Dance camp in Saratoga Springs

This year's dance camp was in Saratoga Springs, NY. I was supposed to go to Saratoga in 2011 but Hurricane Irene derailed my plans. I had heard about what a great little town it was so I was excited to be able to go finally!

This time, Mei came with me, which was extra exciting! The teachers at this camp are Danile, Kathy and Randall, same three as my very first camp. The studios are in the complex of the National Dance Museum and are really nice and spacious. The camp attendance this year was quite low, about 24. It made for a more intimate setting, but also meant missing out on the scale of a bigger group of people. In addition to Carol from LA (a fellow Westside Ballet dancer) and Patsy (formerly of LA now living in Connecticut), we had a violinist, a conductor, an artist, and people from around the northeast, Pennsylvania, Ohio and parts south.

This year I stuck with the 3A level, which I think is a good slow level appropriate for my learning speed (when it comes to physical activities, I'm kind of slow). Our variation this year was Bluebird from Sleeping Beauty with Kathy and rep was from Act 3 of Coppelia with Danile. Randall choreographed his own pas de deux to music from The Mission (which he's used before). I loved the pieces we danced to. Variation was nice and short but with lots of fun (challenging!) details to pay attention to and interesting (challenging!) port de bras. Rep was a blast, lots of moving around in patterns, interactions between boys and girls, but with simple steps so that we could focus on our timing and placement with each other. Plus Mei and I got to do some mime!!

This camp had very few PDD partners. Two young guys, one still in high school, and a tango dancer. Kaleb, the high school kid danced with the taller girls. He was a total sweetheart, happy and friendly kind of like a puppy dog. He could still use some finishing when it comes to partnering (not that I'm so good, but compared to Henry from last year who was only a year older, he was less experienced). He hopes to attend university for a dance/psychology major.

Another camp highlight was technique class taught by Miranda Weese. She is a former principal dancer with NYCB and PNB and her class was great! She had these insane fifth positions (perfect heel to toe) and gave us some great pointers about tendus (so simple yet so hard) and extensions. I loved her combinations because I've got some Balanchine trained teachers so I was reminded of class at home. Heidi is going to try and get her to have a larger role next year at camp.

Saratoga Springs is the home of a major racetrack, also a hot springs and the summer home of NYCB, so the town is full of horse and pointe shoe sculptures. It was really fun to find them all over town. The main street is filled with shops and restaurants and we found a lot of great places to eat (Thirsty Owl Wine Bistro particularly Monday for 1/2 off tapas, Duo for Japanese, Forno Italian). On our final night party, we heard music coming from all over the place. They have a great ballet shop with one of the more amazing pointe shoe fitters I've ever seen-she was a dancer with NYCB and was the founder of the Bunheads accessories company. 

Dance camp photos

Here are my pictures from camp

Last day and heading home

On our last morning, we have one more session of EBAS with Danile. I took it easy through tech class so I could really participate in Gavin's pirouette class. Danile taught men's class since Pedro headed home in the morning. She included tours and assemble jumps. More stuff to work on at home! While we ate people started peeling off to head home. It's so sad to see everyone leave.
Our own journey home detoured through Alberta St and Salt and Straw for ice cream. Before long I'm at the airport and on my way home. Feels good to sleep in my own bed again. But in the morning, I'll wake up and realize I'm not going to see my camp buddies and I'm back to real life and it will all feel a little sad.

Last few days of camp are a whirlwind!

Thursday dawns with all of us checking our bodies for how we are feeling. My first few years at camp I would wake up on Thursday feeling amazing after going to bed on Wednesday feeling like a truck ran me over. I wasn't feeling quite so good this time. My Achilles tendon is a little sore and I've got a strain in one of my small glute muscles. It's another long day with partnering at the very end. We had Kathi Martuza for tech class and she is a beautiful dancer! She used to be principal with OBT and has the most beautiful extended port de bras. We have pirouette with Gavin Larsen, also former principal with OBT. She is tiny, with a sinewy rubber band body! Her focus for class is spotting, which is so important. She really helped set me up for inside turns. I will need to practice with her suggestions at home. For partnering class, we finish up the performance routine. Thank goodness we only have a bit more to learn. Heidi pairs me with Henry for the performance. I'm excited because he is a wonderful young dancer, with a princely manner about him. We all seem to have a little more energy tonight so we decide to trek over to Tommy O's. My friends were not here for Saturday's meet and greet so this is their first meal here. I think this may be my favourite local place.
Friday comes so fast during camp week. We have a later start to the morning and a short tech class with Gavin. We then run through variations and rep. It's hard to believe but we basically have the rep piece down! A longer lunch gives us time to eat, digest and prepare hair, makeup and costume. For the performance, we run through each group once then again for taping. I feel pretty good about my performances although I know I will see things I don't like on tape. Everyone does an amazing job! It's always such an emotional time!
In the evening, our celebration dinner is at A Touch of Athens, out on their lawn. The weather is gorgeous, the food was terrific, and they had wonderful live music, a belly dancer, singing, and most of us participated in the Greek line dancing at some point in the evening. Pedro and Heidi danced together in an improvisational duet. Towards the end of the evening, we could just see the Fourth of July fireworks above the surrounding buildings and hear the 'bombs bursting in air' all around. Truly a magical evening.

Wednesday

The longest and most painful day at camp but also the most fun because we have partnering! We started our day with EBAS, which felt better today than yesterday (Danile extended the flow to the next several movements). We had her for tech as well again and another fantastic class. She had a brilliant way to get us focused on the initial batement for fouettes. We ran variations again in the little room which was cramped and challenging but we all got through it and were able to clean up each of the steps. After lunch we had our first partnering session. Our group of tall women had Troy (fellow camper), Scott and Henry. I had danced with Scott two years ago. Henry is a young dancer with Oregon Ballet Theater who has studied at SFB school. We also had Jordan with OBT, and Joshua, former Martha Graham/Ailey dancer who is now a leather craftsman (here's a video of him and his dad at his dad's shoe repair shop)! We've only learned part of Pedro's PDD routine. He's got us starting on the ground. Grrr. Our last class of the day was Rep which Danile had to run us through since Pedro was teaching the advanced campers in partnering. Definitely a challenge for Danile but she got us whipped into shape really well! Amazing that she can teach someone else's choreography in one day. Wednesday leaves us beat, mentally and physically. We walked to Black Angus for dinner since it's literally next to the hotel.

Short day

Today is our shortest day and also the hottest weather-wise. I learned that one of the campers, Ethan, used to work with Edie. Small world!

We had tech class in the morning with Danile. Then pirouette class (so great, we always learn so much) and instead of pointe, I took men's class. This first class was pas de deux technique so the guy campers could learn how to partner. Really fun, since we usually only get partnering for two sessions where we learn a piece, it was useful to learn this stuff in a little more detail. Since our day was short, we went into Portland to Via Delizia, a restaurant that we first went to two years ago when we SKD first came to the area and my friends came back last year. We enjoyed the food but were mainly there for the gelato. I had chocolate coconut and mango, both delicious.
On the way back I seem to have developed a small blister near the bottom of my second toe. Not sure how that will play out tomorrow. Otherwise I feel okay.

Learning two performance pieces

On the first full day of camp, we are learning our variation and our rep piece. Class was with Pedro and he gives a really great but hard class!
At lunch I had a half hour with the massage therapist, Gary, who works on my neck and shoulder, which has been really tight. For variation, Danile is working with us on the peasant variation from Giselle. Short at 50 sec, but I'm grateful because we will have time to work on presentation and not just desperately trying to remember steps. Rep is waltz of the hours from Coppelia with Pedro. It's going to be longer and more complicated but not technically challenging. The fun part of rep is we're all in it together and learning how to work in patterns. We end with turnout workshop which is really interesting. I have very wide range of internal rotation but hardly any external (pretty much opposite what you want for ballet, oh well). I also discovered that I am barely engaging my adductors, so something to work on at home. With all of this new material today, it's exhausting but we have a nice dinner at Charlie's Bistro and Stephanie (financial planner from further north of here) joins us.

Dance camp, Vancouver, WA again!

This is my second time at this camp. I was here two years ago when they first ventured west. I had mixed feelings about that camp for various reasons. This year the teachers include Pedro and Danile who I haven't had the pleasure of taking class with since our last Richmond camp in 2010. On our first day (yesterday), we met everyone and I was impressed with the high level of education and achievement in campers' day jobs! We have a few PhDs, several engineers and a roboticist. First day is usually a gentle intro but we started with EBAS which is a great way to help retrain your body for proper alignment but is also a lot of work to do correctly. Tech class was with Danile and she gave a great gentle class. Heidi and Danile did an alignment workshop to further dig into EBAS technique. Dinner was at Orchid Thai, which has moved from its old location two years ago. In fact there seems to be an increase in activity and businesses in Vancouver.

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.

Bolshoi Swan Lake

The Bolshoi is in town for a short stint performing Swan Lake. They haven't scheduled any of their stars, but the main reason to see this company do this ballet is for the corps. This was the most unified, synchronized corps I have ever seen. During the four little swans, they were so together even their feet were synchronized. Our seats were way up in the rafters (we got our tix late and the show sold out) so while we were quite far away, we could see how beautiful the patterns were created by this impeccable corps.
The leads were technically proficient however I find Bolshoi lead dancers to be a little impassive and they can feel a little cold. The costumes were also a little odd. Some of them were beautiful and sparkly, however others had weird fabric bits scattered on the skirts.

Performance day

Today is the performance.  We have a short warm up class and then run throughs for our variations and repertory piece before a quick lunch and then prep for the performance.  The performance starts with the pas de deux.  Each group is dancing to the same music, Cinderella's Act 2 pas de deux, but with slightly different choreography (harder for the upper levels).  Some of the level 4s are doing this amazing slide into fouette thing that looks really hard.  I have a lot of fun in our partnering dancing with David.  He is with the Richmond Ballet, so I'm going to watch for him.  The variations are next and our group does quite well with the timing.  It's a really fun piece, from Raymonda's wedding scene.  The repertory that the level 4s do is amazing!  They were so together and coordinated it was like they had worked together for months.  Our repertory turned out really well, and Kathy seemed pleased (we'll see how it looks on the video). 

After the performance, we get ready for the dinner at Europa.  It's always fun to see everyone with their hair done and normal clothes.  I'm pretty tired though so we all call it a night early.  Tomorrow is a half day and since our flight leaves fairly late, we actually can take the full half day of classes.  I can't believe how fast this week has gone.  I wish I could dance more, but frankly, one full week of this is about as much as my body can take!  I definitely need to give it a rest.

Day before the performance

Dance camp week always flies by.  Tomorrow is the performance.  The day started out with Scott Putman teaching technique class.  It was an amazing class.  First of all, he spent a lot of time at barre giving us corrections and helping us improve our body mechanics.  We didn't have to do a lot in center, but this was perfect.  We are all pretty fried and this felt really good for our bodies.  Pedro taught pirouettes and jumps and rather than have a set class, he let us ask questions and helped us with issues that various students were interested in.  One person wanted help on pirouettes from 5th position.  I asked about petit allegro.  One of the guys asked about ballone.  Pedro really helped us to break down each issue.  Danile did pointe for us again, and I love how she teaches bourrees, again, breaking it down for us.  Today is also the second day of partnering.  Ty was back this year!  He was so great to dance with a couple of years ago.  We practiced supported pirouettes and pas de chats (so much fun doing jumps with a partner).  We also practiced more of our performance piece.  I am dancing with David, which is great, he's a wonderful partner.  He really helped me with the waltz step.  I found out that Nathan is a still in high school and was in the summer intensive here at Richmond.  Ben is going to Tucson to work at a small company there.  Ty has been working for a small company in Charlottesville. 

We had another session of repertory and Kathy set the final pose (as always, it looks great!) and then I hung around to wait for the others hoping to get a chance to practice the variation with them.  In the meantime, a huge thunderstorm started!  There was a tornado warning and we all had to go into the basement.  It took about 15 minutes for the warning to pass.  After that, it was still pouring with thunder and lightening so we hung around the studio a bit waiting for it to let up.  By the time we got back to the hotel, it was late, so after a bit of dinner dilemma, we decided to head back to the Thai place for a quick dinner. 

Long day

Today is always a really hard day.  We ended with partnering though, which is usually tons of fun.  But the day didn't end until 6:30p and it always feels like there is so much work still to do on the performance pieces and not enough time.  We had some great young guys for partnering, including some who were very experienced at it and could help us improve.  We are doing the Act 2 pas de deux from Cinderella this year, so yet more beautiful music.  We went back to the Thai restaurant for dinner (the food is really good but not heavy, the service is wonderful and they have delicious desserts).  After dinner, we came back to the hotel and reviewed the timing for the variation but everyone is pretty trashed.  I've always experienced waking up on Thursday feeling great, so I'm hoping that holds this year as well.

Pedro, Arabesques and ports de bras

Today we had Pedro for technique class.  He is a crack up, but his combinations are kind of complicated.  I don't know if it was because it was morning, but I kept messing up.  He gives a really hard class.  For the battement combination at the barre, he threw in pirouettes in between!  After lunch we had another go at the repertory piece and it's starting to come together.  We're almost done marking the whole piece, and then Kathy can fine tune.  We then had a lecture on arabesques, the different variations of them (Ceccheti, Vaganova, etc) and how to do them properly.  My final class of the day was a semi-private class with Danile.  I wanted to review ports de bras, but we did it by going over our variation, which has a lot of more complicated ports de bras.  It was a great review session.

Dinner tonight is at Beauregard's Thai Room, which is just in the next block from our hotel.  It's got a lovely patio and the food is inexpensive, light and really tasty.  I treated myself to some flan, which was creamy and delicious. 

Variation and Repertory

Today is the day we learn what we are performing on Friday.  Our variation is from Raymonda and we're working with Danile.  It's a really beautiful piece of music (by Glazunov) and a really neat piece with a lot of ports de bras to work on.  It's quite long too, so it'll be challenging to learn.  The repertory piece is the Act 2 waltz from Swan Lake!  Another beautiful piece of music and Kathy is teaching this, so we're guaranteed to have an amazing complicated pattern to remember.  The afternoon also offered jazz with Willie.  This is the third year he's taught jazz and it's always so much fun.  He has a great energy and great attitude.  He does start class with a bajillion sit ups, though.  As he's moving us through isolations of various body parts, he keeps reminding us that we are supposed to be dancing, even in a studio, we're not just saving it for a stage!  I did bow out of class early though, because I don't want to overtax myself.  Tonight is the trip to the dance store and I bought myself yet another leotard (which I really don't need).  We had dinner at Amici's, next to the store, and had wonderful pastas and salads. 

First day

Today we meet everyone at camp.  There's a lot of familiar faces, and many of them are people I'm following on Facebook, which is great because I feel like I have a small sense of them as people outside of dance.  There are some new folks too, including a girl from Sweden who takes class with Lars (who is not here, unfortunately), and one from London.  There aren't a lot of men this year, but one is a guy who rode his bicycle all the way from Colorado, taking ballet classes all the way over!!  I'm staying with level 3A since my calf strain prevented me from training fully prior to camp.  I'll also do beginning pointe for the same reason.  Kathy gives a great technical class, which is perfect for helping me get stronger.  After pointe, we have a body alignment class with Scott Putman.  I remember his technique class from last year was wonderful and he is showing us his Elemental Body Alignment system, which is meant to retrain our bodies to work better for all kinds of movement (he teaches golfers as well as dancers).  It's an amazing class and at the end of it my body feels totally pulled up and yet relaxed.  We have modern after, which is always so much fun!  Jill takes us through a few combinations that include contractions, falls and freer movements than we do in ballet.  Since she does both, she can help us understand how we need to alter our body to accommodate modern when it's so used to doing ballet. 

After class and showers, Patsy and I go with Sondra for a grocery run (you can never have enough water at dance camp).  We stop by and say hi to the others who headed to Urban Farmhouse for dinner with Kitty Felde.  It's about to close when we arrive, so we went to City Dog.  I had a Cincinnati chili dog and onion rings.  Excellent meaty food here, and totally hits the spot, plus TVs with shark week on and friendly service.  This is a nice, inexpensive find for us!

We have an early call tomorrow and it's our first full day.