I know, I know, I KNOW-- I've been slacking on updates over here. The season's performances are over, and things have been pretty slow these last few weeks. Now that I'm back at the studio for the summer semester and I'm starting a new ballet, I should have some updates coming soon. But in the meantime...
I'm going to direct you to our next blog of the weekend: Ballet Business.
The author, who blogs as *b@llet*, is a young dancer who is still in school. She discusses summer intensives, favorite choreographers, general anecdotes from studio and performing life. My favorite post is Being an Understudy, where she writes about understudying soloists in Carnival of the Animals and gives advice for other young dancers who are cast as understudies.
I'm also pleased to see a blog by a young dancer-- When I was in school, my fellow dance majors and I kept xangas where we would share our different ballet-school experiences, but lately I haven't seen a lot of those. Thanks, *b@llet*, and keep on writing!
Photo Credit: Phil Wayes
Showing posts with label Blog of the Weekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog of the Weekend. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Blog of the Weekend: A Fine Fillet
Oh, hey guys! Remember when I used to do that series, Blog of the Weekend? Yeah, I've kind of been slacking on that. Sorry, y'all.
As you well know, this blog serves to chronicle my life as a young dancer trying to Make It in this difficult profession. I also love reading the stories of other dancers-- the ones who are out there right now, writing their way through the basic day-to-day trials and triumphs of the dance industry.
Like me, she's a young bunhead who writes about her budding career: auditions, classes, performances, et cetera. She is about to graduate college (yay!) and she just landed her first apprenticeship. Let's take a moment to congratulate her on those-- and while you're at it, stop by and read her blog, because her posts are funny, well-written, and highly honest. Check it out!
As you well know, this blog serves to chronicle my life as a young dancer trying to Make It in this difficult profession. I also love reading the stories of other dancers-- the ones who are out there right now, writing their way through the basic day-to-day trials and triumphs of the dance industry.
That's why, this weekend, I present you Ballet Fillet.
Like me, she's a young bunhead who writes about her budding career: auditions, classes, performances, et cetera. She is about to graduate college (yay!) and she just landed her first apprenticeship. Let's take a moment to congratulate her on those-- and while you're at it, stop by and read her blog, because her posts are funny, well-written, and highly honest. Check it out!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Being "Out" (Plus: A Blog of the Weekend triple feature)
"Where have you been all week?"
Sorry, dear readers. The thing is that when I'm sick, I don't dance. When I don't dance, I have nothing to blog about, and you guys have nothing to read while you're slacking off at work. I got slammed with a nasty viral infection on Monday and I have not danced all week, although I'd wanted to go back today. This morning I spoke to one of the choreographers I'm working with, our conversation might have gone a little something like this:
Butterfly: Hey, I don't have the plague anymore. Can I come back to rehearsal now?
Gabriella: No.
Butterfly: Bummer. How about now?
Gabriella: Nope. Stay home and rest.
Butterfly: I did that already. It was boring.
Gabriella: Sorry. Come on Monday.
(I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Interestingly enough, I'm at Keyser's house and not at home-- I needed
So, I'm afraid I won't have any new and exciting dance stories for you until after the weekend. Can I make it up to you with a Blog Of The Weekend Triple Feature? I sure can.
Drumroll:
First up are two dance blogs by Houston writers. Dance Advantage is an informational dance blog for students, teachers, and studio owners (I share articles from Dance Advantage with my own students). Dancehunter provides interviews, previews, and reviews of performance happenings in Houston (and sometimes outside of Houston as well). These dance-related Houston blogs provide stuff that's actually useful (whereas mine is basically stories about backstage antics and jokes about booze), so that's awesome.
Next, I'm going to veer off-topic to present you Movies in Fifteen Minutes. It's hilarious and awesome and I kind of want to snuggle it a little. I've been reading through it a lot this week while I was busy not dancing, and I laughed so hard I scared the critters (Cleolinda Jones, the author, is also responsible for Cleoland, which is also rather exquisite).
Friday, April 10, 2009
Blog of the Weekend: A Good Outlook
One of my favorite dance bloggers took a hiatus a couple of months ago. She finally came back, and the blogosphere is very happy about this. So that's why this week's Blog of the Weekend is:
Selly, the author, is a bit like me: She's still dancing herself, and she writes about the day-to-day issues in a dancer's life such as rehearsals, performances, pointe shoes, and workshops/conventions (also, she likes to snark about the Twilight series and she's amused by my Yankee accent, so you know she's cool). She also writes reviews and keeps us up-to-date on things happening in the dance world such as conventions, festivals, performances aand tours by major companies, and So You Think You Can Dance (all things that this blogging-dancer has been slacking on). You can check out Parson's Dance's upcoming gala and the St. Louis Tap Festival on Dance Outlook this week (and if you're in the process of switching pointe-shoe brands at the moment-- like I am-- Selly feels your pain. Someone needs to tell Capezio that their "Extra Strong" shank just isn't that strong).
I know I need to catch up with you all on The State Of Things At Upstage Left, but it's Friday night and this Butterfly has a date to go on. In the meantime, you should go visit Dance Outlook, because there's plen-ty of stuff to keep you occupied until I get back.
Selly, the author, is a bit like me: She's still dancing herself, and she writes about the day-to-day issues in a dancer's life such as rehearsals, performances, pointe shoes, and workshops/conventions (also, she likes to snark about the Twilight series and she's amused by my Yankee accent, so you know she's cool). She also writes reviews and keeps us up-to-date on things happening in the dance world such as conventions, festivals, performances aand tours by major companies, and So You Think You Can Dance (all things that this blogging-dancer has been slacking on). You can check out Parson's Dance's upcoming gala and the St. Louis Tap Festival on Dance Outlook this week (and if you're in the process of switching pointe-shoe brands at the moment-- like I am-- Selly feels your pain. Someone needs to tell Capezio that their "Extra Strong" shank just isn't that strong).
I know I need to catch up with you all on The State Of Things At Upstage Left, but it's Friday night and this Butterfly has a date to go on. In the meantime, you should go visit Dance Outlook, because there's plen-ty of stuff to keep you occupied until I get back.
Have a safe and happy Holy Week, everyone!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Blog of the Weekend: DanceMind
As you know, the basis of my blog content is observations on the life of a professional dancer, as told by a dancer. I tell funny stories of what happens in rehearsals, sure, but I also post frustrations, questions, the less-than-fun parts of my dancing life. I spew them out, you read them, the end. Wouldn't it be cool if for every blog post, I had a mentor write back with advice, feedback and/or support? Which leads me to this week's blog of the weekend:
DanceMind, a collaboration between Performance Specialist Sana Carapellotti and an anonymous professional ballet dancer referred to only as "Janie." Janie's topics stem from her day-to-day life as a ballet dancer: rehearsals, partners, directors, performances, choreographers, costumes; the good, the bad, the ugly. Sanna responds with honest and objective feedback, advice, and techniques for making the most--and the best-- of any and every situation. Janie writes from a truly anonymous standpoint-- unlike me, since pretty much everyone in The Company knows about my blog habit-- so, lunlike me, Janie can be truly open about what she experiences, even if isn't isn't all sunshine and pretty costumes and ponies. Allow me to share some of my favorite sections with you:
Sanna asks Janie, What can you control-- and what can you not control [within a dance company]? (Janie's response)
Janie writes to Sanna about the whirlwind of showbusiness, especially in terms of having to "jump in at the last minute" for a performance piece (Sanna's response).
These posts in particular really resonated with me, but there is muc, much more where that came from.
I warned Ms. Carapellotti in advance that she would be NFUL's Blog of the Weekend,and she prepared a special post for you all, COMPLETE with a discount on her Stepping to Sleep program. How awesome is THAT? So, head over to DanceMind, read about why sleeping is important (there are reasons other than "so you aren't writing incoherent blog posts at 1am like M. Butterfly"), get Stepping to Sleep -- $10.00 off the retail price, you can't beat it-- and check out all of the wonderful posts between Sanna and Janie.
Now, if you'll excuse me.....I danced three shows today, and I kind of need to go collapse.
DanceMind, a collaboration between Performance Specialist Sana Carapellotti and an anonymous professional ballet dancer referred to only as "Janie." Janie's topics stem from her day-to-day life as a ballet dancer: rehearsals, partners, directors, performances, choreographers, costumes; the good, the bad, the ugly. Sanna responds with honest and objective feedback, advice, and techniques for making the most--and the best-- of any and every situation. Janie writes from a truly anonymous standpoint-- unlike me, since pretty much everyone in The Company knows about my blog habit-- so, lunlike me, Janie can be truly open about what she experiences, even if isn't isn't all sunshine and pretty costumes and ponies. Allow me to share some of my favorite sections with you:
Sanna asks Janie, What can you control-- and what can you not control [within a dance company]? (Janie's response)
Janie writes to Sanna about the whirlwind of showbusiness, especially in terms of having to "jump in at the last minute" for a performance piece (Sanna's response).
These posts in particular really resonated with me, but there is muc, much more where that came from.
I warned Ms. Carapellotti in advance that she would be NFUL's Blog of the Weekend,and she prepared a special post for you all, COMPLETE with a discount on her Stepping to Sleep program. How awesome is THAT? So, head over to DanceMind, read about why sleeping is important (there are reasons other than "so you aren't writing incoherent blog posts at 1am like M. Butterfly"), get Stepping to Sleep -- $10.00 off the retail price, you can't beat it-- and check out all of the wonderful posts between Sanna and Janie.
Now, if you'll excuse me.....I danced three shows today, and I kind of need to go collapse.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Blog of the Weekend: Speaking of travel....
Welcome to Blog of the weekend, v.2 (I'm aware I missed last week. Sorry)! I'll be out of town for the next two days; M and I are headed out to Austin, Texas. And speaking of traveling...
...there's a reason why I live in Houston and not in New York City. I have a pretty good love/hate relationship with the place. There are very few things I like about that city; but those are things that I like very, very, very much. And today I was looking at a blog that was all about my favorite things that Manhattan offers...to the point where I started to miss New York. And by golly, if you can pull THAT off, you fully deserve to be the Blog of the Weekend. This week, the blog of the weekend is Danciti.
In a crappy economy where most of us are too broke to buy a newspaper, it's much easier for us to keep up with the happenings around us by stealing our neighbor's wi-fi and going on the internet. Danciti is NYC's alternative media source for dance, bringing in announcements, reviews, commentaries on other articles and reviews, and any other sort of newsworthy tidbit that could be useful to a dance-savvy New Yawkah. I love their minimalist site design and the blog author's writing style. It's a great site, check it out, and see if you, too, don't start to feel just a wee bit homesick for the city that doesn't sleep.
...there's a reason why I live in Houston and not in New York City. I have a pretty good love/hate relationship with the place. There are very few things I like about that city; but those are things that I like very, very, very much. And today I was looking at a blog that was all about my favorite things that Manhattan offers...to the point where I started to miss New York. And by golly, if you can pull THAT off, you fully deserve to be the Blog of the Weekend. This week, the blog of the weekend is Danciti.
In a crappy economy where most of us are too broke to buy a newspaper, it's much easier for us to keep up with the happenings around us by stealing our neighbor's wi-fi and going on the internet. Danciti is NYC's alternative media source for dance, bringing in announcements, reviews, commentaries on other articles and reviews, and any other sort of newsworthy tidbit that could be useful to a dance-savvy New Yawkah. I love their minimalist site design and the blog author's writing style. It's a great site, check it out, and see if you, too, don't start to feel just a wee bit homesick for the city that doesn't sleep.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
New from Upstage Left: Blog of the Weekend
Welcome to my new series!
Each week I will highlight a blog that I think you all should check out during your weekly 48-hour tradition of slacking off and surfing that internet.* Yay!
What website get the honor of being NFUL's very-first Blog of the Weekend? Well, it's written by a gal who not only is an avid dancer/dance-watcher/dance-writer, but who was a criminal appelate attorney (as you know, I spend a good chunk of my time hanging out with both criminal lawyers and students of law). And... she has a book coming out called Swallow. Even better....her novel is a dark comedy (love it) written in the style of authors such as Augusten Burroughs (love it more).
So, who is it?
It's Tonya Plank from Swan Lake Samba Girl. Know what's even cooler? The most recent post [at the moment] is a review of Paul Taylor Dance Company's current City Center Season. It's even got a photo of Mr. Michael Trusnovec, who was one of my teachers at UC Davis last summer and who I loved working with.
Kick back, relax, see some dance performances, and check out Swan Lake Samba Girl while you're at it.
*Five bucks says that by the end of today, I'll have every weekend until July booked with back-to-back rehearsals. I totally just jinxed myself.
Each week I will highlight a blog that I think you all should check out during your weekly 48-hour tradition of slacking off and surfing that internet.* Yay!
What website get the honor of being NFUL's very-first Blog of the Weekend? Well, it's written by a gal who not only is an avid dancer/dance-watcher/dance-writer, but who was a criminal appelate attorney (as you know, I spend a good chunk of my time hanging out with both criminal lawyers and students of law). And... she has a book coming out called Swallow. Even better....her novel is a dark comedy (love it) written in the style of authors such as Augusten Burroughs (love it more).
So, who is it?
It's Tonya Plank from Swan Lake Samba Girl. Know what's even cooler? The most recent post [at the moment] is a review of Paul Taylor Dance Company's current City Center Season. It's even got a photo of Mr. Michael Trusnovec, who was one of my teachers at UC Davis last summer and who I loved working with.
Kick back, relax, see some dance performances, and check out Swan Lake Samba Girl while you're at it.
*Five bucks says that by the end of today, I'll have every weekend until July booked with back-to-back rehearsals. I totally just jinxed myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)