’s hard to keep it straight. I thrive off being busy, though, and I wouldn’t change a thing!
