War Horse

I went to see this play at the Ahmanson this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have not seen the movie, based on the same book. I might, just so I can compare how two very different mediums handle the same story. The sets, lighting, sound, and of course the horse puppets make this a truly theatrical experience. Who needs 3D, just go to the theatre. The horse puppets are really astonishing in how real they become. When the horses are in danger, there were audible gasps in the audience. Despite it being a harrowing war story, there is a lot of humour throughout the piece. The addition of the Song Man who sings at various critical moments in the play adds emotional resonance. I found the story a little simplistic and predictable, but was still moved despite some manipulative tugging of heart strings. Many Americans were introduced to the horrors of WWI through the TV series Downton Abbey, and there is a feeling of doom and foreboding during the preparation for war scenes when the characters still don't know what they're getting into but you do.

Last day of camp

On Saturday, we had just a half day. Technique class was with Kristen. She basically used the same barre every day that we had her. She had some fun runs during center though which took advantage of the great sprung floor in the big studio. I had so much hang time during the grand allegro combination that I could've had tea up there! There was one last men's class, with some time to work on tours, which Scott broke down and made so intuitive, and one last pirouette class helping us focus on placing our pelvises to allow for more stable turns.
My lunch was missing which really annoyed me to no end but Joyce, Gigi and Carol were kind enough to share parts of theirs.

After saying our goodbyes and returning to the hotel to clean up, change and pack, we headed to an area of Portland called the Alberta neighbourhood, which Susan Mikota had recommended to us. Turned out to be a very hot day in Portland and the neighbourhood was delightful, with cute little local shops. We were steered to Salt and Straw for ice cream. I had their special flavour of the day, cherrywood smoked sea salt with chocolate covered feuilletines (to die for!) and local wild berries. Huge scoops, so it made up for the lunch fiasco. We brought our ice cream to Barista for coffee and sat and recapped some of our thoughts on this camp. It was interesting how different our feelings, conclusions and concerns were, with each of us having very different goals and expectations. Amazingly, we all got through the week with no injuries, hurt feelings or other accidents!

Much as I love camp though, and it's always slightly depressing come home, I was really glad to sleep in my own bed.

I didn't take a ton of photos (too busy dancing) but here's a link to a few.

Performance day

Friday was the day of the performance. It was to take place in the giant studio but we were challenged by the fact that the only backdrop that they had was black which is extremely difficult to film against. We had technique class in the morning to warm us up and then short variations and repertory classes to prepare for the afternoon. I wasn't sure until we actually had our variations run throughs that we might actually be able to pull that piece off.

After lunch, costume changes, and makeup, we did the three pieces that we had prepared. The pas de deux went beautifully. I did the official taped version much better than the run through, which is a minor miracle. Same thing with the variations, although I did miss a couple of places, but in our group of six, we managed to be mostly in unison and with no more than one of us flubbing something at any one time. During the repertory piece, I had to make a quick on-the-spot adjustment due to a misplaced fellow dancer, but our timing was perfect and everyone did their special spotlight wonderfully! I wasn't sure if I wanted to DVD but based on how well we did, I decided did want a copy.

We had time to relax, clean up and change for a nice dinner in Portland at an old establishment called Huber's. The food was quite good, again wonderful service and great company, with Heidi, Chris and the teachers all joining us.

Evenings in Vancouver and Portland

After classes, we would usually return to the hotel to clean up and then find a place to grab dinner. Our meet and greet dinner had been at a place in Vancouver called Charlies' Bistro. We kind of overwhelmed the poor server, but he was the first of many wonderful service people we encountered which gave me a sense of how nice, helpful and down to earth the people in this area are.
One night, we coordinated a trip to the Pearl District in Portland with the Southern California contingent and found a delicious Italian restaurant to take over, Via Delizia. Again, we overwhelmed the place but were served by attentive friendly staff. We found the food to be absolutely delicious and their tiramisu was top notch. We thought we missed out on gelato due to a busted freezer, but they managed to scrape up some amaretto to go with the tiramisu.
In Vancouver, there was a nice inexpensive Thai restaurant near the hotel that we could walk to. The other mainstay was the Black Angus which was on the same lot as our hotel. On Wednesday, the 4th of July holiday meant that almost all the local establishments were closed so a group of 13 or 14 of us descended on the place. We were joined by Scott and Randall, which gave me a chance to find out Scott's story a little (and an interesting one it is, too). After dinner, a few of us headed to the local Fort where their big fireworks display was to take place. When it turned out the admission was $7 dollars, a few of us turned around and headed back to our hotel. From our window, we could see about 10 displays across the horizon. Not only that, but fireworks are legal in Washington so there were some rockets being set up right in the hotel parking lot! The various displays went on for a good three hours!
Aside from the holiday evening, we rarely saw more than a handful of people on the streets. It was so desolate, as to be a little weird. I can't quite figure out how the shops stay in business.
Since almost all of the camp contingent was staying at the same hotel, we often saw them at breakfast or in the lobby. I had breakfast every morning with the trio from Vancouver, Canada, as it turned out we were the late risers!
Unfortunately I was not at all pleased with the hotel. The beds were soft and uncomfortable, the bathrooms were not properly cleaned and they were constantly skimping out on towels. After hearing from other campers, we suspect the cleaning staff on our floor was the deficiency.

Dance camp in the studio

I didn't have much time to write in the evenings during camp (mostly due to sheer exhaustion) so I'm playing catch up here. Starting Monday, we had full days of classes. The teachers at this camp are Scott, Randall (who we have had at Richmond) and a local teacher, Kristen. Most mornings started with Scott's EBAS system which really helped open up the hips, place us over our pelvises and stretch out our muscles. Technique class rotated among the three teachers. Scott's classes were very focused on alignment. Randall was mostly about musicality and port de bras. I found Kristen's classes a little unfocused, although we discovered her to be a generous and kind-hearted teacher. The remainder of the morning we had variations, pointe or men's class, and pirouettes. I had decided to take advantage of men's classes so I didn't wear my pointe shoes much at all. Scott taught these classes and I learned some great techniques for turns in second (which will help with fouette turns) and beats (changements, quatres, etc.) Kristen was our variations teacher and Heidi suggested that we do a part from Four Temperaments, a ballet by Balanchine from the late 40s. The music is by Paul Hindemith. We were doing a cobbled together version of the Sanguinic variation. Kristen put together parts of the corps with sections of the man's and woman's variations. The music is challenging and modern (even though it's 70 some years old). The steps are classic Balanchine (that is, not very classically balletic). The combination made for some challenging choreography. We had a very large group and it made it even more difficult to get a handle on. This piece was not physically taxing but was mentally demanding. We also started learning our repertory piece on Monday. Scott choreographed a new piece on us to some Glass-ian sounding music. There were parts of the piece that involved the whole group, but each person also got a solo, duet or trio, which gave everyone a chance to shine. This piece was also not classically balletic, but was physically challenging to keep timing, and keep placement.
In the afternoon, we had arabesque class which was great, with some nice tips for stretching the back. The transitions class was a chance to focus on pas de bourrees with Randall (although I thought the class was too short). A port de bras class didn't involve enough instruction for my taste.
Wednesday was our first partnering class. We had heard that Heidi had a challenging time finding partners, but she had a couple of great guys, including Scott T who was nice, tall and was great to work with as we learned Randall's beautiful choreography, and figured out how best to work with each other.

Dance camp in the Pacific Northwest

Today was Day 1 in Vancouver, WA, which is a small town outside Portland OR. The studio where camp is being held is Columbia Dance Studio. There is a giant light filled studio plus two smaller ones. After sign in and orientation, we had Scott Putman's EBAS class. This is a system of exercises to help us engage the joints and small muscles that are critical to ballet movement and it's a remarkable series. When we stood up at the end of it, I felt completely lifted out of my pelvis. Even my naturally pronated arches in my feet were lifted. This year I'm in 3B and we had a new teacher who played some challenging music and was very nervous. Instead of pointe, I took men's class, which Scott also taught and focused on proper placement for turns in second. He also taught modern class which was mostly Cunningham technique (so I was told). I always enjoy modern, but I chose to be prudent about the amount of rolling on the ground that I would put my body through.
After classes and a quick grocery store run, we had dinner at the Black Angus which is next door to our hotel with most of the So Cal gang plus Robin from Chicago.
Then it was to our rooms to stretch and roll out our sore muscles, take some advil and watch some Olympic gymnastics trials.