Happy Birthday, Ms. Kirkland.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Part 3: at the theater
The hours before the show!
Following our onstage warm-up barre, my class and I returned back to our section of the green room.
Literally within 5 minutes - we didn't even have time to grab food (graciously provided by parent volunteers) - we were called onstage again for a pointe warm up. The other dancers (who had been waiting through our warm-up barre onstage) had already started by the time my class and I were able to put on pointe shoes and run and join them. Warm-ups on stage are fun (for me, anyway) and I believe they help to familiarize one with the stage as well as become comfortably acquainted with the space that will soon be performed in. I feel that these warm ups helped exactly to do this for me, and I was very happy to have the feeling of that control of making a place your own. The experiences you have in a performing space greatly affect your overall feelings/emotions and inevitably your performance later on. You have to keep a positive mindset, accepting that mistakes WILL happen during rehearsals onstage and even that that is a good thing. Perfect dress rehearsal = bad show! Bad dress rehearsals = good show. It's really true, and I've seen it proven so many times.
I left the pointe warm up a few minutes early to prepare for dress rehearsal which was starting shortly. My class and I were starting off in the 2nd number, hence a possible sense of rush! I fixed hair, put on all makeup, got costumes stuff together, and prepared to get ready to go on. I definitely had a concerned focus for my first number as it is a difficult Bournonville style ballet which requires great control and strength. From the beginning to the end, the excerpts we performed from Le Conservatoire require extreme control, precision, and self-containment while still expressing love, happiness, joy and energy. The first part of the piece starts with a slow adagio - flowing arms, slow grande plies, legs held, extended a la seconde (to the side), and generally slow movements can easily throw anybody, especially if you're nervous. It's hard enough in daily class for most dancers as it is, but onstage, with no mirror and and audience...! (I probably don't even need to say that most of us were seriously intimidated by it all.) The second part picks up in tempo though still keeping a sense of the movement in the opening adagio section, but adds bouncy movement and grande battments, which as the ballet dictionary states is: "An exercise
in
which the working leg is raised
from the hip into the air
and brought down again, the
accent being on the downward
movement, both knees straight.
This must be done with apparent
ease, the rest of the body
remaining quiet." The heightened excitement of being onstage and in front of people, while also worrying about getting everything just right in the exact order can lead to nerves and shaky muscles, and you might end up feeling like you just can't do it. You fall off your supporting leg or otherwise mess up, etc. It unfortunately just happens with those annoying feelings of stage fright/jitters!
During our rehearsal for tech I had just that problem, and I wasn't the only one. The adagio section is so difficult and set up in a way that it is very controlled. It has such major weight shifts and transfers that pose as a challenge and make it so that it's almost all you can do to not fall off of your leg. In fact, our Bournonville specialist and instructor Ms. Elver had warned us of how we would feel onstage. "I know", she said, from her previous experience of dancing 32 years with the Royal Danish Ballet of Denmark. When nervous, you get light and "above your body", losing the weight of the movement. To counteract this, you want to feel like a tree rooting into the ground and the stage. You need to focus on feeling that grounded connection to the ground and through the floor to help stay strong and steady.
Like I've said before, bad rehearsals mean good shows. For me, it's very important to make every possible mistake my second-guessing pre-performance-stressed-out brain can think of before the actual show! It's a relief to know "okay, I did that here this time, but now I know that this goes this way" or "this can happen this way but I know that I can correct it this way" etc, etc, ad infinitum! For tech, it was one of those. My legs were really shaky first time onstage for Le Conservatoire - our first day at the theater. Once we got to the grande battements, I just couldn't do them! They physically wouldn't happen. It's personally disappointing when something goes wrong and you obviously know that you can do it! But, tech day is tech day, and you move on and do the best you can. Don't make yourself crazy (lol, what am I saying?! It's dancers we're talking about here. They obsess and dwell and then obsess some more! But that how things can be perfected.). Everyone was slightly low coming off of that piece, because we all felt that it was junk for that run through. But our teacher was actually happy with all of the run throughs which included the following rehearsals, and tried to banish any negative thoughts of "we don't look good".
The day of the show as we got through our pieces and others went through theirs, I'd say the day went by tolerably well. I wasn't in the 2nd act, which was actually nice because I was able to watch pieces from the audience, and even surreptitiously record video to help friends analyze their performance and see what they might need to correct if needed. See below some videos of dress rehearsal - "Girlfriends" and "Little Red Riding Hood" from Sleeping Beauty. You'll notice in the 2nd video the technical problems that can happen as they figure out lighting, sound, etc! Enjoy...
"Girlfriends" part 1:
"Girlfriends" part 2:
"Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf":
Following our onstage warm-up barre, my class and I returned back to our section of the green room.
 |
| Our teeny weeny dressing room section (for about 6 or 7 of us!) |
Literally within 5 minutes - we didn't even have time to grab food (graciously provided by parent volunteers) - we were called onstage again for a pointe warm up. The other dancers (who had been waiting through our warm-up barre onstage) had already started by the time my class and I were able to put on pointe shoes and run and join them. Warm-ups on stage are fun (for me, anyway) and I believe they help to familiarize one with the stage as well as become comfortably acquainted with the space that will soon be performed in. I feel that these warm ups helped exactly to do this for me, and I was very happy to have the feeling of that control of making a place your own. The experiences you have in a performing space greatly affect your overall feelings/emotions and inevitably your performance later on. You have to keep a positive mindset, accepting that mistakes WILL happen during rehearsals onstage and even that that is a good thing. Perfect dress rehearsal = bad show! Bad dress rehearsals = good show. It's really true, and I've seen it proven so many times.
I left the pointe warm up a few minutes early to prepare for dress rehearsal which was starting shortly. My class and I were starting off in the 2nd number, hence a possible sense of rush! I fixed hair, put on all makeup, got costumes stuff together, and prepared to get ready to go on. I definitely had a concerned focus for my first number as it is a difficult Bournonville style ballet which requires great control and strength. From the beginning to the end, the excerpts we performed from Le Conservatoire require extreme control, precision, and self-containment while still expressing love, happiness, joy and energy. The first part of the piece starts with a slow adagio - flowing arms, slow grande plies, legs held, extended a la seconde (to the side), and generally slow movements can easily throw anybody, especially if you're nervous. It's hard enough in daily class for most dancers as it is, but onstage, with no mirror and and audience...! (I probably don't even need to say that most of us were seriously intimidated by it all.) The second part picks up in tempo though still keeping a sense of the movement in the opening adagio section, but adds bouncy movement and grande battments, which as the ballet dictionary states is: "An exercise
in
which the working leg is raised
from the hip into the air
and brought down again, the
accent being on the downward
movement, both knees straight.
This must be done with apparent
ease, the rest of the body
remaining quiet." The heightened excitement of being onstage and in front of people, while also worrying about getting everything just right in the exact order can lead to nerves and shaky muscles, and you might end up feeling like you just can't do it. You fall off your supporting leg or otherwise mess up, etc. It unfortunately just happens with those annoying feelings of stage fright/jitters! During our rehearsal for tech I had just that problem, and I wasn't the only one. The adagio section is so difficult and set up in a way that it is very controlled. It has such major weight shifts and transfers that pose as a challenge and make it so that it's almost all you can do to not fall off of your leg. In fact, our Bournonville specialist and instructor Ms. Elver had warned us of how we would feel onstage. "I know", she said, from her previous experience of dancing 32 years with the Royal Danish Ballet of Denmark. When nervous, you get light and "above your body", losing the weight of the movement. To counteract this, you want to feel like a tree rooting into the ground and the stage. You need to focus on feeling that grounded connection to the ground and through the floor to help stay strong and steady.
Like I've said before, bad rehearsals mean good shows. For me, it's very important to make every possible mistake my second-guessing pre-performance-stressed-out brain can think of before the actual show! It's a relief to know "okay, I did that here this time, but now I know that this goes this way" or "this can happen this way but I know that I can correct it this way" etc, etc, ad infinitum! For tech, it was one of those. My legs were really shaky first time onstage for Le Conservatoire - our first day at the theater. Once we got to the grande battements, I just couldn't do them! They physically wouldn't happen. It's personally disappointing when something goes wrong and you obviously know that you can do it! But, tech day is tech day, and you move on and do the best you can. Don't make yourself crazy (lol, what am I saying?! It's dancers we're talking about here. They obsess and dwell and then obsess some more! But that how things can be perfected.). Everyone was slightly low coming off of that piece, because we all felt that it was junk for that run through. But our teacher was actually happy with all of the run throughs which included the following rehearsals, and tried to banish any negative thoughts of "we don't look good".
The day of the show as we got through our pieces and others went through theirs, I'd say the day went by tolerably well. I wasn't in the 2nd act, which was actually nice because I was able to watch pieces from the audience, and even surreptitiously record video to help friends analyze their performance and see what they might need to correct if needed. See below some videos of dress rehearsal - "Girlfriends" and "Little Red Riding Hood" from Sleeping Beauty. You'll notice in the 2nd video the technical problems that can happen as they figure out lighting, sound, etc! Enjoy...
"Girlfriends" part 1:
"Girlfriends" part 2:
"Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf":
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Part 2: at the theater
Day 2 of being at the theater was scheduled to bring dress rehearsal and then the performance in the evening. We actually were starting morning classes later in the morning than usual, which was nice. I got up a little after 7 and was at the studio by 8:30. Core was supposed to start at 9:30, so I began to warm up accordingly, chatting with classmates as they came in. The morning was going smoothly, and around 9 I left the studio to fill my water bottle. A classmate stopped me as I was going back and said they wanted me for costuming. I literally put my water bottle inside the door and went to studio 2, full of costumes and sewing supplies! Our Hungarian costumes for our character piece had arrived after much delay from Texas. They were gorgeous - lovely bodices, full pale green skirts, and attractive puffy white sleeves - quite "noble". The only drawback was that they really were not finished. And unfortunately too, many costumes had been made to the wrong size despite our being fitted meticulously a few weeks previously.
After I tried my costume on and had needed alterations marked by pins (while watching my warm-up time slip away - a good half hour of it!), I was able to hurriedly slip away and go back to my classroom. Core had already started, of course. I told another classmate that she was needed for her fitting and then guiltily joined in with the others. Not even 5 minutes went by before the directors came in and announced due to the costume fitting/alterations they would have to cancel our warm up we were presently doing. We all filed into studio 2 and began working on our very much unfinished costumes. Commence the feverish pinning and switching of costumes to see what would better fit who! We were very blessed to have an amazing seamstress, Judy Kahn from NJ, who directed the alterations and had been up the entire night sewing the costumes that had been received by mail. She was the result of an all-out search for a seamstress the day before when the pieces had finally arrived, and from the time she had received the costumes in the afternoon the day before until when she got the costumes to the studio she had been sewing them. She told us she had had a team sewing at her house until midnight, and afterward she had taken over from there.
We began to help as we could, even missing our technique class to do so. I helped to finish headpieces, and then began to work on sewing hooks and snaps on the skirts. By the time most of us were finished, nearly everyone had left for the theater, where we needed to be by 1. In my fuzzy memory, the time was probably around 11:30 and noon or so. I gathered my stuff quickly and took the train uptown to the theater with 2 of my classmates. Upon arriving, we dumped stuff quickly in our green room and hurried onstage to take the warm up class we were unable to have back at the studios with our scheduled teacher. It was a nice small barre and helped me to feel not so stiff after a morning of really doing nothing except stressing and sewing!
More to come about dress rehearsal and the show!
For now, check out the photos below...
After I tried my costume on and had needed alterations marked by pins (while watching my warm-up time slip away - a good half hour of it!), I was able to hurriedly slip away and go back to my classroom. Core had already started, of course. I told another classmate that she was needed for her fitting and then guiltily joined in with the others. Not even 5 minutes went by before the directors came in and announced due to the costume fitting/alterations they would have to cancel our warm up we were presently doing. We all filed into studio 2 and began working on our very much unfinished costumes. Commence the feverish pinning and switching of costumes to see what would better fit who! We were very blessed to have an amazing seamstress, Judy Kahn from NJ, who directed the alterations and had been up the entire night sewing the costumes that had been received by mail. She was the result of an all-out search for a seamstress the day before when the pieces had finally arrived, and from the time she had received the costumes in the afternoon the day before until when she got the costumes to the studio she had been sewing them. She told us she had had a team sewing at her house until midnight, and afterward she had taken over from there.
We began to help as we could, even missing our technique class to do so. I helped to finish headpieces, and then began to work on sewing hooks and snaps on the skirts. By the time most of us were finished, nearly everyone had left for the theater, where we needed to be by 1. In my fuzzy memory, the time was probably around 11:30 and noon or so. I gathered my stuff quickly and took the train uptown to the theater with 2 of my classmates. Upon arriving, we dumped stuff quickly in our green room and hurried onstage to take the warm up class we were unable to have back at the studios with our scheduled teacher. It was a nice small barre and helped me to feel not so stiff after a morning of really doing nothing except stressing and sewing!
More to come about dress rehearsal and the show!
For now, check out the photos below...
 |
| Backstage in the crowded green room! |
 |
| "Girlfriends" from Sleeping Beauty |
 |
| My friend Eve and I, during 2nd act of dress rehearsal |
 |
| Foreground: sewing operations at the theater; background: dancers eating, chatting, & warming up |
 |
| The Hungarian costume!! |
 |
| Yours truly... |
Sugar Plum Fairy
A unique and impressive take on the Sugar Plum Fairy variation!
Glass Duo (Poland) - Chamber Music Festival in Bologna, Italy - June 2010
Music: P. Tchaikovsky - Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker)
Glass Duo (Poland) - Chamber Music Festival in Bologna, Italy - June 2010
Music: P. Tchaikovsky - Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker)
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas!
Wishing all my readers and followers a very Merry Christmas!
(More to come this week of what I've been up to so far during the break...)
Christmas cheer,
Bunhead
(More to come this week of what I've been up to so far during the break...)
Christmas cheer,
Bunhead
Saturday, December 17, 2011
At the theater
It's my favorite thing - being at a theater. Rehearsing, spending time together backstage, doing hair and makeup, (getting nervous) and finally getting that precious time onstage - becoming familiar with the new space and making it my own - it's a special couple of days that fly by before you know it! So on Thursday we were up bright and early for classes starting at
8:30am. Surprisingly, I felt really awake even with getting up shortly
after 6, which was nice. After classes and part of a run-through we went to the theater for an afternoon for tech and boring stuff like that. (No, it is all really important, but sometimes it can be tedious.)
Actually, it ended up not being that boring at all! I ran around for quite awhile helping our temporary stage manager and others with costumes and odd jobs. We got to run our pieces and everything was good.
It was nice to see our poster up in the front at the theater as well as our school name and performance date running up on the marquee!
We got out right on time as well on tech day, so that was really nice. I got home around 8:30 and soon realized that I had maybe sat down for a combined 20 minutes max the entire day!! (Crazy, isn't it?!)
Next morning, (Friday) I got to wake up a little later as classes started at 9:30. I got to the studio around 8:30 or so and started warming up. It was rather unexpected what happened next, however! (Hint: costume drama!)
To be continued...
Actually, it ended up not being that boring at all! I ran around for quite awhile helping our temporary stage manager and others with costumes and odd jobs. We got to run our pieces and everything was good.
It was nice to see our poster up in the front at the theater as well as our school name and performance date running up on the marquee!
 |
| Our poster advertizing for the show - on Broadway & 95th! |
 |
| View of subway & uptown |
 |
| The theater |
 |
| stage |
 |
| part of house and balcony portion |
 |
| Backstage & sewing area |
 |
| Backstage in the green room (only a "bit" cramped!) |
We got out right on time as well on tech day, so that was really nice. I got home around 8:30 and soon realized that I had maybe sat down for a combined 20 minutes max the entire day!! (Crazy, isn't it?!)
Next morning, (Friday) I got to wake up a little later as classes started at 9:30. I got to the studio around 8:30 or so and started warming up. It was rather unexpected what happened next, however! (Hint: costume drama!)
To be continued...
Behind the scenes (run throughs and rehearsals)
Earlier this week of our first semester performance, every afternoon was devoted to run throughs and rehearsals for the pieces for the show. Photos!
 |
| Hanging out in studio 4 for our numbers |
 |
| Temporary costume rack |
 |
| Bags!! |
 |
| My dear friend Eve & I |
 |
| "Organized mess" |
Christmas break (and Christmas gifts)
The show is over and I'm now enjoying my Christmas break! Everything went amazingly well, and we were all happy with the outcome of the performance, as were our teachers and the directors. I am so grateful to so many people for so many things, but first, to backtrack to the time shortly before the show with some photos! I'll admit, things were very busy as the performance loomed closer (!) and I would come home really tired at night - hence the absence from the blog. One night I had fun wrapping up all my Christmas gifts for my teachers and pianists at GKA - it took about 2 hours but was so much fun! I just love giving, and that's what this season is all about. I noticed the Trader Joes holiday bags had all sorts of cool designs and name tags on them for the express purpose of decorating and gifting, which was really thrilling and made the gifts look fantastic! Take a look and see for yourself:
I just loved how they turned out, and it was even better to see the joy they brought when they were given to their recipient!
 |
| My room (part of it!) |
 |
| TJ's Gummy tummies!! So yummy and one of my favorites... |
 |
| Work in progress (note: cutting paper bags is cathartic!) |
 |
| The end result! |
I just loved how they turned out, and it was even better to see the joy they brought when they were given to their recipient!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tomorrow is the show!
I can't believe it's already here! I am so excited for tomorrow's performance - which is going to be FANTASTIC! Come see the Gelsey Kirkland Academy perform at Symphony Space in NYC on Friday, December 16th at 7:30. Hope to see you there...
Things at the theater were great today. Every time I find myself in the wings, life is complete. I am fulfilled. It's a magical feeling...
Tomorrow is class, then to the theater for dress rehearsal and then the performance. Time to calm my excitement and go to bed!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
David Hallberg on the Colbert Report!
I just love this!! Your light moment for the week:
The Colbert Report
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