Swan Song

I've been terribly negligent about my writing, in all capacities. We recently found out that a dear friend has a terminal illness, and after news like that what is there to say? It certainly puts my bitching and moaning about achy joints to shame. In the end there is nothing to say that will eclipse news like that, and you just wait until enough life crowds in to give you an excuse to talk again.
So far I have found nothing that warrants much attention. But I am giving it a shot.
This year's recital is killing me, and we've only just begun. Swan Lake, guys. I am sort of in the mood to kill Swan Lake with fire. Well, heck. I suppose dancing it is less painful than watching it, anyway (I know, I know, sacrilege).
Also, once again I have been reading all about how you should never "static" stretch before doing any exercises. You know, all those calf stretches and legs up on the barre and all that (and all those splits, I suppose, if you are one of those people). Supposedly it actually decreases the strength in the stretched muscles. And if there is anything I could use a little extra strength for it is 2 and a half solid hours of jumping around like a swan. Anyway. So I tried it out last night: no stretches before class, only stretching as I went along and warmed up. My verdict is: PPPPBBBBTTT! I just felt worse, and had to stretch EVEN MORE afterward. Tight calves make my shin splints flare up. Tight quads are just... they just suck. Forget it, guys. Go ahead and put that leg up on the barre. I won't tell on ya.

Pas de Neuf

Well, it's that time again. That time when, like it or not (in it or not), everyone has to learn the choreography for the Summer recital. Tonight in pointe class we attempted the pas de quatre from Swan Lake (AKA "four little swans"). Except that there were 9 of us and we kept alternately squooshing one another and drifting perilously backwards.
Oh wait, no. I mean that we looked amazing. In fact, here is a video of us:

HAHAHAHAHA! What do you mean you don't believe me?

PS: looking at this video I see that our arms were all wrong, which explains the sqooshing to a certain extent.

Fight for home, pinot, and Glory!

I continually have nightmares about having to perform in a recital. I used to have nightmares about plays, because I was a drama nerd in high school and was in a lot of them. So, I would dream that here I was, 15 years later, and I had to perform one of those plays on the spur of the moment. That is pretty nerve wracking, right? Having to try desperately to dredge up old dialogue that you thought you would never have to say again? And then I have the nightmares about having to costume an entire production that opens in an hour, and that is totally a work thing. But these ballet recital dreams have been edging both of my old standards out on an increasingly frequent basis. They generally go something like this: it is the night of the recital and I haven't rehearsed in the last month. I try to stand behind the other girls and fake it as well as I can... until we get to my solo! And then I just have to make it up from scratch on the spot. I shall throw this leg in to front attitude and affect a haughty facial expression so that no one notices!
Sheesh.

PS: and this whole thing just made me think about school plays, which made me think about what bits of them I can remember... and now I have the entire national anthem of the duchy of Grand Fenwick stuck in my head.

how are the tutus going, RPrin?

it's tutu much

SO MANY TUTUS

The first batch of OH SO MANY unfortunate burgundy tutus that I have to alter in to wearability before the next recital:

I regret everything.

As I was carrying the giant trash bag full of these things out to my car last week my teacher said I looked "just like Santa Claus! But with the ugliest tutus EVER."

The courage of men TOTALLY fails

Sitting up late nursing a headache and waiting for the cat to calm down so I can administer subcutaneous fluids (YUCK, guys. Yuck.) and watching grainy and slightly (okay more than slightly) crooked videos of our studio's ballet recital (last Saturday) on YouTube. Thinking to myself oh how pretty they all look! And also OH I am glad I didn't try to do that. Seriously, guys. I get lost during tendus at the barre, trying to remember an actual ballet variation would be an exercise in ridiculousness. Especially right now with the moving and the cat stuff (and the gas tank on my commute vehicle being drained on two out of the past 3 work day mornings, and the plumbers in and out of the place every other day, and the having to work overtime several days a week, and and and...) I don't think my brain has room for choreography.
Maybe someday (as Aragorn once said) but it is not this day.

tututututututu too two to

I spent all yesterday (and all this morning, too) working on recital costumes.
Well, you don't just have a tutu around the house without trying it on, do you?

yes, this picture was taken in front of a door. WHAT IS YOUR POINT?

Recital Ramblings

My last post (which dealt largely with the topic of cartoon characters from our misspent youth appearing in modern pornography) is now officially my most popular post EVER. Way to go, guys. You people have issues.
I love you anyway, though.
Maybe I should label all my posts "porn" and "gross out" and watch my numbers skyrocket?

But, no. We are here, my friends, to discuss the worlds of ballet and rheumatism and the exciting, sometimes dreadful manner in which they collide.
Out of a horrible pang of guilt at the thought of always refusing to participate in the studio's annual recital (let's face it, honey, even if I wasn't working on weekends this Summer I still wouldn't be signing up) I volunteered to alter and mend (and generally "clean up" and "make pretty", which are the nice terms we use in the professional world when something really heinous crosses our path) the rather elderly and decrepit costumes the ladies (and... possibly a gent. At this point they are considering an en travesti Romeo, because we don't appear to have any dudes available) will be wearing. There is a lot of shattered chiffon and several oddly not-quite-complete bodices going on here. There may well be a few atrocious sequined powder-puff tutus at some point, as well.
We shall see how badly I regret this offer a month from now.

In preparation for said recital tonight we practiced a lot of ballet running. I did well at it, as I generally do with ballet walking. My teacher declared that I must have been practicing but I will let you in on a secret: I haven't been. There is a story behind this, though.
When I was about 14 or 15 my pet cat was hit by a car. She was in terrible condition for a long time afterward. One of her hind legs was dislocated at the hip. The other was mangled so badly that it had pins in it for a while, but in the end it had to be amputated. She needed a lot of serious care while she was recovering, and so I would pick her up and carry her very carefully. I realized that the impact from stepping while holding her was hurting her and so I started to mindfully mimic the way a ballet dancer walks whenever I carried her. Toe first, gentle knee bend, toe first, gentle knee bend. For the rest of her life I was the only person she would allow to carry her.
So, my mad ballet walkin' skillz are entirely thanks to a little grey cat with three legs.
Thank you, baby girl. I miss you.

Built For Tutus

So we had all congregated in the lobby after class one night, and as is our norm some of the students were talking to our instructor. It's coming up on recital time, she reminded us, and we should start thinking about signing up! Well, said one of my classmates, I'll do it if I get to wear a tutu. And our instructor said, heck yes! If you want to wear a tutu you can TOTALLY wear a tutu. Rheumatic Princess, she says gesturing to me as I stumble in to my pants, would look GREAT in a tutu!
Hmm. I wonder what part of me has the look of "tutu" about it. She can't claim to not see that my proportions are all backwards. After all, she sees me in tighter clothing than anyone else EVER. Truly, I am pretty sure that I could get a tutu bodice to fit me with no problems. Because, thank god, dancers rarely have much by way of boobs and I am certainly as ethereal and waif-like on top as I am brick house-like on bottom.
Well, regardless of whether it would look good on me or not I intend to own a couple of tutus eventually. I figure as soon as I hit pointe I am buying a congratulatory rehearsal tutu, and then when I move in to a house with a separate sewing room I am buying the fabrics and beetle wings for my lifetime tutu. Because why the hell not.

*This Post May Contain Nuts

I was watching my classmates rehearse for the recital on Monday night. It was great fun to watch! I think choreography just makes my brain short circuit. The only choreographed dance I ever had to attempt was as a 16 year old drama nerd. Myself and two equally silly young things had to perform a weird little song and dance number smack in the middle of a play. And, to make it all even better? We were dressed as mermaids so we couldn't move our feet! Which subtracts a HUGE part of dancing, y'know? And therefore remembering your moves is a whole lot easier. Anyhow. In a way I am glad to not be attempting any of that crazy choreography business right now, but in another way... ooh! Pretty dresses! And twirly twirly twirling! Ooooh!
Siiigh...
In class recently I manged to hold a balance for ages. Demi-pointe on the left foot and the right off the floor in coupé. It was a total fluke, but it impressed the heck out of my teacher (I then totally failed to be able to do anything similar at all for the rest of the evening). I heard her saying something a bit later, about needing to advance some of the students in to the next level of class. I find myself desperately hoping she didn't mean me.

Oh, and PS:
In case you thought I was joking about the mermaid suits...

 I refuse to say which one I am.

Also, my 30-year-old self only keeps this photograph 

as a desensitization tool in case someone

tries to blackmail me later.

Hey, guess who's competent?

That's right! Me! Tonight my teacher was all "hey, Rheumatic Princess, why didn't you sign up for the recital?" And I was like "dude I am shy" and she said aww, that was too bad because I was totally competent.
THAT'S RIGHT, I AM MOTHER F*CKING COMPETENT!
WOO!
In related news I have been able to go in for extra classes on a fairly regular basis lately and I am feeling a lot more confident in the "harder" class. In truth, due to the way the classes are set up to "graduate" students in to the more advanced classes as they reach a level of (dare I say it?) competence, I think that it is quite possible that they are just doing less advanced stuff now. But, anyway, I will TAKE IT. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, girl.
Anyway, we are still learning new and interesting stuff! It's always exciting when something new comes up. Tonight we were doing combinations of bourées with a graceful turn and some fancy swooshing port de bras, and it was darn near dancing, though obviously painfully slow. We hadn't done bourée before, and it's one of those things that the internet assures you will feel like flying across the stage someday when you are wearing slippery satin shoes. What it fails to mention is that OW that is some serious calf exercise. It was stupidly fun and exciting, though, and so I will probably be bourée-ing across my kitchen floor in fuzzy socks for the next few days.
ALSO, are you a person who likes to know where our silly dance terms come from? I am. So that is what the internet is for. And a bourrée, an actual bourée, is a French folk dance. Here are some people rockin' it. I am sure I have witnessed this at a rennaisance faire or something of the sort (yes, yes, I do that, too. It's all about making up excuses to wear pretty dresses) and it has very little to do with bourrée and pas de bourrée as we do them in ballet, but I guess it all had to come from somewhere, right?:

It looks fun! I might go so far as to say "hella" fun. 

That's right, I just said "hella" like it ain't no thang!

Bam!

Tombé or Two

Did the fabric of space-time unravel? Because we didn't do glissades last night. CRAZY.
Instead! We got to learn tombé (possibly tombé pas de bourrée? We will discuss this annoying terminology later)! Which was confusing and I tripped over myself a lot, but it was SUPER FUN. And I keep trying to do them on my own and they just look silly and make my legs hurt, but that's okay!
We also learned a slightly confusing new port de bras sequence with balancé on a diagonal. I think that perhaps we are being introduced to steps that will be making an appearance in the Spring recital.
PS: I am not going to be in it. I am SHY. I took three years of drama in high school and (bless my 16-year-old self) I enjoyed it. But, these days? I'd rather not talk to strangers at the bus stop let alone dance awkwardly on a stage in front of my loved ones. My family is supportive, you know? The kind that comes to my fashion shows and cheers me on ruthlessly in all endeavors. My father has a digital camera and is not afraid to use it. Also: SUPER BORED HUSBAND falling asleep during the show. Not encouraging!