December 31 2012

Rehearsal Mambomania   Photography : Manny Rotenberg
An apt pic for New Year's Eve.

Rehearsal Mambomania   Photography : Manny Rotenberg

Also performed this at this past Fall's Mixed Rep performances.

December 30 2012

Rehearsal Sarah Nyfield in Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: It rained today. So of course everything stopped. Us Southern Californians don't do well in the drizzle.

December 29 2012

Rehearsal Max Tchernychev in Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: Personal day. Took my nephew to the airport EARLY. Got back and crashed to be awakened a few hours later. Took my dad to the emergency room. Ended up being a "slight" kidney infection. Things seem to be under control now. 10 hours later.

December 28 2012

Rehearsal Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: A little admin. and listened to my Don Juan music.

December 27 2012

Rehearsal Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: Just worked on an ad today and a end of the year donor appeal. Didn't feel as bad as I thought I would after the teaching marathon yesterday at the Free Day of Dance.

December 26 2012

Rehearsal Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: Free Day of Dance. I taught 5 classes. Count them. 5. Ha Ha. I am the Man.

December 25 2012

 Rehearsal Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: Christmas Day. Went to Island Prime with la familia. Geting to be a tradition.
Free Day of Dance tomorrow at Dance Place!

December 24 2012

Rehearsal Le Corsaire    Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Still from the Fall show. Max and Sarah in Le Corsaire.

Daily Stuff: Xmas eve!

December 23, 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
One of the nice thing about this first section of 24 Preludes was the juxtaposition of a very tall male dancer with a petite female dancer. It made moments like this look as if she was way out in a distant orbit.

Daily Stuff: Just working on Don Juan in my mind.

Caught up with two of my favorite women. First, Michelle Shumacher, a student from when I taught at Chula Vista High School. Michelle went on to have a career in New York as a dancer/actress. So much fun was had catching up over guacamole and mexican food. And now that she is on the West Coast, we will hopefully make our catching up more often.

2nd was my good friend Candye Kane. Candye is recovering from a nerve block to help with some pain relief from a recent surgery. So I went up to see her. She keeps such a busy touring schedule that whenever she is in town I make sure I make contact.

December 22 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Daily Stuff: Day Off. But I did send out a e-mail blast for Free Day Of Dance.

December 21 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
3rd pas de deux. Another example of the unison steps that begin this pas.

Daily Stuff: Matinee with Young Audiences. Went pretty well. Then zipped over to the office and I got a nice hit on the music for Don Juan. It all started to fall into place. I was having issues figure out the linking sections, but I think I have it now. And some new characters sprang to mind.

Then last night of Nutcracker. My sho was a bit funky, but ok over all. The biggest issue was that the Snow scene drop wouldn't travel across the stage. So it ended up "snowing" indoors. It was sort of ok because by that time the Christmas Tree has grown. So it did have a foresty background. Through some blue light on it and it could almost pas.

December 20 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
The 2nd pas is followed by a faster solo for the female dancer. Its just a little tricky and swirly, but not too much.

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
And then another pas de deux. This pas starts with some simple mirrored walking patterns. So while it may look as if Joe is doing a solo, Stephanie is actually mirroring him on the opposite side.

Daily Stuff: School matinee today. Lots of kids at Mandeville Auditorium.

December 19 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Still the same pas. He is about to sweep her around in a cradle lift, which I suppose is kind of a trademark step for me.

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
The dance ends with a series of dips. One arm. The other arm. Then no arms.

Daily Stuff: Dress Rehearsal for Friday's show tonight. We have a student matinee of Act Two tomorrow, so we needed to do the dress for Friday before that. As for me, as soon as I finished my First Act stuff, I had to zip over to SDSB to teach an adult class. It's fine. All I do in Act Two is walk across the stage once.

December 18 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
The lento pas de deux is followed by a solo for the male dancer. The prelude is marked "vivace." So this means that the energy is pumped up a bit. Still Joseeph is a fairly elegant male dancer, so the piece always maintained a fairly refined air.

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
This is followed by a second pas de deux (largo). This piece has a very definite feeling of remembrance, old memories that stay with you. A sort of beautiful regret.

Daily Stuff: Worked some dancers into new parts. A little work on the Spanish dance. Last Florence class of the year today.

December 17 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
This first pas de deux is set to a lento with a continuous alternating note pattern. It has a very ominous, eternal quality to it.

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Towards the end of the pas, the regular rhythmic pattern begins to degrade and the dancers begin to move to their own tempo inside the music.

Daily Stuff: Day off for the dancers. Making one more Nutcracker e-mail blast to go out tomorrow.

December 16 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
The idea for 24 Preludes is that it will be presented as a web ballet. One prelude will be posted a week. As a sneak peek, I decided to choreograph the first section which consists of 7 preludes presented as a pas de deux. Each piece is fairly short (one to two minutes). It begins with an evocative solo by the female dancer to start the whole ball rolling. That is followed by the entrance of the male dancer and this pas de dex.

 Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: Nutcracker matinee. As I mentioned yesterday, we had two replacements in today. They did a wonderful job. Nice full house. Some dancers from past seasons came to visit. That's always nice :)

December 15 2012

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
This piece was presented as a sneak preview to an upcoming web series.

Rehearsal for 24 Preludes  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
I am usually happiest when choreographing simple pas de deux's on beautiful bodies to beautiful music.  So these pieces to Chopin sketches hit the mark.

Daily Stuff:  Tech/dress for Nutcracker at Mandeville in La Jolla. Had a slip onstage at the beginning of the snow sequence, so I had to a dancer to urgent care. There will be a shuffling of parts tomorrow, but she will be fine.

December 14 2012

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
2 lecture demonstrations at two different sites :)
The day started with an accident on the 5 as I was going in, so I thought things were going to be a repeat of yesterday. Luckily, it was just a little blip. Got to the first Nutcracker LD with plenty of time. Solana Vista Elementary. So the dancers had plenty of time to warm up and get used to the space. The school has a sort of common space, carpeted pit/kiva. Very 80's. But a nice vibe. Kindergarten and 1st grade only.

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Second show was at Sequoia Elementary. Also very nice, but it started to rain a bit when we got there. This school was just a little more difficult. K through 6th grade. So had to work a little more to keep them all involved. But a good time was had by all. The principal forgot to tell me that I would have less than 50 minutes, so we went a little over. So we had some classes that had to drift away as Waltz of the Flowers played on and on.

December 13 2012

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Daily Stuff: The rains came. I heard the pitterpat of rain lulling me to sleep. I was hoping that it wouldn't send me too much into slumberland. We were supposed to do a Nutcracker lecture demonstration in the morning. At 8 am, I got a call from Karen (who goes in early). "Freeway traffic at a standstill." "Streets closed" "Flooded roads." It was POURING! When I checked online, I saw that the speeds for the roads we were going to be on were listed in the single digits. So we had to cancel.

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg
Luckily, we were able to reschedule to do it after the lecture demonstration tomorrow. In the evening, I was able to catch up with my buddies from my theatre life; Shana Wride , Steve Gunderson,  and Peter Van Norden at City Deli. Much subdued revelry and gossip.

December 12 2012

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg Some aerial views of Fanfare. You can see the Mad Hatter from the Alice: Wonderland set looking on.

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. While the legs are a bit of a blur, I love the cleanliness and open quality in Sara's body here.

Daily Stuff: Ran the second act of Nutcracker. We need to adjust some tempos in the Cavalier's variation. Gave some notes on the Sugarplum pas de deux and Waltz of the Flowers. It is interesting how quickly little details can disappear and be replaced with new ones. Some I don't mind so much, others I change back to the original.

December 11 2012

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Originally, this piece was done in black unitards with trim in various shades of blue and green. This time around I wanted a more colorful presentation (I guess I wasn't in a blue mood).

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Daily Stuff: When I got home last night, I started feeling a bit queasy. So I took it very easy. All night long was a constant effort to stay relaxed, as to not vomit. The problem being that when I woke up, i was still a bit weak. Luckily, today was a day for Robin to teach. So I called in sick for the first part of the day and went in later.  set up an e-mail blast for tomorrow. The Nutcracker shows are selling pretty well. Then went to teach at Florence Elementary. Afterwards, attended a small fundraiser a board member set up at two lovely local shops. But I had to leave early, as my stomach was acting up. Feel okay now. should be 100 percent by tomorrow.

December 10 2012

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

Taking a little break from posting Nutcracker photos. Here are some photos from the recent Fall Rep. This is from a remount of one of the first pieces I did for the company. Generally, an image like this wouldn't be used for any sort of publicity, as its a rehearsal... in flat shoes... in front of a backdrop for another ballet... and the dancers aren't all in unison. But I kind of like it because it has a nice energy.

Rehearsal for Fanfare and Variations  Photographer: Manny Rotenberg

A little more print worthy, but it still has some issues.

Today, worked on an ad and the schedule for the upcoming week. We had a lecture demonstration reschedule for later in the week (which is good).

Tonight, I am off to an artist's reception. Visual artist Julie Warren is having a retrospective of recently retired Senator Christine Kehoe's term in office. Julie and Christine are "good eggs" so I am going to support. Julie did the art for The Toughest Girl Alive as well. And in that vein, Sue Palmer will be playing at the reception. So it will be nice to catch up with her.

December 8, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Brush up rehearsal today, we worked with the two Mandeville casts.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Everything went smoothly.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Tonight the dancers are performing for the German Club in El Cajon. They will be doing the second part of the lecture demonstration which is the abridged Nutcracker. When I came in, Karen informed me we just booked a new lecture demonstration on Tuesday. Woo Woo.

December 7, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Day Off.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Came at an opportune time too. My car started to overheat as I was coming home late last night. Follwed by a burning smell and rattling noise. Luckily, I pulled over in time, but I did have to spend the day car-less as the pump was fixed. An expenditure I did not need this holiday season. :(

December 6, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Early morning television promo this morning. We all met bright and early at 5:30 to appear on San Diego's CW channel 6 to promote the Nutcracker. The dancers did a stellar job, as ambassadors of the show.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Because of the early call, they got the rest of the day off. After a nap, I went and taught a master class at the Coronado School of the Arts. It was a mixed class (beginners and intermediate). Always a difficult thing to teach that kind of class, as you want to make sure that ALL of the dancers get something out of the experience, and that they ALL get it within that 90 minutes. Luckily as I was at the 90 minute mark, I was told that I could take an extra hour with the dancers. So we were able to hit a lot more concepts.

December 5, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Our first LD of the season. We trouped off to exotic... Coronado.
Very nice and appreciative staff and audience. The school is all kindergarten. 5 classes. The dancers did a good job. It was a gentle slide into the world of LDs.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Teaching my adult class tonight. Then home right away. Have to wake up at 4:30 We have a film crew coming in at 5:30 to do some Nutcracker promos. So if you are watching Channel 6 from 6 to 9, we will be on.

December 4, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Went over our lecture demo toady with the company. Tomorrow, we have our first LD at Coronado Elemntary. Pulled the costumes together and had to zip off to the costume storage to dig for some guys costumes. On the way I stopped at a newish deli that caught my eye... Rubicon Deli http://therubicondeli.com/
It was yummy. Go! Feed!

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Then taught the kiddies at Florence Elementary. They had a staff shortage so all the kids were crammed into the auditorium where I normally teach. So I had to make due in a classroom. It was fine. Was a bit more focused on the kids in a different way. Today they learned 4th position arms and 3rd position feet. And worked more on how to tell their right from their left.

December 3, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Day off. But that only means, i didn't go in to the office.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Worked on an e-mail blast that is going out tomorrow.

December 2, 2012

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
Matinee today. Nicely done. The orchestra seemed tighter today. The cast and students did a great job.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
There was one funny incident. The dry ice fog that covers the stage can sometimes make it slick. Today, there was a big puddle stage left. So when the Rat King jumped out and landed in it, he kind of crashed and burned. As he sat there, the Baby Mice who usually then jump crawl under his legs ran in and each grabbed an arm and tried to help him stand. It just looked kind of sweet and funny.

SDB Nutcracker 2011 Photo: Manny Rotenberg
As for my own "performance," it was a little unfocused. I am sure the audience didn't notice, but I just didn't feel inside the character today. Ah well, a day off will do me good.