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.