April 30 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. So anyway, it was nice to be able to choreograph this hunk of the piece. And it was nice that it was received so well by the people who saw the sneak peek at the fundraiser.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. I rather like the way Caitlin (the girl furthest right) looks in this image. She has a Cecil B. DeMille quality. Like something out of an old painting.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. So on this high note, we leave Don Juan until next season.

Daily Stuff -  Subbed at the SCPA. And office work. Nothing new.

April 29 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. As Harold Hill would say... "There is trouble... right here in River City."

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. Evidently, the male gypsy contingent isn't overjoyed with the attention the Don is getting. And this kind of sets up the Byronic Don Juan. He pretty much just falls into trouble. Less because of his own doings and more because... well women just find him so attractive. And then he is just obliging.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. Then the girls get into the act.

Daily Stuff - Day off.

April 28 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. At the climax of the pas de deux, the other gypsy women begin to become involved.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. And swoosh around the couple. The music and the girls movement always made me think of some night on a barren Andalusian plain.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. Another promenade.

Daily Stuff -  Second strategy meeting. It went pretty well. Lots of great input fro the board.

April 27 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. One of two off balance promenades. Any off balance movement takes a lot of trust between partners.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. The recovery from the off balance promenade.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. The end of a lift sequence. She has just come off of his shoulder and down to this extreme dip.

Daily Stuff -  Got the contracts ready to send out on Monday and made a few offers to new dancers. Tomorrow, we have the 2nd of 3 strategy meetings in the morning.

April 26 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. I am generally not a fan of overly-bravura bravura. This lift was originally supposed to be a two handed lift, but it went up so easily, that Max just sort of shifted it over to a one handed lift. It worked musically and character-wise, so I just left it that way.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. More pulling.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. More lifting.

Daily Stuff -  Started subbing down at the SCPA in Chula Vista today. Will do it for a week for my friend Beverly.

April 25 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. The last lift in that series of repeated lifts.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. I have always liked these sort of off balance supports.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. This split comes directly after the above support.

Daily Stuff - Today, I worked on a tribute video for a dear friend that I posted on YouTube. Huzzah! I am now part of the 21st century! Had a meeting at the San Diego Foundation today regarding their Better Giving program. Got some nice info. Came back and taught Level 5 at SDSB.

April 24 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. The first section of the pas was distinguished by lots of pulling motifs...

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. Ending in a sort of twisted pose. There were then a series of three repeated lifts.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. The lift sequence was partially repeated because the piece was going to be performed in the round, but also because I am not that interested in choreography that is totally performed to the front, as if facing a mirror. Especially, when you are telling a story. If you are doing a sort of exhibition piece, like our Mambomania or Opus... Swing!, then it is fine. But when two characters are interacting, you need to give the audience a scene that things are not being performed to them.

That doesn't mean that the lines the audience sees are unattractive or obscured. Just that the side or back of a dancer can also tell a story.

Daily Stuff - Office work and teaching at Florence.

April 23 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. When the Don finishes his solo, most of the gypsies move off to the sides and he is approached by one of the girls. He lets her know that he doesn't have any money. And she lets him know that that is fine with her.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. And we go into a fairly lengthy pas de deux.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano & Max Tchernychev. In the staging of the previous section, Stephanie was not the central girl, nor did she have the final more romantic solo. I did that intentionally. I wanted this girl to come out unexpectedly.

Daily Stuff - No ballet stuff today. Today was spent doing a talk back with the students at the SCPA who had auditioned for Zoot Suit a couple of weeks back. Pointers. Tips. No nos.

April 22 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Maxim Tchernychev. After the three gypsy prostitutes complete their variations, rather than choose one, the Don dances by himself.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Maxim Tchernychev. The solo itself is a bit introspective. Not too much bravura. Its a bit playful with the women who are circling him, but there is a little bit of sadness as well.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg.  Dancer: Maxim Tchernychev. We are also made aware of the fact that the Don is "slumming a bit. Technically, although the dance should be interesting, it can't be too physically demanding because it is immediately followed by a long pas de deux.

Daily Stuff - Today, we consolidated our stuff from our old storage to our new storage. So happy. It makes it that much easier to know where stuff is. Thanks to all the volunteers who helped out. The old storage was above our old studios. Wish I could say there was a bit of emotional pang going back, but there wasn't. Just relief. 

April 21 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Zoe Marinello-Kohn. The last of the 3 solos is an adagio. And it has a much more lyrical feeling to it. The music has a wonderful transparent, tinkling quality.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Zoe Marinello-Kohn. If we were staying with the Judgement of Paris theme. This would be Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Daily Stuff - Day off. But I did have callbacks for Zoot Suit today and went to see a lovely play written and directed by our social media director, Katie Haroff. Tomorrow, we will be moving stuff from one storage facility to another. Thank haven for volunteers.

April 20 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. The second solo in The Judgement of Paris section could be attributed to Athene, goddess of war. Sort of. Kind of. It IS very fast and furious.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. But it is also a bit bouncy and fun. Also Athene was the eternal "maiden." This character most definitely is not!

Daily Stuff - Office work and going to presentation on health insurance for dancers and dance companies.

April 19 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Regan Nuchereno. The first solo up in this sort of "Judgement of Paris" section has a bit of maturity in it. It has some tricky ronde de jambes on pointe and hops on pointe in plie.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Regan Nuchereno. It also has sequences that look as if they are referencing court dances. I mentioned Judgement of Paris, so this could be considered a Juno-esque variation.

Daily Stuff - I think I strained the muscles in my back on Tuesday when I was working with the kids at Florence. It was killing me all of last night. So taking it very slow today.

April 18 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. After the general group dance, where the gypsies surround the Don... things settle down. And he sits downstage of them.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. The three couples come forward and we notice that rather than being romantic couples, they are instead procurers and prostitutes.

 Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet, Classically trained prostitutes with high leg extensions :)

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. the do a slow brief dance where the guys show off the girls. This piece is followed by three solos for each of the three dancing girls.

Daily Stuff - Taught at SDSB. Nice class with Level 5. I also worked some guiding values for the organization which I'll be posting after the board discusses them further,

April 17 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Evgeny Korsakov. My gypsy troupe was made up of 3 couples and an ensemble. In the first movement, the couples performed the same dance sequence, but in round form.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Evgeny Korsakov. I like this pic. It makes clear the intricate nature of the sequence.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Evgeny Korsakov. And this one shows a lift right before the sequence is repeated facing another direction.

Daily Stuff -  Tax Day! Had to file an amendment, but I got it out in time. Huzzah! Went to teach at Florence today. Finished the Polka combo I do with the kids. Huzzah! Huzzah!

April 16 2012

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. So for our Fundraiser in March, we did a sneak peek of a ballet we are preparing for next season, Don Juan. Now, anything can be the spark for creating a new ballet from music to a story to a specific dancer to a particular shade of red on a ketchup bottle. In this case, we have an excellent mature male dancer with the company. Full length ballets are generally based around female dancers (Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, etc), so the idea of creating something around a guy was intriguing.

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. So trying to find a good archetype, I decided on the sort of swashbuckling lover. In the end, I was caught between Casanova and Don Juan. Both characters would allow for plenty of nice pas de deux with a variety of girls, which would serve the company well. The problem with both characters was that unfortunately, the linear story lines didn't work well. There is basically no Casanova story and the Don Juan story, dealt with too many characters that were either uninteresting to develop dance-wise (father in laws and such) or necessitated  elaborate stage craft (statues coming to life and the mouth of Hell opening up and swallowing the character).

Rehearsal for Don Juan. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. In the end, two contributing factors made the decision. The first was coming across Lord Byron's satyric poem, Don Juan. The unfinished work pretty much just has the title character jump from exploit to exploit, running into slave traders, sultans, mothers, daughters, duchesses dressed as friars, etc. That gave me the freedom to just come up with as many fun scenarios as possible with the title character just sort of stumbling from one to the other.

The second contributing factor was finding some music that I could make work in a cohesive fashion. With Casanova, I had found some very pleasant Rossini pieces, but they weren't making sense to me as a whole. Last year, I had choreographed a piece to classical Spanish guitar. I went back to that and managed to find a treasure trove of danceable music by the same composer.

So in the following entries, you will see our first choreographic sketches for Don Juan. This section is entitled "Don Juan and the Gypsies" and takes place in the middle of the First Act. For the most part, the dancers are wearing costumes from our production of Shakespeare's Sonnets, as the needed something to wear at the fundraiser.

Daily Stuff - Watched a couple of auditioners take class today and worked in the office.

April 15 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza and Boys. After the Yellow section, the dancers come back in, one at a time, repeating steps from all of the previous sections. Finally, they end up dancing in unison.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and nd SDB dancers. The final two couples then cross the stage on a diagonal.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Robery Ryan. And the girls go soaring offstage. End of lecture demo. So lecture demos usually start with a modified demonstration of a ballet class ( a shortened barre, center, and across the floor) and are then followed by a demonstration of vocabulary and pas de deux work culminating in the ballet that I have been showing images of. We also have a lot of student participation. We can generally get about 20 kids out of the audience to come up on stage and get involved.

Daily Stuff - Came in to the office on Sunday. Not much company stuff going on, The school kids are rehearsing for an upcoming student concert upstairs.

April 14 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Noriko Zaragoza. Yellow! yellow is my favorite color, but a little goes along way.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Elena Yagovna, Noriko Zaragoza and Caitlin Sullivan. The beginning of this section actually owes a lot to the Chinese Dance in Nutcracker. As it finishes, also gets choreographically dense, meaning lots of steps are crammed in.

Daily Stuff- More of the same.

April 13 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. Pink! Pink starts out as a Charleston solo for a girl with an umbrella.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Alexus Hill. She is soon joined  by a second girl with an umbrella. Lots of piques in arabesque and paddle turns. The thing about this section that never ceases to amuse in rehearsal is the step that Alexus is doing. It is a very simple step touch with the umbrella swooping across the body. But for some reason, it's a hard thing to coordinate after you have been dancing very fast.

Daily Stuff -  Still wading through dancer submissions. Zoot Suit casting meeting tonight.