Vacation Week (May 2012)

You'd be amazing to know - sometimes I need a break from dance. Emotionally, this makes no sense at all. I love dance, dancing and teaching dance. However, since January, I have hardly had any time off. Just physically, it was taking its toll. Starting in April, I was teaching dance on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and rehearsing or attending dance events on most weekends. It was almost nonstop. Here's how I spent some of my time off.

At the ballet

Many of you know that I love the ballet. My mother is a former dancer with New York City Opera Ballet and we like to go to see the ballet together during the summer season. We have been attending performances of American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center for the last 20 years.

Going to the ballet with my family is no leisure activity - it is the equivalent to most people going to baseball, basketball or football event without the shouting and the beer. My family discusses and sometimes critiques (or lauds) every nuance of the performance. From the moment the curtain rises to the final curtain call, it's personal.

On Friday, May 25, we saw La Bayadere. This production was originally supposed to be this season's dream cast: Diana Vishneva, Marcello Gomes and Natalia Osipova. Almost a female Russian duel - which is also mirrored in the story of the ballet. Unfortunately, Diana Vishneva was ill for this performance and was replaced by Veronika Part. Even though Part is also Russian, she is not known to be at the same caliber as Vishneva. Nonetheless, we were interested to see how the ballet would play out.

La Bayadere is one of my favorite full-length ballets. It combines great music by Minkus with powerful dancing by all the principal dancers. Unlike ballets like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty where the male danseur is just a partnering prop, La Bayadere showcases great male partnering and bravura dancing. The female ballerinas are definitely showcased too. Nikia, the main female role, is strong and soft, while Gamzatti has a powerful temper yet shows suffering in the final act. 

I was disappointed from the beginning of the production because it seemed that the orchestra was rather thin. Literally, there not that many players in the pit. Although the orchestra played just fine, it did not have the fullness that Bayadere seems to require to produces its emotional power.

As far as dancing goes, Veronika Part did a valient job trying to fill in the expectations of an audience that came to see a "cat fight" between Vishneva and Osipova. Her dancing fit the role, it just didn't have that extra something, that x-factor, that etherial indescrible nuance which makes one cry when she is murdered and cheer when she reclaims her love in the after-life.

Even though Osipova was cast in the co-star role for this production, she was, by-far, the star onstage.  She was an aggressive princess during the ballerina showdown in the first act and she was a desperate wife-to-be in the third act.  Osipova's dancing was sharp! She took command of her role in a way that is very difficult to do from the co-star position. That being said, Ospova was awkward during her fouetté sequence...she didn't seem to extend her leg from passé to developé front while ronde-ing the leg to the side. It's a negligible moment to most people, especially with her power of presence but to my family it was something that we were discussing through intermission.

Overall, it was a great night at the ballet. It was not one of the historic, legendary performances that a balletomane would gush about for the next decade. That is the beauty of the ballet, it's a live performing art that has the potential to be everything.

Here is footage from one my favorite casts of La Bayadere (w. Julio Bocca)

Pool time

Of course I ended up at the pool with a drink in hand during the Memorial Day Weekend. It took me almost three days to start to unwind from the thoughts that sometimes swell in my head. Thoughts about marketing, web site updates, dance events, routines, performances at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, more marketing, and visions about the remainder of the year plagued almost every poolside thought.

A week without dance classes

There was part of me that was very happy to be "off the clock" but there was also a part of me that was very happy to have kept my regularly scheduled private lessons with people who were eager to learn.

The World Science Festival

During this "vacation", Anna bought tickets to the World Science Festival in New York City. We attended two interesting seminars. The first was about the Coral Reefs and Bioluminescence which was held at the American Museum of Natural History. It started with a panel discussion by two experts, then an arty-abstract movie in the Hayden Planetarium, and a sneak peak at the new exhibit.

The second evening seminar was about Quantum Biology. This seminar-only event was awesome.  Whereas one can easily view and understand a coral reef, one can not see or directly interact with Quantum Biology. Most of the discussion was theoretical and hardly 100 percent conclusive. However, the discussion was extremely entertaining and mentally "expanding".

Oddly enough, the seminars at the World Science Festival probably did more for my dance business than anything else during the week.

Birthday

As I write this, my birthday day is passing. Birthdays are always emotionally interesting. Sometimes I want solace to reflect on the time that I have been alive and how to shape the future time to come. I always try to thank my parents for being wonderful designers of life. And sometimes, I long for people around me, the sense of belonging that most humans tend to crave. Even though this is my actual birthday, I'll get to be around many people who are important to me this week at my dance classes. It will be a great time to return after my short repose. Hopefully, see you soon.