Photo Credit: Phil Wayes

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Ballet Saturday

I started off yesterday morning with a ballet class from Kim Stafford. I was so glad I went-- her class was so much fun! I took the entire class en pointe and felt great (Thought I was going to have an "off" day, but surprised myself...don't you love when that happens?). She gave me some great tips on traveling fouette turns, which was to keep spotting in the direction I was traveling instead of forward (Pirouettes and fouettes are the only turns that I spot to the front; but that caused me to "hop" in traveling fouettes)-- so much easier! M from my company was there (and is awesome at fouettes), and after class we ran to Starbucks to have a coffee and catch up. After that, I was off to ...

... the first rehearsal for Moscow's Nutcracker. There was one woman managing twenty-seven cast members, on whom she set five or six different ensemble roles in ...wait for it... under two hours. Wow! I assisted in the rehearsal for the party scene, then went to learn one of my parts (I got an extra role in Act 1 yesterday!), then went into the snowflake rehearsal (two of the little girls from the school are snowflakes). After they learned it, I got to help them rehearse while the director worked with the angels. They are an adorable group of kiddos, those snowflakes.
I could see a parent observing through the two-way glass, and after the rehearsal ended he came up and introduced himself (he has two daughters in the cast, one of whom was a snowflake). He and his wife told me that they had seen me in the audition last week and that "you looked so much taller." "Really?" "SO much taller-- I thought you were five nine!" I laughed and said that I get that a lot-- I'm often told I look taller on stage/in photos/from the observation deck.* It turns out that they were happy to see that I'm small: they're snowflake is very tiny, and I guess she was worried about being too small for dance. I told her that I learned how to "move big" so that I would look taller when dancing, and that being small is actually very useful for dance.** :-) This week I'm borrowing a DVD of the show so Elle and I can work on our part (and I can help out the younger ones if there are questions about their choreography).

While I was rehearsing, the studio company was doing a show out in Katy. I'm sorry to have missed it, but I heard that they did a wonderful job! Congratulations, girls!

And now off to Ensemble rehearsal....

* I met KraftyMommas at the Rice Harvest Festival at her awesome boutique, the Pink Zebra. She had seen my blog but told me I looked taller in my photo. By the way, the Pink Zebra? Is adorable.
** Countdown until my stalker makes a crack about my height. WAIT for it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey, I resemble that comment!! :0)
I fully understand, how a small-in-stature person can DANCE BIG. You hit the nail on the head. And I am proud of all you do. Go tiny snowflakes!!!
:0) Trevor