Jan 10 2012

 Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Marshall Whiteley. The entrance to the Capulet Ball. Tybalt dances CS in front of Lady Capulet.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Rachel Sebastian-Hagquist & Marshall Whiteley. The two principals are about to take hands as the big glorious DAnce of the Knights is about to start.

Daily Stuff - Well, they had to start without me today. Still dealing with Kidney Stones. I think the worst is over, but the medicine is still making me very woozy.

Jan 9 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. Stephanie is performing a small solo that takes us from Juliet's bedchamber to the Capulet Ball.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. In the middle of the solo, she joined by the two other handmaiden's, Romeo, and Mercutio. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the ballet, in choreographic terms.

Daily Stuff - Had to go to the emergency room last night. Kidney stones. Still a bit out of it.  Hopefully. this will pass :( :)

Jan 8 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Matt Carney & Abby Avery.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Rachel Sebastian-Hagquist, Noriko Zaragoza, Abby Avery, Tiffany Koepke, Leila Gardner. Just your basic "Reminding the Young Girl that she is soon going to be married off to the rich young Duke" moment.

Back from Las Vegas. Company back on contract on Tuesday. Tomorrow will go into the office to put together the schedule for the upcoming weeks.

Jan 7 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Leila Gardner & Abby Avery. Still in her bedchamber, Juliet's Nurse keeps trying to get her to focus on her upcoming marriage. This pulling/reaching motif is a fairly important one in the ballet in general and in Juliet's bedchamber scenes specifically.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Matt Carney & Abby Avery in foreground. Juliet meets her arranged finance, Paris. I have always felt rather sorry for Paris. He does absolutely nothing wrong and gets killed for it anyway.

Daily Stuff -  saw Ka last night. It was, of course technically amazing and beautiful. Driving back to San Diego today.

Jan 6 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza, Tiffany Koepke, & Leila Gardner. Still in Juliet's bedchamber.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano, Noriko Zaragoza, & Tiffany Koepke. Here we have all three of Juliet's handmaidens in a shot together. Stephanie actually has a character name... Rosalind. In the Shakespeare play, the character is only referred to as the the reason that Romeo and co. sneak into the Capulet ball, but we never see her.

Daily Stuff - Had a very nice opening for The Toughest Girl Alive at Moxie last night. At the moment, I am sitting at San Diego Airport on my way to Las Vegas. I will only be there for one night, but will at least get to see Ka at the MGM Grand. Then drive back to San Diego tomorrow. And then two days to figure out scheduling for the next few weeks. We have a lot to do in a little time.

Jan 5 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Meghan Lotz & Regan Nuchereno. A couple of Greek chorus renaissance figures focusing the audiences attention on the principle action which is...

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Rachel Sebastian-Hagquist & Abby Avery. The entrance of Juliet into her bedchamber.

Daily Stuff - SDB admin and the Opening night of The Toughest Girl Alive at Moxie tonight!

Jan 4 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Leila Gardner. This is a shot of Juliet's Nurse taken during a interlude that links the street scene to Juliet's bedchamber.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Rachel Sebastian-Haguist & Leila Gardner. And here the Nurse and Lady Capulet are admiring a piece of material that will be used to create Juliet's wedding veil. That piece of material is always tricky to "cast." It takes a few trips to a fabric store to find something that has enough shimmer, and a slight bit of stiffness (so it will float), but that still looks delicate and soft.

Daily Stuff - The Classes at SDB started again this week, so I'll be teaching a Level 5/6 class tonight before I head off to my Toughest Girl Alive final dress rehearsal.

Jan 3 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza, Trystan Loucado, Max Tchernychev. After Romeo and Juliet's solos, we have a street scene where most of the players in the ballet are introduced. Among them are Juliet's handmaidens. She has three. Here are two of them, as they cavort with Romeo and Mercutio.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Tiffany Kopke

Started up teaching at Florence elementary again today. The kids were VERY enthusiastic and happy to be dancing again. Toughest Girl Alive has its 2nd tech/dress at Moxie tonight.

Jan 2 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancers: Meghan Lotz, Elana Lewis, Arielle Meads, Vinnie Prisbrey, Regan Nuchereno. The ballet was created as a very intimate chamber piece. As such, it utilizes a small corps of Renaissance figures to comment on the action and move us from scene to scene.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Trystan Loucado. because I wanted to focus on the Romeo and Juliet relationship, I intentionally did away with a lot of the testosterone laden sword play. To that end, the part of Benvolio (which is actually my favorite role in the play) was unnecessary. So now, Romeo is just accompanied by his BFF Mercutio.

If you visited early yesterday, I added some info to yesterdays pics in the evening, so double check to make sure you are on board.

The company is off this week, so I am pretty much just working on getting The Toughest Girl Alive up at Moxie Theater (www.moxietheater.com). We open on Thursday and it only runs for 2 weeks. So come down and see it!

Jan 1 2012

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Max Tchernychev. As I am going to go through these pics in show order I might as well give a little illumination. My staging of the piece starts with two solos for the principals, which are performed in tandem. This is Romeo in his first pose. Slightly forward as if looking for something.

Rehearsal for SDB's Romeo et Juliet. Photographer: Gregory Olive. Dancer: Abby Avery. And here is Juliet as she turns to face towards the audience. Just as eager as Romeo, but a bit more hopeful and innocent.

Happy New Year! I hope to see you all at our February show.

Dec 31 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancer: Tiffany Koepke. In our final image from this last fall's Mixed Rep program. Tomorrow, I'll start posting pics from this last year's production of Romeo et Juliet.

New Year's Eve! Have a safe and festive one!

Dec 30 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev

Still doin the San Diego sightseeing touristy thing. Today is Seaport Village. But tonight I still have rehearsal for the Toughest Girl Alive. We have been putting in a new cast member, so we have been working without our leading lady, Candye. We should have everyone tonight, which will give my voice a break, as I have been doing her part. Vocals and all :)

Dec 29 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev

Niece and nephew visiting from Austin, so today I am a tour guide. But I still have rehearsal for The Toughest Girl Alive tonight. That is all. Off to see the monkeys at the zoo.

Dec 28 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. Ah the ubiquitous leg warmer :)

Figuring out the casting for our Romance show in February. One of the ballets on the slate is A Midsummer Night's Dream. So I have to figure out who is a fairy and who is a human being. Winged creatures step to the front of the line!

Dec 27 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. This ended up being a very nice little pas de deux. We have since used at at special request performances. Like a lot of these things, it was choreographed rather quickly and owed a lot to gifts of the individual dancers it was staged on.

Yesterday's Free Day of Dance was a huge success! My classes were overflowing with eager dancers. Young and old. Even the afternoon ballet class! And my body made it through it all.

Rehearsing for Toughest Girl Alive tonight at Moxie.

Dec 26 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Tiffany Koepke

FREE DAY OF DANCE!

Well, I taught stretch this morning. My back is still an issue but I just put on an extra pair of sweats (over my other sweats) to keep my muscles warm. It was actually pretty enjoyable. Nice music and an eager group of over 40.

Then I taught a beginning jazz class. That was also fun. Big class as well that ranged from age 12 to about  60.

In 5 minutes, I am off to teach a ballet class and then this evening I have rehearsal for The Toughest Girl Alive at Moxie.

Ah well, the students are calling me...

Dec 25 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Tiffany Koepke & Noriko Zaragoza

Merry X-mas! Took my parents to a nice meal at Island Prime and then saw Sherlock Holmes Two. My favorite part of the movie was when they used the main title of the movie Two Mules for Sister Sara as a joke.

If you are in San Diego come down and join us for our 4th annual Free Day of Dance at Dance Place San Diego. I'll be teaching a stretch class from 9 to 10, then a  beginning jazz class from 10 to 11:30 and then an intermediate ballet class from 12 to 1:30.

Dec 24 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Tiffany Koepke & Lyndon Dou. Tiffany even looks a bit like the star at the top of a X-mas tree.

Happy X-mas Eve.

Strolled through the San Diego Zoo today. The animals were frisky. A perfect San Diego weather day.

Miracle on 34th Street tonight. Adorable Natalie Wood. Beautiful Maureen O'Hara. Hunky John Payne. Pitch Perfect Edmund Gwenn. And that little Dutch girl who sings the Santa Claus song.

Dec 23 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Tiffany Koepke. As I have in all the pics, I have cropped the original photo to my own sensibilities. That doesn't mean that the top of this image was unattractive. Just that what was "important" me wasn't highlighted. Even though ballet dancers are traditionally thought of as light and airy, sometimes it is the interplay between defying gravity (by pointe work and the effortless jumps) and the illumination of weight and mass that is arresting. In this case, Tiffany's slightly bent front leg and the weight and flow of the costume, gives the photo a sensuality that it would not have if it was just a pretty picture.

Ah well, working on the newsletter in the office. Its interesting to see how all the little things we do (personal appearances, educational outreach, etc) add up with the big things (Fall show, Tour, Nutcracker) to make for full and interesting year.

Its also nice to be in the office without the usual mayhem of the school going on. Apart from Max coaching some girls upstairs for a competition in January, the building is very quiet.

On the minus side, I am going to have to teach 3 classes at our annual Free Day of Dance the day after Christmas and my back still hasn't fully recovered from the injury during Nutcracker. Hopefully, it will be fine in 3 days.

Dec 22 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Tiffany Koepke & Lyndon Dou

Today, I went to Moxie Theatre and rehearsed for The Toughest Girl Alive. It was nice to see the set coming together.

Putting together an end of the year newsletter for SDB followers to be sent out... along with an end of the year appeal for contributions :)

Dec 21 2011

Rehearsal for SDB's Echale Salsita. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancers: Tiffany Koepke & Lyndon Dou

Well, not much at SDB today. Have to finalize the press release for our February show and the postcards for it have come in.

This afternoon, I sat on a panel to make a recommendation on an artist for a public art piece for the San Diego Airport. It was nice to hear other artists talking about their work and process.