January again....
Well, its January again, and The Future (including Ballet Central's opening night and potential auditions for many company members) is that much closer.
Christmas passed in a haze of good food, games of trivial pursuit, and persuading my entire family that they really did want to watch approximately five hours of ballet on Christmas day. New Year’s Eve was spent having fun with other Ballet Central dancers and was a brilliant way to kick off 2008.
Since being back at school, life has been extremely busy. Rehearsals have started for Christopher Hampson’s piece, which has been really fun. Everyone agrees its a great piece, we love the music- Capriol Suite by Peter Warlock- some of which reminds us all of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme music- (cue thoughts of Johnny Depp......!) and the style is really interesting to get our teeth into. Its really cool working with him- he is very nice, and his choreography is so musical- which I appreciate because I get a bit stressed if I can’t hear exactly what I'm supposed to be dancing!
Rehearsals continue for the demanding Waltz of the Flowers and for David Nixon’s piece. I feel I need a lot more rehearsal in this piece- the musicality is quite controversial among the cast and I need to really get under the skin of the movement- explore it and find out what its about and how it works for me- so that is a task for the next few weeks!
An exciting occurrence this week was the release of the Ballet Central leaflet. I was apparently the most excited about it, but I feel I have reason to be grinning because I am on it twice- once with Tom in Cinderella and again (admittedly only the back of me) in Sara Matthew’s piece. Brenda is on the cover (and on the poster!) with Long in Bluebird. Its undoubtedly my five minutes of fame!
As well as all our Ballet Central rehearsals, everyone in the year has to prepare a solo to perform at graduation and write a dissertation on for the degree. Obviously, we all want to do the best we can do- apart from being extremely significant for the degree mark, the graduation performance in July is kind of your swansong at the school- all members of staff, the rest of the school and friends and family watch and it is a moving occasion in my experience. Therefore, everyone wants to choose a solo that really suits them but challenges them so that they can learn something from working on it. Initially I have chosen the Fairy Godmother’s solo from Ashton’s Cinderella because it is a beautifully lyrical solo with lovely music and lots of gorgeous epaulement. I still really like the solo, but I’m not sure if I will still do it for graduation- there are so many wonderful solos that I would like to perform, so a final decision will be delayed for as long as possible!
January and February are the two months in the year when most companies hold their auditions, so everyone is jetting off to all sorts of exciting cities including Copenhagen, Vienna and Paris. Two important auditions coming up which most people in the year will apply for is Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet Theatre. More news forthcoming!
Posted by Rym Kechacha at January 13, 2008 12:05 PM
