Dimple & Cream

I've got some new kittens at the CatBnB. They've been here almost 2 weeks and have another week and a half or so before they are scheduled for spay/neuter surgery. 

Dimple is a female Tortie and Cream is a female orange tabby (unusual as most orange tabbies are male). They're about 8 weeks old and absolutely adorable! Dimple was super skinny and much smaller than Cream when they first arrived but she was much braver and would purr on contact. Her ears are huge compared to her tiny head. 

Cream was much more cautious and tended to stay outside of reach. When I was able to give her a little scritch on the chin, she immediately loved it but she didn't purr for awhile.

As with most of the kittens I've had, they got some loose stools about a week into their stay so I had to medicate them, which can be a life threatening task for the medicator! Kittens have sharp claws! They both love Churu treats and playing on top of my legs.

International Nights

Friday and Saturday are the International Nights performances. This year, on Saturday they scheduled two shows and we are going to the early show. Originally this was designed to allow a bigger audience assuming the need for spacing due to COVID. They didn't end up needing to do that as the local authorities allowed for full capacity and no masks. In fact, despite all the talk of the delta variant in the news, there was not much evidence of people taking precautions at all. We saw handfuls of people in mask, sometimes families with kids masked but the adults not. Public transport was fully masked but that was due to federal orders. Luckily Vail is a very outdoors oriented town, but it's confusing trying to figure out what is the right thing to do for yourself.

On Friday morning, I joined Suzanne and Ben for a hike up the mountain and over to Lionshead. I got off to a bad start by forgetting my water. They had mapped out a hike with the help of the local maps and guides starting at the gondola in Vail Village. Luckily the trail was dry after all the rain we had. I went about 20 minutes with them and decided I wouldn't do well the whole way so turned back while they kept going. Once I got back to the village, I joined Joel and Joyce at the pool. For lunch we checked out Joe's Deli for sandwiches and ice cream. Their sandwiches were huge and delicious and they had some great ice cream flavours.

Dinner tonight is at El Segundo. They have a variety of tacos, bowls and burritos. My boss hog taco was delicious along with a side of black beans. Dessert was strawberries with a cream/yogurt mix and their churro donuts were perfect.

This year's International Nights are a little less star-filled, a little less action packed than before. I'm sure the planning and programming must have been a challenge, trying to book dancers and repertoire in ever changing circumstances. The highlight of the first night was the performance of Who Cares, dedicated to Jacque d'Amboise. Many dancers from both ABT and NYCB performed in the roles and many of them were debuts. This was a fun way to end the evening.

On Saturday, we started with breakfast at Ludwig's in the Sonnenalp. Joyce, Joel and I had gone their our first year and we loved the glass dining room. This time, there is no buffet and our bigger table was inside but the food was just as good as we remembered. After breakfast, Suzanne and I walked to the amphitheatre to watch rehearsal. This was definitely a highlight of the trip-the dancers did a combination of marking and dancing full out for their pieces, some in parts of their costumes, so in their regular dance clothes. 

The Int'l Night performance was at 5p so we went early to grab a bite at the amphitheatre. We saw several pieces that were created for the dance festival in previous years, some previews of pieces that will be performed on Monday and Calvin & Unity performed the pas de deux from After The Rain, one of my all time favourites. 

While the festival may not have been able to be as full programmed as in past years, we were all very grateful for the fact that we had live dance, new partnerships and new pieces. The audience was super appreciative, as almost every piece got standing ovations from a good chunk of the crowd.

Dancer interviews and creekside walk

In the middle of the week, we have a couple of non-performance days. On Wednesday morning I met Suzanne and Ben at Manor Vail Lodge to listen in on an interview for the podcast Conversations on Dance with Herman Cornejo and Tiler Peck. The room and audience were very small and so we saw Tiler and Herman beforehand, just hanging out. The interviewers for the podcast are former Miami City Ballet dancers. It was really special to be able to see the dancers in this setting, talking about how the pandemic affected them and other aspects of their careers. We were able to say a few words to them after the interview.

 After the interview, I joined Joel and Joyce at the pool. I sat and read while they bounced from jacuzzi to pool. For lunch, we got a table at Fall Line and I had a delicious tomato and goat cheese salad.

We had a later dinner tonight at La Tour, a French restaurant that we've never been to but had eyed the menu before. The restaurant was able to completely open their front wall so that there was a nice feeling of outdoor dining even inside. I had a delicious duck breast and we admired their desserts.

On Thursday, we went for a walk by Gore Creek. There is a nature center and the trails leading from there are marked with a written guide to explain some elements of the ecosystem. 

Tonight, we are heading to Lionshead for a jazz performance. Dinner is at Tavern on the Square. They have a huge outdoor patio with umbrellas which was perfect for today's sunny early dinner. I didn't end up loving the performance. However, after jazz night we always go to Rimini for gelato. 

BalletX and Matsuhisa

The last couple of days have been quiet ones. The rainy weather has not helped. Really the only things we could do involved walking around town and shopping when the rain would occasionally let up.

Yesterday morning, Suzanne generously led us through a workout class consisting of some stretches and some pilates. It felt good to move a little like that. 

The rest of the day I just took it easy in my room. I was super tired from not sleeping well the night before so this was about all the energy I had. 

Our late lunch/early dinner was at Up The Creek, which is right next to my hotel and right off Gore creek. I had shrimp and scallops which were nicely done and delicious. The food overall was quite good although Ben's trout was not to his liking but they replaced it. We had a nice view of the creek.

For this evening, the dance performance will be Ballet X's Sunset 0639 hours. It was previously performed at Vail shortly after premiering in Philadelphia. The piece describes the story of the first mail flight between New Zealand and Hawaii and the tragic explosion that killed the crew on their return. 

We decided, given the rain, to take the bus to the theatre. I discovered that there was an express bus directly to the auditorium. It turned out to be super easy and not at all crowded. The performance was amazing! At the beginning, I wasn't sure what to make of it. The movements were sometimes quite classical and other times very modern. The company were all extraordinarily talented. As the piece progressed I came to appreciate the extremely creative use of sound (invented sounds, bird calls, recited letters as well as mechanical noises and music) to fill in where movement couldn't go. And the costumes while simple really began to help place us in the different settings of the story. By the end of the piece I was choked up near tears. The nearly full house gave an extended standing ovation.

Today was even more rain! I met Joyce and Suzanne at their hotel and played a card game called Spite and Malice. It's a fun game using two decks of cards, a little bit of strategizing and luck. About mid day, I ordered a veggie pizza from Pazzo for the group, with Ben and Joel joining us. We just needed a light meal to tide us over until dinner at Matsuhisa.

In the afternoon, the rain had let up so we strolled through the upper part of the village. I then spent a couple of hours back at the hotel before meeting the gang to walk to dinner.

We have gone to Matsuhisa every time we are in Vail. We love the food and the service. This time was no exception. Our waiter was friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. The support staff made sure we had water, fresh plates and cleared off service items almost instantaneously. We always have edamame, the black cod, a couple of sushi rolls (the seaweed is so good) and tempura veggies and the shaved ice dessert. This time we added shishito peppers, sea bass with a black bean sauce, and a miso chocolate bar dessert. I had the passion fruit Matsutini cocktail (shared with Joyce). Every single thing was out of this world. 

After dinner we went for a short walk towards the residential area and then turned around to head back.

Vail Dance Festival

A week after returning from Napa for our first live dance performance in 1.5 yrs, Joyce, Suzanne and I, along with their partners Joel and Ben, headed to LAX very early for our flight to Denver and a shuttle to Vail in pouring rain. 

By the time we got to Vail the rain was reduced to light sprinkles. The others are staying at Austria Haus Hotel, but because I joined them late, I am at a different lodging- Hotel Gasthof-Gramshammer. It's quite a complex with a sporting goods store and restaurant attached. The room is comfortable and quaint although a little noisier than Austria Haus due to the location.

Our first dinner was at La Bottega. I had prosciutto and melon and lobster ravioli. We all shared two wonderful desserts (of course one of them was tiramisu).

Our very first performance was the same day we arrived. NYCB Moves is the touring arm of the company. They performed 3 pieces, all of which were new to me:

In the Night (Robbins)

Sonatine (Sonatine)

Pictures at an Exhibition (Ratmansky)

I loved all of the pieces and I thought the dancers (combination of principals, soloists and corps) performed better than I've seen them in awhile. There was a feeling of joy that really made the night special.

After a good night's sleep, I picked up some breakfast from my hotel (hard boiled egg and some pastries with mediocre coffee), then met the others at theirs. Today is a large farmer's market so we spent the mornings checking out the stalls. I picked up a beautiful banana leaf hat.

Tonight's performance is early so we had a late lunch/early dinner at Sweet Basil, recommended by the Austria Haus concierge. It was so good! I had an amazing snow crab pasta but everyone raved about their food. After, we had ice cream at a new place called Sundae. Their chocolate orange tasted exactly like the treats that Mei and Stephen put into Xmas stockings every year.

The performance tonight is an UpClose highlighting Calvin Royal III who is the Artist-In-Residence this year. They discuss different aspects of his career and his experiences at Vail. He performed pieces with Isabella Boylston, Mira Mason, Unity Phelan, and worked on new pieces with Tyler Peck and Jamar Roberts. This series is such a special part of the Vail program and even more so with such a special dancer as Calvin is. We also ran into Boise, who used to take Joan's ballet class! He now lives in NYC and was there with his partner and his mom.