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.

April 12 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Evgeny Korsakov. The last section of the LD features the warmer colors of the spectrum. After the pom-pom wielding orange cheerleaders, we introduce Red. red starts with the boys flying in and dancing a duet.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Evgeny Korsakov, Arielle meads, and Lyndon Dou. In the middle of their trick filled duo, a girl comes in in a show of gender equality. Matching them jump for jump.

Daily Stuff - Still dealing with dancer contract stuff today. Spent most of the day dealing with my Creative Catalyst grant.

April 11 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Regan Nuchereno. Orange begins the 3rd movement.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Regan Nuchereno. As the pom-pom's show, the trio of female dancers become glorified cheerleaders.

Daily Stuff - Began by going to see my financial (retirement) planner this morning. All I can say is that it is a good thing that the house is paid for :) Anyway after that went to the office and started sending out letters of interest to dancers we may be looking at hiring next season. Also got a nice gig together for our current dancers. Some extra money coming in for them in April and May. Teaching at SDSB tonight.

April 10 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano, Noriko Zaragoza and Alexus Hill. Noriko in the back usually has a white scarf drapped over her shoulders as we now go into the White section.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Evgeny Korsakov. The White section is actually my favorite to narrate and watch. Yes, this ballet is narrated. In this section, the white girl crosses down the middle as the dancing couples do zig-zagging lifts around her.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Evgeny Korsakov. The girl in white leaves as the other couples take the stage.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Alexus Hill and Robert Ryan. And they waltz.

Daily Stuff - After our easter Break, we came back into the office today and started to bring things back on line. Teaching at Florence today. 8 more classes. Robin and I are also going to go over more dancer submissions for next season.

April 9 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Alexus Hill, Lyndon Dou and Robert Ryan. The second movement of the LD begins with the color Blue. Along with the soloist playing with the blue boa, we have two guys slowly catching butterflies in slow motion behind her.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. Grey. Grey is a fairly short solo.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. As short as it is it gives the dancer a nice opportunity to get wrapped up in a variety of way.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Stephanie Maiorano. Because the grey fabric has a stiff ornate pattern embroidered through it, the material moves in a unique way. It floats with a bit of weight.

Daily Stuff - Had a meeting for my Creative Catalyst Grant today. If you are interested, you can check out my fairly new Creative Catalyst blog at eternally-bad.blogspot.com

April 8 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Stephanie Maiorano and Caitlin Sullivan. The first part of the LD piece comes to an end by a restatement of the original movement theme, but now the girls begin mixing the colors already seen. (Oh and by the way, Stephanie is running gracefully across the back because she exited the wrong way a few seconds before.)

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Caitlin Sullivan, Zoe Marinello-Kohn, and Regan Nunchereno. What was once a duet is now a trio.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Areille Meads and Noriko Zaragoza. And Noriko finishes the first movement with series of turns in a circular pattern from the earlier Gold section. Depending on the piece, repetition can be a very important tool. It can be difficult for audiences to process movement critically. Dance really IS a foreign language to them. Repetition of movement patterns helps give them something to latch on to.

Daily Stuff - Bunny Day!

April 7 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza and Lyndon Dou. The Green section of the LD starts with a couple manipulating a large green scarf. She gets wound up in it, unwinds, and then they toss it up into the air.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza, Lyndon Dou, Stephanie Maiorano, and Arielle Meads. Two girls come in and then they do an ode to an old Doris Humphrey piece called Soaring, where the chiffon goes sailing up between them like a bubble. It always takes a few times of getting tangled up before the logistics are figured out.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza, Lyndon Dou, Stephanie Maiorano, and Arielle Meads. Finally, they all stand as statues as one girls weaves through them dragging the material over them.

Daily Stuff - Strategy meeting today. Very nice. We spoke about company values, assumptions that we may be making  and future "beacons." I have homework now. To flesh out the core values and send them out for approval and discussion.

I also had some more callbacks for Zoot Suit. Things are starting to come together a bit. Still have a ways to go.

April 6 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Regan Nuchereno, Lyndon Dou, Robert Ryan. In the LD, the 2 Purple are joined by a girl in Gold. Then all three make way for a pas de trois for the "color" Black. Although most of the company is seen rehearsing the LD, it is designed to use 2 boys and 3 girls. We did this for ease of travel and also to give the dancers the ability for days off. Additionally, the 2 to 3 make up presents the male to female ratio of ballet dancers in such a way as to minimize the "ballet is for girls" prejudices in some kid's minds.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Regan Nuchereno, Lyndon Dou, Robert Ryan. Because they are dancing to the color Black, I wanted to make sure that the choreography of this section was a bit more complex, as it wouldn't have any added color "pop."

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Elena Yagunova, Evgeny Korsakov, Arielle Meads. After the black section with its high supported lifts, we now have an inverted pas de trois. Black was boy-girl-boy. Brown is girl-boy-girl. Brown kind of put me into a pastoral mood, so this section is made up of plenty of hops, cartwheels, and bells. A bell is that step where you jump up in the air and click your heels together.

Daily Stuff - Dropped by the office yesterday. Everything was in its place. Tomorrow, we have the first of 3 Strategy Meetings. Woo hoo!

April 5 2012

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Noriko Zaragoza and Caitlin Sullivan. I thought I would include a few Outreach rehearsals. The Ed Outreach shows (or LD's Short for Lecture Demonstrations are part and parcel of the life of a San Diego Ballet dancer.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancers: Zoe Marinello-Kohn and Caitlin Sullivan. We zip around San Diego County and perform these shows for students at school assemblies. We try to change the LD every two years and we have a series that we do in rotation. Aesop's Fable, Dr. Suess' One Fish Two Fish, etc. Fo this year and next year, we have brought back and LD based on different colors.

Rehearsal for Educational Outreach. Photo by Manny Rotenburg. Dancer: Zoe Marinello-Kohn. The first section is all about the color purple. Lots of purple scarf dancing.

Daily Stuff -  Had an educational council meeting today for the School at Liberty Station. Its a program where we bring students from nearby schools onto our campus to take classes in a studio environment. Today's meeting was about improving your "teacher talk."So now I need to download and review my Bloom's Taxonomy.

Dec 9 2011

Rehearsal SDB Alice:Wonderland. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancer: Tiffany Koepke

A month of daily blogs!

Well today, we were off to Solana Vista Elementary School in the morning. We go there every year at Nutcracker time. A command performance. It doesn't have a regular stage. We perform in a kiva. Sort of a carpeted pit. The kids all sit around us.

And then we jetted over to Painted Rock Elementary School in Poway. A nice multi-purpose room with a real stage. With carpet. And a nice hole in the middle of the stage. Luckily, I had a roll of duct tape. Instant patch.

Onward to the weekend's rehearsals!

Dec 8 2011

Rehearsal SDB Alice:Wonderland. Photographer: Manny Rotenberg. Dancer: Noriko Zaragoza & Arielle Meads

In between Lecture Demos. This morning, we got up bright and early and did two shows at Ocean Knoll Elementary School in Encinitas. Very nice. The school has a lovely view of the Pacific. Their mascot is the Dolphin. So I got to say "Good Morning Ocean Knoll Dolphins!" before I went into my spiel about proper assembly behavior. First group was great. K through 3. Very attentive and quiet. They clapped for everything. The second group was a bit tougher. 4th through 6th. They are always a bit more challenging. :)

Now, we are off to Adams Elementary in somewhere in between East Village and Kensington. Two more shows. Then more of the same tomorrow.

Romeo Will Have To Wait For The Passing of A Prince

Hello all,

I was supposed to write today about the Romeo and Juliet Pas De Deux that I recently choreographed, but that will have to wait a few posts.

First off, we had our first lecture demonstration of the season today. It was a Nutcracker LD, (actually two of them). Way out east in Alpine. Alpine Elementary. A very nice school with very nice students. I didn't watch the first LD. I don't want the dancers to feel as if I am micro-managing, but I did watch the second.

I always try to give dancers a chance to perform parts that they normally wouldn't perform (or haven't yet performed) at these school outings. As such, I think its important that I watch them in the parts, otherwise it may seem a bit as if I don't care about the LD's. Which is the furthest from the truth.

At today's shows, there were 400 kids. Which is roughly equivelent to the audience for a show at a mid-sized theatre like the Lyceum. But they are often performed on stages which are the size of a postage stamp with slippery floors (or carpeting) and no theatrical lighting whatsoever. Usually without the ability to run through much. So it really gives an insight as to a dancer's character, professionalism, and mental flexability to see how they cope in these situations.

It is easy for some to blow them off as "not real" performances. But the students don't see that. They are there to see BALLET DANCERS. And art can happen anywhere.

But now the real reason I am not talking about Romeo today. This is going to be long, so bear with me.

We all have heroes. Or at least we should.

When I was about 12 or 13, KPBS (public televison) was airing a series about the Olympics called Olympiad.



It was the first of what would later become Bud Greenspan's stirring, memorable ongoing profiles of Olympic champions. I can remember watching it on my little portable black and white tv in my room.

The names still make me swell up with a stir of emotion.

Fanny Blanker-Koen, the dutch mother of two and housewife, who won 4 gold medals in the 1948 Olympics, at a time when women's athletics was frowned upon.


Paavo Nurmi, the Flying Finn


Wilma Rudolph, who overcame polio to become the "fastest woman on Earth."


Abebe Bikila, the two time marathon champion who ran in bare feet because that is how he was used to running in Ethiopia.


And I don't even like sports.

Two stories always had a particular resonance with me. The first was of the 1964 Japanese Women's Volley Ball team

These women had endured years of backbreaking, dehumanizing practice and drill to get where they were. In the end, they won the Gold medal, but the look on some of their faces was less of triumph than of utter release. They were emotionally spent and could not stop crying. This coming from a culture where showing emotion is considered bad taste. The voiceover mentioned that each of the women would need to ask herself whether it was all worth it. You could see that for some that answer was going to be no.

To this day, I remember the variety of intense emotion that showed on each of the faces.

The other story that has stayed with me all of my life is that of Al Oerter, who I will discuss in my next blog entry.



Al Oerter died on October 1 of this year. I just found out about it two days ago as I was surfing the Internet.

Al was my hero.

Man Dancing

Ah, men dancing together! Such controversy!

A girl enters the stage. Another girl enters from the other side. The audience thinks "How nice. Aren't they pretty. Just like that gauzy ballet calendar I had when I was 13."

A man enters the stage. Another man enters from the other side. Unless they start circling each other, like the Jets and Sharks in West Side Story, the audience begins to feel uneasy. "What if they actually start to dance with each other. What if they touch!?!"

Silly isn't it? Well?

Two guys dancing with each other is just that. Nothing more, nothing less.



At this point, in SONNETS the men take centerstage. Each guy has a chance to do a small (a couple of steps) solo. Beginning with Askar. When he is done...



Pali comes in. Followed by the rest of the guys.



As you can see each guy gets to show off in his own special way.



Once all 5 guys are onstage, they do a series of jumps, turns, and slides in unison. There is also some partnering involved. There really isn't any great subtext here. It is slightly competitive, but also very collegial. The music that accompanies this piece is not particularly rhythmic. So the dancers just need to memorize the piece in terms of musical occurances. Big chord... Musical run... Boom... Boom... Boom. So getting a group of 5 to do this just means alot of repetition in rehearsal.



I love this picture because it looks as if I am not in the slightest bit interested. Actually I am looking at their reflection in the mirror. Because of the depth of the rehearsal room, it is often easier to get a view of the big picture by looking at the reflection of the dancers, rather than the dancers themselves. I also sometimes will do this thing called the "choreographic squint."

So back to the day-to-day today at the ballet. Today, we took company class with the extra added caveat that we had people observing. As part of Dance Place's mission, we want to make the process as transparent as possible. So we often have people watch. Today, we had some possible grantors to the building. So we will keep our fingers crossed. Afterwards, we drove an hour out (and an hour back) to do 2 educational outreach shows in Valley Center. Valley Center is in the rural part of San Diego, so I enjoy driving out there to go the fruit stands :)

Court Dances and Swan Queens

Before we continue with SONNETS, just a little everyday stuff. As part of our mission, SDB does alot of educational and community outreach. Today, before the dancers even took class, we had two different educational programs happening in two different parts of San Diego. Rachel took one group of dancers to Coronado. At 9 am, they gave a performance of Hailstones and Halibutbones, a narrated ballet designed specifically for schools to a bunch of kindergarteners. The dancers show an abbreviated class and bring the kids onstage to learn a bit of basic ballet and choreography. They then present a ballet that is accompanied by poetry. At the same time, I took Chelsy and Askar to Chula Vista Middle School to perform for some aspiring dancers. They performed the White Swan Pas De Deux (which is shown above in rehearsal in our studios in Dance Place) and gave insights about the dancers life and coming to America. Afterwhich, we all came back to the studios and reviewed and remounted more of SONNETS. Onward!!!!



So yesterday, we left Rachel and Askar in the midst of their pas de deux. At this point they are joined by another couple. Chelsy and Chris. The music now becomes a series of Spanish Court Dances. These were actually the first pieces of music chosen for SONNETS. At the time, I thought that perhaps the entire ballet would be performed to this type of music. BUT!!! These were not the first dances choreographed. By the time I got around to choreographing I had already altered the concept to include a lot of world music. Movement-wise w now get out of the more classical/sculptural movement. This section includes variations on bows, curtseys, taking of hands mixed with classical ballet vocabulary. Soon they are joined by three other couples. The repat the movement and add on. Eventually we get a dance that is a mixture of ballet, jazz, court dance, jitterbug and ballroom dance.



My intent was basically that I had 5 guys who could dance and I wanted to make something tricky. Although the dance itself is just a couples dance done in unison by 5 couples... the relationship of the girls steps to the guys steps are complicated. I knew it would take time to make it clean, but I had the time. So why not. This IS a fast dance, it is followed by a slow piece for Chelsy and Chris which I will discuss tomorrow.