No one wants you to twerk, Taylor

Oh good grief. Did I actually just watch a Taylor Swift video on purpose? I'm obviously still delirious from the end of theater season.

Raymonda: A Synopsis That REALLY Won't Help You

I was pooking about in my drafts folder and found these notes, taken while watching Raymonda online almost a year ago. I honestly can't say I remember exactly what was going on, I really should have gotten around to writing up a review ages ago but it never happened. So now, presented without further embellishment or explanation (because I am drawing a blank, guys, for reals) here are my notes on the classic story ballet Raymonda:

ugly night gown costume
Arab who doesn't seem all that bad
my boner is so powerful it can command these underage slaves to wear really unflattering costumes while jumping around in a deeply silly way
shaggy-haired white dude
dream sequence, living statue
the bit of choreography we learned in class for the recital
sexy pre-sword-fight face off, sexiest 5 seconds of the whole ballet
I guess I just don't really like Petipa all that much OH THE HORRORS AND SACRILEGE

Mr. B! Mr. B!

 Meet dancer, actress, and opera singer (triple threat, boo-ya!) Betty Luster, primarily known for her staring role in a weird little promotional film for a musical instrument company in 1956. Mr. B Natural. The film is famous for it's featured appearance (and later running joke) on the cult TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 (which was basically a huge part of my childhood). The joke being, of course, that "Mr." B was considerably less convincingly male than Cathy Rigby in any given performance of Peter Pan. Considerably. After watching the short with my hubby recently I was inspired to look her up on the vast and fabulous internet.
When she wasn't gadding about as Mr. B she was actually a very cute ballet dancer. Here she is (in the weird 50s high-low costume and pointe shoes):

And, for the uninitiated, here is the full-length un-riffed version of Mr. B Natural. Just, you know, in case you are aching for a little awkward mid-century surrealism. It also features some pretty darn adorable dance moves of the sort you make pre-schoolers execute in "creative movement" class:

PS: I always thought I would, if I ever went to a comic or sci-fi convention, go dressed as Mr. B. I have the figure for it, and the hair, and everything! Sadly, however, it has already been done. A lot. So never mind. On the other hand: Mr. B Natural pony!

by C Puff on DeviantART. Clicky clicky!

Well, this is Terrifying...

I can't get this video to embed properly, but I will link y'all to it, anyway.

Click here for mega-super-scary-ballerina times.

Bird Dance

My husband insists that this bird looks like a ballerina in a tutu. Also? My cat loves this little guy.

Still ten times more graceful than the girls out clubbing in their "sexy black swan" costumes.

Inspired-by-but-not-actually-ballet

Last week was a bugger. Thursday class was once again conducted by a substitute, and (while the sort of bizarrely loud Enya soundtrack for barre was amusing) by the time we were ready for center work (an hour in to class) I had been shrieked at enough that I was done for the evening. It was not a proud ballet moment, but sometimes you just have to quit while you're ahead. So I left early and spent the remainder of the evening talking to my mom on the phone and ordering new books on Amazon.
After the week had run it's course and I spent some time looking through all the "OMG NEWS BLOTTER" posts on Facebook Friday evening I decided that what I needed, what I really needed? Was a break from the media. So I went the entire weekend without radio, internet, TV news, or even reading the newspaper while I spent some time at my parent's house (I know, right? They are probably the last people on the planet who actually get the paper delivered. The entire print newspaper industry is relying on those guys!)
While I would like to say I spent my two days of distraction-free life practicing pirouettes and working my core, the fact is that I spent a lot of time playing computer games, reading a book I don't care much for, touring and applying for new apartments (and stressing/fretting over the entire proposition) and eating sugar. I did spend about half an hour on an exercise bike. The display told me I had burned a whopping 35 calories at the end of it. I checked the back of the package of chocolates I had just eaten 5 of and learned that a 5 piece serving contains 210 calories. So I ate another one for good measure.
Today I attempted to do a 30 minute "ballet-inspired" workout video. I got 6 minutes in to it before I started sweating so much I had to take my glasses off (and chuckling under my breath about how ridiculous the entire workout video phenomenon is), and alllllllmost 20 minutes in before I gave up and declared that I had had just about enough cardio for one day, thank you. All those constant, pulsing pliés! I about died. Which probably means I should keep doing it. Ugggggh. I look at it this way: I hate pilates. Something needs to break up the pilates, right?

Fashion and Ballet: Together As Always

Ballet-inspired fashion is nothing new, they've been doing it since fashion inspired ballet (which was always. Hello, turnout so you can see my expensive shoes!) but this one impressed me mostly because it appears to have actual dancers in it:

All I can say is "chaînés turns on carpet, man." That's hardcore. I assume that shiny satin shoes makes such a thing possible. If I tried that in canvas I'd probably break my foot.

Challenge Accepted

If nothing else the adult ballet blogging community keeps me motivated (this blog included). I am wretched at self-discipline. I basically have none. I have to trick myself in to keeping up with classes twice a week by paying in advance when I am not thinking about it. Oops! Nope! I already paid! I have to go! So, keeping up with doing pilates once a week and convincing myself to get down on the floor and stretch once a day has been ... well. I won't say it's been a challenge, because that would imply that I've been winning or overcoming or something. Honestly I've been pretty dreadful about it all.
One of the blogs I keep up with is written by an adult dancer who keeps making me feel awfully lazy about not getting my self-improvement on. I'm feeling terribly inspired by her 30 day challenges to herself and so I think I will steal the concept for the next month and attempt to work seriously and with focus on the little and annoying things I really need to improve. Balances and building up strength in my core/ab muscles, feet, and legs. I have been working on it here and there, but I forget about it more often than not. Perhaps having a goal and deadline in sight will encourage me to actually get on with it. There is nothing harder for me than trying to self-motivate for an inarticulate and foggy future purpose.

In ballet class news: we started doing cabrioles. Which is the name of a small model car from the 80s or something, isn't it? My spell checker informs me that, no, it was cabriolet. Well, fine then. Never mind. Cabrioles, on the other hand, are not anything like as easy as you would think. Also: stupidly painful with shin splints! There are days when I just can't figure out why I took up ballet. There is so much jumping! I should have taken a country line dancing class or something...

OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT? NEVER MIND. BALLET IS BEAUTIFUL.

Sigh...

Not a real blog post

Just a video. Because I was compelled to watch it three times in a row yesterday...

Don Quixote: a Synopsis That Won't Help You

So I was home sick and away from class for the second time this week (I was just TIRED yesterday, you know? And I am opting out of a make up class today because I suck and am lazy, okay?) and decided that I should use some of this just-sitting-around-not-doing-anything time watching ballets on YouTube because hey, who knew you could watch full length ballets on YouTube, right? And I am particularly partial to story ballets so I went and found Don Quixote. I had never seen it before but I have always been rather fond of the original story. I knew that the ballet had very little to do with the actual story, but heck it was better than trying to watch Swan Lake again (I got halfway through and just DIED of boredom. Sorry, ballet people! I WANTED to like it, I really did! But, though the music was lovely, the choreography was SO BORING that I couldn't make it through two solid hours. OY, there has got to be modern choreography that spices that bad boy up! Anyone have suggestions?)
So, anyway, I watched this one:

Which was all very well. I am not entirely sure why they called it Don Quixote. He's just sort of... doddering around in the background for a few scenes. So, for anyone else who hasn't seen it allow me to sumarize it for you:
Act 1 opens on Don Quixote just basically standing there. Nothing happens. Cut to village square where a super cock tease of a young lady (is cocktease one word or two? Why do I even get in to situations where I need to know these things?) named Kitri is flirting shamelessly with Whatisname. After a lot of flirting and being coy at one another they get all sexy-times and her dad comes out and says "seriously, girl. No. You is gonna marry this old rich dude." She's annoyed about it and then Don Quixote wanders in and decides she is ... well, I am guessing he thinks she is Dulcinea (though Dulcinea never actually appears in the book, but WHATEVER.) and she is kind of at least nice to him. Some village rogues come along and make kissy-face at the village girls. Kitri and Whatisname use the confusion to give her dad and fiance the slip and run off.
They meet some gypsies. For some reason. The Macho Man gypsy and the Sultry Lady gypsy get jiggy for a while, there are strange overtones of domestic violence. There is a puppet show. Which Don Quixote walks in on and takes exception to. For some reason. So he flails around a little bit while everyone laughs at him. And then a windmill shows up. Because they do that, you know, windmills. Walkin' around like it ain't no thang. And of course Don Quixote rushes off to deal with them. But at this point, you know, maybe he isn't so cray-cray after all. Because if windmills just started walkin' in to my parties, I'd be a little freaked out, too.
Later on... there are a bunch of cupids... just hangin' around... and Kitri and a bunch of other girls dress up in froofy skirts that sit weirdly on their bottoms (maybe that isn't part of the story, I don't know) and frolic around all pastoral-like for a while. I am unsure if this was supposed to be a wedding or a statement about maidenhood.
In the end there is a big kerfloo, where Whatisname pretends to have stabbed himself to death for the sake of losing Kitri to the old guy, but actually he's fine and when he bounds up her dad is like "way-hey! Oh no problem, actually you can totally marry my daughter". For. Some. Reason.
The ballet closes with a newly be-tutued Kitri and Whatisname engaging in what I can only assume to be an interpretive dance symbolizing marital harmony.
The end.
Don Quixote was sort of in there, mostly just kind of bowing at Kitri a lot and clasping his bosom like he's having a heart attack.

Now, don't let's think it was a bad ballet. It certainly wasn't. It had good music and excellent dancing and was fun. It was engaging, which is more than you can say for Les Sylphides or the aforementioned Swan Lake. And I have to make allowances, because in all honesty I kind of enjoyed Man Of La Mancha, and that is not terribly faithful to the story, either. But... I guess I don't understand why Don Quixote was in it at all. Was he the big name that drew in the audiences back in the day? Oh, and I forgot the weirdly inappropriate belly dance number. Which is a thing. That happens.
Next on my watch-this-while-procrastinating list: La Esmeralda.

Ballet History Lesson

A quick share for your afternoon, while I work lazily and conserve my spoons for ballet class tonight:

And you'd better believe I've been attempting to walk around the house like this all morning.

Visualize Whirled Peas

Which just goes to show, ladies and gentlemen, that thinking about that annoying assemblé combination is the way to master it (at least, after you've already danced so much you can't stand up anymore. Or when you're at work. Or washing dishes. Or...)

Crackin' Those Nuts

So, how are the holidays progressing for you? My family gave me several ballerina-related gifts and we all got together in the bay area to visit my sister and her children. On Christmas eve we all piled on the couch and attempted to make an eight year old girl and a six year old boy sit still long enough to watch the Maurice Sendak version of the Nutcracker (it's on Netflix, FYI) which I hadn't seen since I was a little girl. At one point I picked up my nephew and rolled him bodily on to my lap and tried to pin him to my chest so I could watch the TV rather than him. This worked for about five minutes. You do what you can.
When the first "doll" hops onto pointe my niece said "wo, how did that happen?" and I said "magic". My mother offered "practice" but I insisted. No. It's magic.
I remember watching this version of the Nutcracker on TV with my mother and being kind of confused because the story is so different from the usual Nutcrackers. Clara morphs in to a grown-up and then lots of weird things happen with Drosslemeyer wearing a series of great big hats. But, you miss out on the best stuff, like the candy canes, Mother Ginger, and the Arabian dance. And, in my opinion, the Sugarplum Fairy is not a suggestion, it's a requirement.
Clara's tutu seems so strange to me. Unreal. It looks like it's injection molded. Totally unmoving. I am sure it's just a condition of the plate/overskirt being so wavy (like a cartoon tutu) and the whole thing being tacked very firmly together. But still, weird.
Also, I'd forgotten that the mouse king in this one has a varying quantity of heads, a nod to the original. I am pretty sure that this company is still doing a variation of this production.

Next year we're hoping to get all the girls in the family together for a trip to San Francisco's production. They aren't shy about declaring themselves the best in the country, and you have to admit: it is certainly shiny!

Pilates and You. Now on Home Video.

So, I am muddling my way back in to trim, but the fact remains that I need to work on my core strength because it will improve my balance. And I am crazy-interested in improving my balance. On a related but side note my teacher recently realized that I stand a little funny because I have an (not insignificant) curvature of the spine. I've known this since I was 16, at which point it required several trips to various doctors and x-rays and etc etc. The verdict was that if I had come in when I was 11 they would have put me in a brace or something, but at 16 it was too darn late. Which was totally okay with me. I haven't really experienced any serious problems with it. It means I sometimes have to fit my clothing very slightly differently from left to right, but it's usually not noticeable if I don't so mostly I just don't bother. Anyway, my teacher said she's going to work on making me "pretend" to stand straight, and that makes absolute sense. 
ANYWAY. Back to the subject at hand!
The best thing I've found so far for working your core/abs is pilates. I can't say it's a heck of a good time, but I suppose it's better than just doing crunches or sit ups. Boring exercises don't get done, you know? In the past (that is one time in the past. Yeah, yeah, so sue me) when I got interested in trying out some pilates, I just fired up netflix and ta-da, hundreds of videos to choose from. But, this time I discovered that OH NO! Netflix has discontinued ALL of it's fitness videos that were available to watch instantly. Aw man. What are the rest of the unemployed/self employed/stay at home moms/etc going to do now? We are all going to get fat, is what we're going to do.
I eventually decided to gird my proverbial loins and check out the stuff available on YouTube. I did this one, which has left me aching noticeably for the past few days, even though there were moments when I just threw my hands up and said "forget it, lady!". It's dang hard to do the stuff while watching the screen, even with my laptop on the floor with me, but I suppose it has to be done. I thought the instructor was okay on this series, not as good at explanations as some of the sleek crunch and burn instructors, but also a bit less plastic. I love her manner of speaking ("Up you come!" and "butt" instead of ""bum" or "rear" really won me). Next time I am planning on trying out this one, which might be a bit less confusing, but we'll see.

I'm doing this for you, ballet. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice.

Of course, like most people, I never seem to follow through with my big plans for at-home work outs.  This is why you have to go to classes or a gym or something. So you feel guilty if you don't want to bother with it. We'll see how long I hold out before "forgetting" to hit the pad once a week. I'm giving myself three weeks. Hey, at least I have realistic expectations!

Brains: You Have One

Some terrible alignment of the stars (particularly the stars tamponicus major and assemblénid hurtus) has pretty much knocked me over tonight. Anyway.

My balances at the barre were declared "fierce" tonight, though I'm not sure if it's because they were amazingly sturdy or because my latest method of attack is "goddammit I am gonna balance up here if it kills me" and it was showing on my face as a ferocious growling snarl.

I think I've decided that the real trick to mastering a step you can't seem to get in class is to think about it all the time. Like math. I have occasional bouts of sleep paralysis and while stuck in one over the weekend for some reason all I could think about was how dancing is like math. It all made so much sense at the time, but let's face it, vividly hallucinating will make all manner of things seem logical (this is why I have never done drugs. Why would I want to induce that shit? I can just ride the crazy train all on my own, thanks, and since it's usually accompanied by awful and terrible lurking creatures at the edge of your vision, all teeth and claws... NO THANKS.)
Uhmm... Where was I going with this?
Oh yeah. So. Thinking about it. Which seems counter-intuitive, because doing it is the important part, right? And doing is important, don't get me wrong. I've been hopping around my apartment all week attempting to Do, but let's face it I have a tiny apartment filled with too much stuff and so sauté arabesques ain't really happenin' up in here. I've also found that when I trip myself up it's because I get mentally confused or forget my place in a combination, it's a lot less the execution that foils you and a lot more that Thinking thing. In a way I wish I had a long driveway like the house where I grew up. I spent hours out there rollerskating in perpetual figure eights in a desperate attempt to learn how to skate. That is what I need now, a big chunk of space without obstacles (like, you know, my oven and sofa.) I could rock some dance sneakers and tra-la-la out there to my heart's content.

On a tangential note: check out the cutest sauté arabesques ever, dudes:

Gratuitous Ballet Moment

I ... have no idea what is going on here. But, it kinda makes me want to buy a Kia?

Originally found on The Ornamented Being

Skullhead Bonyhands

Since we were discussing unusual source material for ballets recently...
Did you know that there is an Edward Scissorhands ballet?
Did you want to know?
I am torn between thinking "awesome!" and thinking "god, really?"

To tell you true I have only ever seen the movie once, when I was in 8th grade, and I have never seen the ending. Does he die? Does someone die? I don't even know. Maybe they all live happily ever after. It's not that I wouldn't be down with seeing it, it's that no one really wants to see it with me and I always forget about it when I am alone with netflix.
That blonde hair on Winona Ryder kinda drives me nuts, though!

Anyway. Edward Scissorhands. Now you know. 

Yoga For the Elderly, Decrepit, and Infirm

So, many moons ago (back in August, after my Summer job ended but before I started taking ballet) I was in the worst shape of my life and was seriously having trouble with the little things. Pain had become a constant in my life and I had just folded in on myself. Along with everything else, rheumatic conditions come along with a physical exhaustion that was not helped at all by the medications I had been prescribed, one of which is a sedative. And, my Summer job is HARD WORK, it's terribly brutal to my wrists and hands. I bring wrist braces to work and coat myself from the elbows down in Icy Hot two or three times a day. So, exercise? Not even happening. But, I decided that I was done looking sadly at the ballet studio's class schedules and that it was time to DO IT.
I knew I was out of shape and that it was going to be hard for me to get back in to the groove of regular exercise. So I decided I was going to do yoga every day in preparation for this whole ballet business. When I was in high school I came home every weekday afternoon and did yoga on the living room floor. My favorite things to do were shoulder stands (woo!) and sun salutation. I knew I couldn't put any weight on my hands and wrists anymore, so those were probably out. I looked around on Netflix and found "healing yoga for aches and pains" by these people. They aren't too annoying considering what else is out there (I have a preeeeeetty low opinion of most video exercise instructors).
I did it for a few days and I was feeling good! It was seriously difficult, though. I mean, really hard work. Now, this is what I affectionately call "old people yoga". Most of it is done sitting in a chair. Everything is modified for stability. But even so, MAN did I have a hard time with it. GEEZE. At one point in the video there is a modification of "eagle pose" (in which you cross your arms over each other at the elbow and link your hands to one another with your palms together) and it was so impossible that I quickly did a screen grab and this happened:

Anyway, so it was hard, but I was feeling progress. Unfortunately by the end of week one something was terribly wrong. My knees hurt. And so I stopped doing anything that could bother them. No weight bearing poses. Nothing. But then... they kept hurting.
They never stopped.
I started ballet class not long after that. The knees slowly became a part of my life. My doctor increased the dose on my pills. I learned to sleep with a heating pad and ice packs and spend as much time as possible in bed on any day when I knew I was going to be dancing. And yoga? I kind of forgot it.
So last week I decided to try out old "healing yoga for aches and pains" again. After all these months of ballet the entire thing is easier in a major way. It's not something you would notice if you were doing it consistently, but after a break for several months the difference is obvious. I still can't do anything that places my weight on my knees, though, so I have to skip the one posture they teach that involves that.
I was feeling pretty cocky about it after a few days and decided to try out another one of their videos, "yoga for common conditions". And boy howdey, that was a mistake. After the first three postures all involved either kneeling or folding the legs, I gave up. I can't even sit cross-legged on the floor anymore. So, my search for a new and gentle yoga program for ancient old codgers continues.
Updates as they become available!

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!

For Anyone Who Needs a Little Encouragement to Get Started

For anyone who needs a little help getting started. Whether it's with something as trivial as ballet class or something as life-altering as a career change, going back to school, or any number of other ... things? Anyway.
Thanks to Ze Frank, who has started another show! I am terribly excited, as The Show was a wonderful wonderful thing, back in the day.