Ballet Central Diary

Finished

I'm finished! My big, fat dissertation has been finished. Oh joy of joyous joys!

I'm not dead

Hello weblog readers,
you may have noticed that my fellow bloggers have been busily updating their entries while mine have been conspicuous by their absence.
While Katherine and Julia are wonderfully prepared and organised, I have been sweating over my dissertation deadline. Only one part and 2000 or so words to go now, which judging from the way I am rambling on here shouldn't be hard.
So, what has been happening on planet Bob then? I suppose the first thing was the Linbury. We had a wonderfully early start, but then ended up waiting around for ages blinking in the artificial light of the underground studio, then went for an explore round the opera house. Needless to say, it is an amazing place with facilities our wee company could only dream about. The floors are sprung, the studios are huge and the whole ballet part of the house is heated to higher than normal temperatures so that the dancers don't cool down too much and get injured. Wow.

We had been very well rehearsed for what is our gala performance, but I was in a new place in Giselle and to be honest, by the end of rehearsals I was absolutely exhausted. I began to wonder (doing it a lot now) how I'd make it through the show. Fortunately apple juice and energy bars took me through as well as copious amounts of adrenaline.
The final verdict seems to have been that we did a decent job at it and personally Cinderella went well, supposedly the best it's been so far (until Grantham that is; haha) and birds was hilarious -things went wrong, but I had fun.
At the end of the show we packed all of our stuff onto the van and just as the final part was loaded on a cry of 'Where are the stress pigs?' went up. After a moment of confusion I remembered that they were safely penned at my place and rushed back to the dressing room to grab them. I sprinted back along the long white corridors of the opera house, huge metal support struts and scenery caged behind black mesh rushing past on my right, but as I opened the door to the scenery dock, the door to the lift slammed shut. I rapped on the dull metal, but the mechanism had ground into life and noone heard (or cared) about the absence of David and Davina. We were lost. The three of us walked with heavy legs and hearts back to the changing room and then left the opera house, quite possibly for the last time.
It's a very strange experience leaving the opera house by the stage door. Felt like a bit of a fake somehow, but I enjoyed it while it lasted and almost fell asleep talking to everyone outside. We got the next day off. It was needed.
What next? I have been receiving coaching from our Director on my graduation solo which has helped immensely. Still not performing it with much distinction, but lets see how it turns out. As MacMillan is probably my favourite choreographer I feel privileged to be doing it, but there's pressure there to be of a good standard when I present it.
The next few shows were harder. The theatre at Kent university (coincidentally the place that my Dad received his higher education) was a bit of a nightmare; like a balloon with 2 wings at the air hole. It made entrances and exits rather difficult, but it was a beautiful day and we did the best we could. That venue was also notable for having possibly the smallest dressing room I have ever been in. Think of a really small toilet, now remove the toilet, now add 6 boys. Nasty thought isn't it. We basically had to take turns, one half putting on their costumes while the other half tried not to get bludgeoned.
Grantham, birthplace of Margaret Thatcher boasted the town sign, was okay. I was in a new place for an injured member of the cast and was rather worried by the idea. I was also in my old place in 'Going South' (no sniggering), but I'm rubbish at it now. There was an exceedingly exciting part of our trip though: there was a Morrisons! No more the tyranny of Sainsbury Local and Tesco Metro. No more London economy with its stupidly expensive chewing gum. Just good, honest food, clothes, electrical equipment, music, films and cookware at rediculous prices; with a voiceover with Sean Bean. What more could you want? Reason number? I'd better get some commission for this.
Last night we were in Chipping Norton and I experienced a 21 hour day. Woke up at 5.30 to get ready for the bus (at 7am) and one safely on, failed horribly to sleep. The theatre was small, but perfectly formed and there was a farmers market in the centre to distract us all.
We had our usual spacing issues and had to mark out the slight recess where the trapdoor sat. Some choreography was altered slightly to allow us not to kill each other and off we went. Due to yet another injury scare, I ended up in 5 pieces and again before the show I wondered how I was going to do it.
You know what? It wasn't so bad. Laughter is better than red bull at waking me up and we had a great audience. My new part in Moving On went very well and after a quick change from Cinderella into Jazz (first time this year) I really went for it on the entrance. I nearly did a backflip and landed on my head. It could have been a disaster, but I recovered and came up giggling, as did the rest of the cast, crew and audience. Beautiful.
Giselle was okay in its new form. There was an unnerving moment before I did the double tour and pirouette where I felt the floor and thought "Uh oh. Trapdoor." I'm still here. I really enjoyed the final piece and although the day was murder, I have some good memories.
Got back at 1.30. Went out for chips. Here endeth the lesson.
Until the next exciting installment, (and we are going to Scotland, so who knows if I'll be able to write down what happens) I will leave you.
Adios,
Robert

Ice Packs and Opera Houses!

Life has been a bit boring since I last wrote an entry; it’s really consisted of icing and resting my foot! I managed to get back to jumping in time for the Linbury which I was really happy about and luckily performed Going South and Waltzing is Hip. Unfortunately I’m still not doing pointe work though, which I was disappointed about as it would have been nice to perform a classical piece on such a big stage. It was really exciting being in the Royal Opera House; lots of famous dancers that we admire were called to rehearsals and costume fittings. Some of the boys even managed to watched company class and saw Darcey, Tamara and Edward Watson amongst others! The show went really well and we got lots of praise from past and present teachers. Well done everyone! The performance however was a little too much too soon for my ankle. It had been recovering well but the stress of rehearsals and the performance have set my recovery back a little so I’ll miss the next few performances. However I hope to be fully recovered (pointe work and all!) by the end of this month. I’m having this week off to give my ankle some rest and then will start to build up the amount that I do in class. I’m trying to keep in shape by cycling and doing Pilates, it’s not only good for the body but keeps me motivated and gives me something to work on. I find it hard to sit down for long enough to watch a film so the prospect of one week off would be hell without Pilates! I really take my hat off to people who have long recovery periods and manage to keep going. Another frustrating aspect to being injured is that I’m missing out on crucial auditioning time, there are a couple of good ones in the near future that I can’t do but as soon as I can I hope to get the ball rolling again. I’m also starting to think about plans after Central, it’s not a nice thing to think about at all and the thought of leaving my friends is horrible. I’m hoping to plan a trip to Europe to take company class in different places probably over the summer when I’m still in shape from being at Central. We’ll see what happens and I’ll keep you all posted. If there is a diary entry when I can announce I have a job, I will be one happy bunny!! Bye for now x

A Sigh of Relief!

I can breathe again! It was nice to have a big stage and a star studded audience, but I cannot pretend that I am not delighted to have Linbury out of the way!!! There was so much pressure on for Linbury as it was our most prestigious venue and in the run up to the show I was so nervous, which is so unlike me. However, thankfully the show was a success! After a shaky dress reheasal, trying to get accustomed to the brighter ligths, we all did ourselves proud! I danced Giselle, Moving On, St Pauls and Le Corsaire (a prospect which was giving me nightmares, despite having danced it at most previous venues!) However, all of the feedback so far has been positive and everyone was pleased, thank goodness!
Next stop is Canterbury, where I have to dance a different place in Corsaire, but Im trying my best to put off thinking about it until Monday! I am also working on my grad solo in my spare minutes so I'm a busy girl!
One exciting thing is that I have been offered a two week scholarship to the Prague summer school in August, along with fellow third year James. I was thrilled, as the teaching faculty is brilliant and it will give me something to focus on in a horizon which is distinctly devoid of a job for the moment! However, I do have a few auditions coming up, so I'll keep you posted.