Now, just the oath

Today I passed the exam and personal interview for US Citizenship! Now I wait for the letter telling me when I take the oath, and then I can register to vote. Apparently they are working weekends to push through as many people as possible before elections.

Goodbyes and home

On Saturday we had morning classes with Randall. I think that what I have gleaned from this year's camp is how important it is to be aware of your core and keep it strong. It's what helped me in the partnered pirouettes and it's what the teachers have all been talking to us all week about. Not just for turns, but they are constantly reminding us to pull up when we transition from position to position. Suzanne and I had a very smooth trip home. All flights were on time and trouble free. We even had a a little snack sandwich on the Houston to LA leg. I was pretty impressed with Continental. Sunday will be a day of rest for my muscles and for my brain. Then back to real life, home from Oz again for another year.

Performance Day!

Friday was performance day. We got a late start with a short warm up class and run throughs of the variations and the repertory piece. I'm really concerned about part of the variation which I haven't been able to do solidly yet (mostly because chaines are very hard for me). The rep piece is really coming together and I think we are getting the timing down really well. I'm least concerned about the pas de deux because Ty will help me get through it (like last year with Burr). After lunch there was enough time to go back to the hotel rest a little and get changed. The turquoise leotards are really cute and the skirts are beautiful. The bus takes us to the theatre in the afternoon. I brought my Nikon to try out the 1600 ISO in the dark space. We do run throughs of each piece before we do the actual filming. I try taking some pics during other group's run throughs. The pics turned out to be really interesting. The lighting looks great but my lens is not quite fast enough so there is lots of motion blur, which is kind of neat looking. My run through with Ty for the pas de deux was flawless. During the filming though, I flubbed the balances which are really easy steps! Oh well, this piece is all about the show so I gave it all I had. We'll see how it looks on film. Despite the mistake, I had a great time. Partnering really is too much fun! My run through for the variation was not great. When we film it, I felt like I did really well on the jump sequence and although the turn sequence was not perfect, it's better than I've done it, and most importantly I finished exactly on time! The rep piece works out beautifully. Again, I had a misstep or two however our timing is really good in some of the tricky sections that we had. I can't wait to see the video and see what it really looks like. I know there will be things I will not like on it, but it'll be a learning experience for next year. After the show, we shower and change for dinner at a tapas place called Europa. The food is quite tasty and it's a nice environment. It's so fun to see the dancers wearing normal clothes, hair and makeup! There was a TV on showing the Olympic opening ceremony so we watched parts of that as we chatted and just relaxed. Tomorrow is a short morning of classes before Suzanne and I catch a plane for home. We all can't believe this week has flown by so quickly.

Thursday is magic day

Something mysterious happens on Thursday. I wake up feeling great! Same thing happened last year. None of my sore muscles are sore any more, tired yes, but all soreness is gone. Mentally, I think all of our brains are completely filled. We perform tomorrow and there seems to be so much more to learn. We have Karen for technique and I just love her classes. She has the funniest, best descriptions of how we should or should not be dancing. They really stick in my mind and I carry them into my regular classes. Today we also finished learning the pas de deux. I'm partnered with Tyrone, which I'm really happy about because I was watching the advanced partnering class and he just moves so beautifully. Randall does a magical job again of choreographing our piece. It's not technically very difficult, however it is very fluid and beautiful and allows us to really dance. We are doing it to music by Kossovits. I'm glad the pas de deux is going to be so good. We did a run through of the rep piece as well and Kathy has a great ending for us! I just hope I can remember everything for performance tomorrow.
Update: I forgot to mention when I first posted this that during partnering class, there is quite a lot of time when we are standing around as Randall figures out what we are to do next. During these times, the young guys often will just do some movement, Burr does modern dance stuff for instance. One time, Ty started doing a series of turns ending with a fouette, so I just mentioned to him jokingly, can you do 32, which is the number that the Black Swan Odile does in her variation in Swan Lake and is pretty famous. Well, he immediately starts doing fouette turns, ccounting as he goes! He got to 16 which is pretty damn impressive. He said to me that it was harder than he thought it would be. The amazing thing to me was that he was doing this in a small space surrounded by people, walls, etc and he did not budge from his center at all! This is the guy I got to dance with, and the other young guys were equally talented, so you see why this is usually my favourite part of the week

Wednesday is tough!

It was the hardest day last year and this year is the same. We had another run through of the variation and it does seem like it's coming together, but it's a lot of pointe work and I'm still a little worried about the pique turning sequence at the end. We also had our first partnering class. They got a lot of great young men this year and Randall picked another gorgeous piece of music. It'll be beautiful. Repertory was a little rough because Kathy had to make adjustments to the sequence because one of the dancers bowed out. I think it'll come together tomorrow though. I downloaded the music from iTunes so I can run it through in my head.
Update: In photo, learning pas de deux piece

An easy day (for ballet camp)

Thank god today is a relatively light day. I am so sore. Like last year, I'm using muscles that don't get a consistent work out. Today Randall taught us technique and again, wonderful class. The teachers all give us great tips on improving how we hold ourselves and move through various steps. Kathy's pointe class was tough, lots of slow releves. I was feeling kind of weak today and couldn't get the slow rolling down from pointe working very well. Her pirouette class was great. Like last year, the focus on these turns and the suggestions for how to hold our arms really helps put everything together. Heidi did a wonderful stretch class and the foot class is amazing-I really should do these exercises at home, I can definitely use stronger feet.

Later in the day, Suzanne, Kelly, Joyce and I had a joint photo shoot. Kathy and Randall helped suggest poses and it was so much fun, although again, posing is really hard work. You have to maintain your position, have as much turn out as you can possibly do and look relaxed and happy! It's going to be great having these photos to look back on.

Learning our performance pieces

Today is the first full day of camp. We also learn two of our performance pieces. I'm really feeling the modern class from yesterday. It uses all kinds of muscles that don't get used a lot. I'm doing variations with Danile and she's teaching us the female variation from the peasant pas de deux in Giselle. I'm going to do it on pointe, there are parts that I can handle on pointe pretty easily and other parts that are a little more challenging so I think it's a good balance. The rep piece is with Kathy and it's the Gallop section also from Giselle. There is a lot of moving back and forth and the 2 men have a really fun part in it as well. It's going to be great to learn! The jazz teacher is a member of the Richmond Ballet. It was a tough class! He started with 200 sit ups, 50 bicycles and the Pilates 100!!! No, I didn't do all of those. If I had, I wouldn't be able to move tomorrow. The rest of the class was just as strenuous, but it was so much fun that I stayed through the whole thing even though I kept thinking I should leave early. I know I'm going to be feeling this class tomorrow too! Tonight we had an excursion to Ellman's and I bought a pair of Bloch pointe shoes. We'll see how they work when I can actually use them but initially they felt pretty comfortable and I could get up and over on them pretty easily.
Update: In photo, learning our rep piece

Familiar faces at ballet camp

Today is check in day and there were a lot of people from last year! It's so neat to see everyone. Danile taught us the placement class. There are a lot of people in the 3A group this year. Kathy did the intermediate pointe class and it was a tough one but my feet are much stronger than last year, and I have better pointe shoes. There was a great kinesiology lecture by a professor at VCU. She helped us to breakdown various muscles in our shoulders and back. She also taught the modern dance class. It was amazing and really fun. She took us through a series of exercises that warmed us up to modern movements (more fluid rolling movements, more parallel, less vertical than ballet) and then taught us some choreography that included various oppositional movements, spirals, rolling on the ground. They had a drummer accompany us so when we put it all together, it was a real dance! It helps me to better appreciate modern movement vocabulary when I see it in contemporary ballets.
Update: In photo with me are Kelly, Joyce, Patsy, Cynthia and Suzanne in front.

Ballet Camp round 2!

I'm back in Richmond with Suzanne, Kelly, Joyce and Patsy! We are joined this year by Ronnie. I have a new roommate, Louise from Kentucky. Yesterday was travel day. Suzanne and I went through Houston on Continental while Kelly and Joyce went through Chicago via United. We all did really well. We heard others were not so lucky and had delays and lost luggage.
On the flight from Houston to Richmond, we passed north of a major thunderstorm and the lightening storm in the clouds was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. Last year, I barely got any sleep while at camp. I didn't sleep much last night either, we'll see if the pattern holds. I can't wait to see who is back from last year!

Osteria Mozza

This is one of the hottest restaurants in LA right now. It's Nancy Silverton (formerly of Campanile/La Brea Bakery) with Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich (of Babbo in NYC and featured in "Heat" by Bill Buford). Reservations take a month to get. I went this week with 3 friends and we all universally loved it. The restaurant is really beautiful. It's got the blue-green/brown thing going that everyone is doing now. The bar counter is a beautiful white veined marble and the main room is large and noisy. We ate in a second room that is smaller and much more quiet. The service was at a level that I don't usually encounter in LA but I believe is more common in other cities. We have a lot of 'waiter/something-else' types here.
When we got to the restaurant, I asked the bartender to make me up something Italian-y. She served me a drink made with an amaro (an Italian herbal liqueur), vanilla, citrus and some other stuff, and it was delicious and refreshing.
At the table, we had a hard time deciding what to order. The menu is divided into starters, mozzarella bar, pastas and main courses. The waiter suggested we share 3 appetizers and 2 pastas and then each get a main. The apps were a grilled figs with pancetta, a sheep's milk ricotta with toasted hazelnuts, and a burata with bacon. Each was a wonderful combo of flavours, and often with a surprising taste in the mix. The bacon was some of the best I've ever had and the cheeses were unbelievably fresh.
Pastas were orrechiette with sausage and chard, and agnolotti with butter and sage sauce. This is the first time that I've understood what the big deal is with butter sage sauce. The pastas all had a wonderful chewy texture.
I had duck for the main course. They press the duck so the skin is extra crispy and serve it with a pear 'moutarde' which has the sweetness of pear with a little kick. Amazing with the duck.
Dessert was the 'bombolino' which are little donuts, although I preferred the crispelles which were served with the most delicious strawberry sauce.
The wine suggested by the sommelier was absolutely delicious and paired wonderfully with everyone's food.
We all went home with happy palates and tummies.