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.