From today’s Ballet 2 class:
Jeté – Temps levé – Jeté – Jeté
Glissade – assemblé – sissone fermé – changement
Now on the left.
Awesome!
Archive for March, 2009
Today’s Petite Allegro Combination
Posted in The Dancing Life with tags Ballet Comb on March 29, 2009 by KarmelaSummer Schedule
Posted in Classes, Motherhood and Dancing, The Dancing Life on March 29, 2009 by KarmelaEven though it’s only March, I’m happy to report that I’ve finalized my kids’ summer schedules. Both Ballerina Girl and Science Boy will be going to gymnastics camp three mornings a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for three hours each. Then on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, SB is off to ballet camp for two hours, and BG alternately to Musical Theater and Ballet/Tap for one hour. And nothing for the weekend! Yay!
As for me, I’m hoping to take a stretch class and start lifting again, but when? Already I go to four classes a week. DH will kill me if I add any more classes.
Ballet On the Three
Posted in The Dancing Life with tags Ballet Class on March 21, 2009 by KarmelaSo I’ve been going to Ballet II (kind of like an “Intermediate Beginner”) since November. I advanced pretty quickly from Ballet I to Ballet II (I kind of moved myself up at the encouragement of a teacher) and while I found the Ballet II class to be very challenging at first, I acclimated after about four classes and caught up to the rhythm.
Now, I feel that the Ballet II class may be getting a little too…comfortable. It’s not boring, don’t get me wrong. But the teachers rarely change the combinations from week to week (which is bad for my brain) and don’t really teach us any new tricks (why no sissones? Chaines turns?)
So I feel like it’s time for me to go to a Ballet III (“advanced beginner”) class. One of my teachers teaches on on Friday nights and I’m thinking of attending.
Cross fingers that I don’t fall face-first on my first try. Still haven’t 100% completely made up my mind to go, but since I got an unlimited-class card (yeah, I forgot to write about this, didn’t I?) I’m not really going to lose anything by going. And a whole lot to gain.
We’ll see…
Folk Dance Workshop
Posted in Choreographers, Classes with tags Don Verde, Filipino Folk Dance, Workshop on March 11, 2009 by KarmelaFor the longest time I’ve been wanting to educate myself on Filipino folk dancing in a more academic way. Up to now my participation centered more around the actual dancing and choreography and less about the anthropology and background of the dances. But I’ve been wanting to dig deeper for a long time now and have fretted about the fact that despite the large Fil-Am community in my area, no one seemed both knowledgeable enough about the subject and willing to donate their time to do some education and outreach.
Until now! I’m happy to report that Don Verde, former dancer with the Philippine Performing Arts Co. of Tampa, will be giving a workshop on this very subject in two weeks. Should be interesting and fun. After a lecture on a selection of dances, it’ll be giddup-and-dance time where he’ll make the participants create their own interpretation of some of the more popular dances. Really looking forward to it.
If anyone is interested in attending, let me know and I’ll send you the 411.
Rehearsals, Rehearsals & More Rehearsals
Posted in Performances with tags Filipino Folk Dancing, GWU PCS, Rehearsals on March 9, 2009 by KarmelaRehearsals for my collegiate folk dance troupe are in full swing. I went four hours Friday and three hours Saturday, and I’m going again tonight for another four hours. Whew! It’s exhausting. Especially since my hay fever has returned with a vengeance. Hope FloNase works wonders.
The kids and I will have a respite during spring break when everyone parties hard in Florida goes home to see their parents for a week. Looking forward to it.
Filipino Parents: Dream Killers?
Posted in Motherhood and Dancing on March 6, 2009 by KarmelaHeard during folk dance rehearsal the last couple of weeks:
“I want to be a filmmaker but my parents said no.”
“I wanted to be a dancer but my mom put the kibosh on that.”
I myself wanted to be a dancer when I was a little girl. I knew of a guy who wanted to pursue painting. In both cases, our parents squashed those ideas. Thinking about that now, it’s a wonder that the Philippines produces any artistic people. We do, and in droves too. Filipinos are known as the “Entertainers of Asia.” The original Miss Saigon is Filipino, and she was also the singing voice of Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin. You won’t find a bar in Hong Kong or Bangkok or Tokyo that doesn’t have a Filipino house band or singer who can perform every type of music. So against all odds, lots of Filipinos somehow manage to pursue their artistic dreams despite crushing parental opposition. But, and yeah, I’m gonna say it, maybe those early parental pressures are the reason why our artistic people aren’t THAT creative. Yeah we’re good singers and dancers, but we don’t have our own sound or artistic medium or dance form past the 1800s. We never grew artistically, and maybe it’s because of our mothers’ collective voices inside our heads saying, “If you’re gonna be a singer, you should at least copy what’s already successful.”
Could that be why our art forms never evolved into something fresh or modern or original? Why we never developed anything contemporary to call our own? Our biggest international celebrity right now, Arnel Pineda, is basically a cover singer.
Which is a roundabout way of me making this point: now that I’m a parent, I can totally see why artistic dreams get squashed. That life is hard and unforgiving. Of course we don’t want that for our kids. But on the flipside, I still remember the pain when my mother declared that I was done with ballet classes. And I don’t want that for my kids either.
A Ballet For Boys
Posted in The Dancing Life with tags Science Boy, Tom Sawyer on March 5, 2009 by KarmelaEvery ballet I’ve ever seen is populated with a majority of girly-girl characters. Check out the swans in Swan Lake and the dolls in the Nutcracker. Rare is the ballet with a majority of boy characters.
An exception to this is Science Boy’s ballet school’s spring production of Tom Sawyer, an original ballet choreographed by his teacher (a guy). And boy, is it ever loaded with boy parts. And I’m not talking “boy” in the gender sense. I’m talking, well, check this out: the two leads, Tom and Huck, are of course boys. But there are skeletons, stalactites and bugs. See what I mean? All that’s missing are pirates and Transformers. Not a fairy princess in sight.
It’s too bad SB isn’t in the production. He would have probably been cast one of the “schoolboys” with the other boys in his school. As it is, there are two girls in addition to the four boys playing “schoolboys,” but most of the stalactites et. al. are girls.
I haven’t seen it yet but I bet this will be a great ballet for the boys. Let’s hope the school stages the production again sometime in the future when SB is ready to perform.
I Melt With You
Posted in The Dancing Life with tags Latin Jazz on March 4, 2009 by KarmelaDid I tell you all I’m taking an Advanced Latin Jazz class with Lady Glissade? It has got to be one of the funnest dance classes I’ve ever taken for two distinct reasons: it’s not as regimented as ballet and hip hop, yet I’m still learning skills.
What do I mean? I’ve never thought of myself as a stiff person but my teacher is having us do tons of melting and curling down. No straight backs like in ballet, no locking like in hip hop. And you know what? I’m having a bit of a hard time making my body flow the way my teacher wants me to. Even our pirouettes are a little on the wild side with arms flung high in the air. Weeee!
I shall get better, yes I shall. I hope. With lots of practices and more classes. Now if only I can drink a couple of shots of tequila before class. I bet I wouldn’t have any problems melting then. Heh.
Good Practice, Bad Practice
Posted in The Dancing Life with tags Folk on March 2, 2009 by KarmelaHad a really fantastic practice with my alumni folk dance troupe last Friday night. All the ladies, even especially the ones who were having the most difficult time, displayed such wonderful determination and willingness to work at it. Am so proud of all of them.
Contrast this practice with the one two Fridays ago. Different set of dancers there. Half of them didn’t show up, half were an hour late, and when practice did commence I could tell that two of them very clearly did not want to be there.
I had a short talk with the offenders during break. I swear, if I get this attitude one more time I’m kicking them out of the dance. We’re all volunteers here. If you don’t want to dance, then don’t. No one is twisting your arm to be here.
Next practice on Friday is with the offenders yet again. We’ll see how it goes.
