Tag: American Ballet Theater

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Lawyers … And Everyone Else

This Wednesday night, the New York City Bar Association is holding a panel discussion on how to promote your law firm through a blog. Bill Gates, the e-flyer notes, says the value of websites and email distribution is declining, and blogs, with their unique RSS technology, are the future of internet business. To be discussed are such topics as how to implement and market a blog, the ethics of blogging, how lawyers have bettered their reputations through blogging, and the value of RSS feeds and other blogging functions.

I’m uninterested in learning how to promote a law firm through a blog, but am intrigued by the discussion because of my general interest in Long Tail trends, and of course my personal interest in blogging.

This panel discussion happens to be given for CLE (Continuing Legal Education) credits as well. New York attorneys need to earn a total of 24 CLE credit hours every two years, so the Bar Association offers several CLE programs throughout the year and gives its members a discount on them. Being a public interest lawyer, discounted though they may be, I still can’t afford the Assocation’s fee for the credits, so I earn mine either through my job (which gives the classes to its attorneys for free) or a criminal defense organization in NYC that makes them available to government and non-profit lawyers either for free or for a nominal fee.

Anyway, I’ve already earned all of my credits for my upcoming registration, so I’m not interested in attending the program for credit. So I called the Bar Association to make sure it was okay if I attended either for free or for a nominal fee since I did NOT want the CLE credits, and was told that I couldn’t attend unless I paid the full amount for the panel discussion — $195 for members, $305 for non-members. This is a 3-hour-long program. I re-emphasized to the person I spoke to that I did not want any credits, I merely wanted to sit in, and she repeated that I still had to pay the entire fee.

Media Bistro, a professional media arts guild here, and the Women’s National Book Association, an organization promoting women and publishing, have both held similar panel discussions. For theirs, Media Bistro charged $25 for members, $30 for non-members, WNBA’s cost was $0 for members, $10 for nonmembers. I understand charging a slight bit more if you’re going to have panelists who will give you workbooks and very specific step-by-step how-to’s, but the panels I’ve attended there have been just as general as the ones I’ve attended elsewhere (ie: people talking about their own personal experiences and successes). Plus, if you’re actually going to buy the Association’s “materials” there’s a separate charge of at least $100 more. And, they haven’t even mentioned who the panelists are going to be. I don’t understand. Does anything really justify this difference in cost?

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America's Ballroom Challenge, and Craig Salstein!

Not that the two have anything to do with each other, well of course other than the fact that they’re both about Dance (and the two styles that I happen to Lurve 🙂 ) and they both happened today…

First, Oberon just informed me that Craig was promoted from ABT corps dancer to soloist!

(Above with Marian Butler in “Rodeo” — photo is from ABT website, by Gene Schiavone)

Hooray for him! He’s such a fun and charismatic dancer — always puts so much energy, attitude, and character into everything he does. It’s obvious how hard he works and how much he loves what he does, so I think he is extremely deserving. Embarrasingly, I have to admit having mixed up his name before — oops! — but I definitely know him by face! I greatly enjoyed his performances this past season in Rodeo and Fancy Free (one of my favorites, and one in which he really held his own next to the biggies 🙂 ). He has a very big dance personality, and of course, that’s what I often go for 🙂 … can’t wait to see more!

Okay, on to America’s Ballroom Challenge, whose second season premiered tonight on PBS.

Above are Ben Ermis and Shaleen Archer-Ermis, American Smooth competitors, who won the first round tonight.

Well, I liked the new breakdown in the way they’re broadcasting it this time around. Last year, they just had two one-hour episodes: the first hour was the regular ballroom competition (where all six finalist couples are dancing together on the floor, competing in technique) for all four dance styles (American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin); and the second day was the showcase competitions (one couple on the floor at a time doing a choreographed free-for-all routine with lifts, competing in showmanship and performance quality) again in all four categories. This time, instead of lumping all of the dance categories together each day, they’re breaking it down and devoting one full hour to each category, and are then spreading the entire show out over 5 hours / days.

So, tonight’s competition was all American Smooth (couples competed in foxtrot, tango, Viennese waltz, and waltz). The first half hour was the regular ballroom comp; the second the six finalist showcase routines. Next week will be devoted entirely to American Rhythm (mambo, cha cha, rhumba, swing, and bolero), the following week to International Standard (slowfox, waltz, Viennese waltz, tango and quickstep), the fourth week to International Latin (! 🙂 — Int. cha cha, samba, Int. rhumba, paso doble, and jive), and the fifth week is going to be the competition for “best of the best” among all four categories (which of course doesn’t exist in real ballroom competitions, but is their little showy, made-for-TV category).

I’m not entirely sure what the producers were aiming for. I do think breaking it down this way enables audiences to get to know ever so slightly more about the dances, and to see more of the couples competing within each category. Tony Meredith‘s off-screen commentating helps to educate the audience on what each couple’s strengths are technique-wise. But, in order for the show to attract a much wider appeal, I think audiences really need to ‘get to know’ much better the individual couples and personalities that dominate these dances. And this new breakdown still doesn’t achieve that. Instead of just showing the couple’s dancing with Tony’s background commentary, they should do a little segment on each couple’s background, allowing the dancers to talk a bit about themselves, where they’re from, what brought them to ballroom dance, what brought them to dance in general, if they’ve had any obstacles to overcome, etc. etc. Kinda like how the Olympic shows are done maybe?… I think audiences connect to personalities, and there isn’t enough time each week to devote to each couple’s dancing for people to connect to them through that alone. Those are my two cents anyway… assuming the show’s intention is to bring recognition to the actual dancers and to increase its popularity rather than to educate audiences on ballroom technique and pique their curiosity.

On a side note: Tony is the owner of my studio, and I just love watching him on the show! He’s such a cutie, and is really such a great guy with a fun personality who really cares about his students… but oooh, he is so not an actor when he’s talking to Marilu and reading from that monitor! Ha ha ha — of course I wouldn’t be either — I’d be far worse, totally flubbing my lines, and making it completely obvious I was reading from a script and was vomitously nervous! He sounded much better though when he relaxed and started talking about the dancing — what he knows after all!

Anyway, the show is on for the next four weeks. Check here for local times!

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Othello in the Guggenheim

Works and Process discussion

Last night I went to panel discussion at the Guggenheim Museum as part of its “Works and Process” series, in which artists discuss their current “work in progress” with the public. Last night’s talk was entitled “The Shakespeare Festival” and focused on the American Ballet Theater‘s upcoming Met season, which will include several “Shakespeare ballets” — most notably their newest production, choreographer Lar Lubovitch‘s rendition of “Othello.” This was my first time attending one of these talks and it was really interesting, albeit short. The space, downstairs in the museum’s basement, was very intimate, seating only about a couple hundred, in contrast to the enormous opera houses and theaters the company performs in. The discussion, by Lubovitch, Kevin McKenzie (ABT’s artistic director), and moderator Wes Chapman, was interspersed with performances of pieces of the ballet by the ABT dancers, of course! Our cast was: Stella Abrera as Emilia, Jared Matthews as Cassio, Sascha Radetsky as Iago, Xiomara Reyes as Desdemona, Sarawanee Tanatanit as Bianca, and some guy I’ve never heard of before named David Hallberg?? — as Othello.

When he walked onstage, Wes Chapman (gosh, I keep wanting to call him Wes Craven…) said he first wished to introduce the dancers “since most of you are probably confused by all those names in the Playbills and it would be nice to put a face to a name for once.” He said this totally seriously. And only about two people in the audience (including me) laughed. Are ‘normal’ ABT patrons really this weird, or is it me — am I the weirdo?

Anyway, David!!!!!!!!!! Unbelievably for me, I arrived a little late (cross-town buses on the weekend are evil), and it was general seating so I couldn’t get my usual spot — practically onstage. But even though I was about six rows back, everyone was so CLOSE compared to when they regularly perform. And David looked SO skinny — I couldn’t believe it. He was also wearing all black dancewear (a slimming color we all know — oh also, the dancers weren’t in costume; they wore their normal working clothes), so could have been that — but he just looked so small.

I can’t wait to see the whole production — choreography looks so beautiful, even though it’s a pretty bloody story. I think Lubovitch is so brilliant — I haven’t seen a lot of his work, but from what I have, he is definitely becoming a favorite of mine (and he uses the great one a lot in his work, so clearly he knows what he’s doing…). Seriously, it was the first time I’ve seen him speak and he sounded really erudite and perspicacious. He said he was trying to create a “ballet in pictures” and was not so concerned with a linear narrative (as was the playwright who, he noted, didn’t actually originate the story; rather an Italian man whose name I can’t remember now is credited with that, though it was really originally an orally handed-down folk tale) as with making something that was humanly relatable and emotionally true to the classic story. As someone who’s fundamentally verbally oriented, I have a keen interest in how the poetry of language is translated into the poetry of dance, so I was very intrigued. But, as I said, unfortunately, the discussion was far too short.

But the dancing was brilliant. David is a baby genius. And I can’t wait to see the whole thing. Although, I have to say, it was really amazing just being able to watch them up close in their rehearsal clothes, without all the elaborate stage sets and costumes and props in a huge house. In a weird way all the pomp and circumstance of the theater kind of distances you from what you’re essentially there to see — the dancing…

Anyway, the Guggenheim has several other dance events as part of this series. Go here to have a look.

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On the Lookout for Anyone Appearing Brazilian!

Dea and me!

So, thanks to several employees of the New York City Ballet (including most importantly dancer Kristin Sloan and her Winger, along with a total of about five State Theater ushers, box office salespeople, ticket clerks, and security guards), I was able to make, and meet, a great new friend 🙂 I finally met Dea, who just moved to the NY area from Sao Paulo, Brazil. We’d met on the Winger message board a few months ago and became friends through our mutual interest in ballet and writing, and my keen interest in Samba and Brazil! She only moved here a week ago, but I couldn’t wait to meet up with her! We decided, appropriately, on a NYCB matinee.

While I was in the shower, I received a message from her on my cell telling me she’d be a bit later than the 1:30 time we planned to meet (which was perfectly fine with me since I was running late!), so I took my time getting ready, headed to the State Theater, picked up the tickets I’d ordered, then waited in the lobby. Before long the lobby was jam-packed with hundreds of patrons. I couldn’t believe it — I’ve never seen it like that before — NYCB is doing some good business this season!

Anyway, I became pretty nervous since I’d only told her to meet me in the lobby without specifying exactly where; there was NO WAY in this crowd she was ever going to spot me. I didn’t really know what she looked like since I’d only seen the picture of her on her blog profile, in which she has her head thrown back and is laughing, so I couldn’t really see details like hair length, etc. There was no way I was going to be able to pick her out! So, I called her cell phone to tell her I was standing at the info booth on the left side of the lobby, but Al, her fiance answered — from home! She hadn’t yet bought her own cell phone and had used his earlier before he dropped her off to catch her train! He assured me she’d find me; she was really good at such things, and that, judging by the time he left her at the station, she should be arriving just about now.

So, I walked around the lobby looking intently for someone who looked like the blog photo. About fifteen minutes later, the first hurry-up-and-get-to-your-damn-seats bell sounded, no Dea, then the second bell, then the last. I knew she’d gotten lost! I was so worried! This was her first time in New York, in the U.S. for that matter, and she had no cell phone! I must have been walking around the lobby with a quite frantic look on my face, because two security guards (one from outside, and one from inside) simultaneously approached me.

“Just give your friend’s ticket to the window clerk and she can pick it up from him, miss,” the one told me, the other agreeing.

“Oh no, I’m not worried about missing the show, I’m worried that my friend is really lost.”

“Can you call her,” he asked.

“No, she doesn’t have a cell phone,” I said.

“No cell phone?” they both said in unison. I know, unheard of…

“No, she’s just moved here and hasn’t got one yet.”

“We’ll tell her where to go when she gets here; you don’t need to miss the show,” the one said. Overhearing our conversation, a third guard walked up handing me an envelope. “Just write her name, put the ticket inside and give it to the window clerk. They’ll give it to her when she arrives.”

“But how will she know to go to the window?” I asked.

“Oh EVERYONE knows, trust me,” the one guard said, with a smirk.

“But she’s from Brazil. What if the customs are different there?” At this the inside security guard, who had a West Indian accent, looked up to the left, contemplating.

“The customs are the same everywhere. She’ll know,” he said after a few seconds’ thought, nodding firmly, like he was completely positive of his assertion.

“And, if not, you’ll direct her there, right?” I said.

“Yeah, of course. What’s she look like?” the outside guard asked.

“Actually, I don’t know.”

“What?” they all said.

“I’m meeting her for the first time today. I just know she’s from Brazil. And she has brown hair … I think.” They all looked at each other like I was nuts.

“Look, miss, we’ll take care of it. Just write her name down and put the ticket in and you go on upstairs. Don’t worry.”

“Well, what if she doesn’t understand English that well?” This seemed to crack everyone up. “No, seriously, I mean, you’ll like walk her straight to the window and everything?” More laughs. I’m a worrisome dork. Always have been. I worry about Everything.

“It’ll be FINE, miss, we’ll take care of her.”

Ugh. They seemed sure everything would be okay. I hesitantly approached the box office window, looking over my shoulder hoping she’d run in just then. But no such luck. I explained everything all over again to the guy at the window. This one was a real jokester.

“She not from this country huh? Ooooh, this could be fun!” he said with an evil grin.

“What?!”

“Ha ha, just kidding!”

“She has darkish hair, I think, and she’s from Brazil.”

“Oooh, Brazil,” he said knowingly. “Oh, I’ll DEFINITELY recognize her in that case.” I assumed he was being sarcastic so I apologized for the vague description. But then he said without any irony whatsoever, “No really, I’ll see her. If she’s Brazilian, I’ll know.”

“What? No you won’t!” I laughed.

“Yeah yeah, I will. Trust me. I will.”

I really didn’t know if he was for real, but I turned around one last time and Dea still hadn’t arrived, and both security guards were looking right at me chuckling and motioning for me to go in. So, I did. I got upstairs to the Fourth Ring and explained the whole thing again to the usher while she was trying to seat me in the dark during the pause in the performance.

When the lights went on signaling the first intermission, I jumped up, grabbed my bag, darted out of theater and headed for the stairs to the lobby. If she wasn’t down there now I was definitely calling Al again. But right then, I heard someone say “Tonya?” In the HUGE crowd of people making their way from the theater to the lobby or restrooms, she actually recognized me! So, Al was right! And I was right that she’d gotten very lost on the subway — oh no! She also told me the minute she walked into the lobby everyone seemed to know who she was — probably because she had a ‘lost look’ on her face, she surmised! Ha ha — thanks New York City Ballet ushers, security guards, and ticket clerks 🙂

So we saw last two thirds of the matinee’s repetoire together (one a Balanchine, the other Robbins’ “I’m Old Fashioned” — which we both loved!), took some pictures in the lobby, then had lentil soup and these enormous cups of organic soy tea at Le Pain Quotidien, where Kristin had taken the blogger gang the week before! We ended up having a wonderful time and I’m so glad she’s moved to NY so we can talk about dance and writing and hang out and go to ballets and Winger stuff, etc. etc. etc! I just feel so bad that she got lost. But all’s well that ends well, right!

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Ball-Crashing, Viennese Style

Viennese Opera Ball

On Thursday night, I received an invitation from my friend, the illustrious amateur Latin dancer, Mika, to attend the final dress rehearsal of the Viennese Opera Ball, held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Though I had an invitation via her, we weren’t exactly sure I’d be allowed in without being on an actual list, and so were devising ways for me to sneak in through side doors, etc. But, happily, I didn’t have to do any ‘Ball-crashing’ — the place wasn’t that packed and no one seemed to mind one little extra spectator.

gentlemen rushing in after ladies

It was really sweet. The performance (which was only about 20 minutes long; presumably the rest of the evening consists of the actual social dancing), was cute. First, the “debutantes” were presented (below — sorry pics are a little out of order…)

debutantes

They did a courtly little dance, then were escorted off the floor by the gentlemen in blue to the spectator stands, to watch the waltzing couples (above two pics). In the second part of the piece — the waltzing couples portion, that is — the ladies scurry down the floor, the gentlemen waltz after them, they perform this charming little flirty number whereby the gentlemen surreptitiously steal the ladies’ bows, the ladies through cunning then pleading, get them back, then the two make nice and waltz away together.

I saw a few familiar faces in the show — one guy, Charlie, who used to take lessons at my studio, and another guy, who I think is another dance blogger. Anyway, Mika had invited me to audition to be in the show, but I had to decline since I know very little Viennese waltz. But the dancing was so lovely, and I really would love to learn it — so perhaps a goal for next year… Or one better, attend the real thing?!

Afterward, I went to my studio’s monthly party, where Pasha made an appearance!!! He looked REALLY good, and said he is slowly but surely getting his strength back, and hopes to be back to competing and teaching very shortly!! Hooray! (Also had a little talk with my other teacher, and things went well — looks like our little foxtrotting Sinatra Suite is back on :))

Lastly, I’ve received info that the first of five segments of America’s Ballroom Challenge, which was televised at the famed Ohio Star Ball this past November, is to be broadcast on PBS on January 31st. Check local listings for exact times. I, unfortunately, wasn’t there this year, so can’t give any insight into what all went down, but it is one of the largest national events, and, as an authentic ballroom competition boasting as competitors some of the best dancers in this country, it should be of great interest to anyone who likes the more poppy TV shows. Please tune in and support ballroom dance! (Below is a photo from their website, of my favorite Standard couple — Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — believe me, the show is worth watching just for them 🙂 )

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Can You Say, Evil Latin Stilettos!!

latin shoes

One of the hardest things for me about Latin ballroom dance is honestly the shoes. Above is my shoe collection — priced at well over $1,000. And I don’t keep buying more because I have some kind of stiletto fetish, believe me. I just absolutely cannot, no matter how hard I try, find a pair of high-heeled open toed sandals that I can dance in. My problem is that I have extremely small ankles, but the width at the ball of my foot is normal. So narrow shoes pinch very badly at the toe and start to give me bunions if I wear them too often, but regular-sized shoes are way too large at the heel and don’t keep my heel secure, so that at times, my foot has almost lifted completely out of the shoe, resulting in a near-twisted ankle. Also, I have an extremely high arch, so if the material at the front of the shoe does not extend well enough up the middle of my foot, the front of my foot will pop out of the shoe when I point. Finally, I have long toes, so in open-toed shoes, my toes tend to extend out the front of the shoe, hitting the hard-wood, sometimes resulting in splinters short-term, bone spurs on my big toes in the long term. Yet, if I were to get the shoes in a bigger size, the heels would be way too big, resulting in the twisted ankle problem.

The only pair of shoes that have ever worked at all for me are the Capezios, in the picture on the bottom right with the tango toe in twisted copper and navy blue. But Capezio is no longer making that style in a soft-soled Latin ballroom shoe — it now comes only in hard soled cabaret-style shoes. Still, they weren’t perfect — the tango toe was a bit hard to point in and the material at the toe was so hard that they ripped the cuticles on my big toe, forcing me regularly to pad my big toes with moleskin, even after a year of wearing them, when they were well worn-in. Not the most attractive look, but at least the heel held my heel and I never nearly twisted my ankle. Interestingly, the Capezio’s — the shoe that worked the best while it was still being made — are, at $90, are the second least expensive pair (Blochs were $85; most expensive were LaDucas at $290).

To the immediate left of the Capezios are a strappy pair of International brand which are way WAY too tight at the ball of my foot, completely cutting off my circulation and forcing me to hobble around after half an hour of wearing them. After a couple of weeks of trying to break them in, I couldn’t feel the front of my foot. I went to a podiatrist, who laughed at the shoes when I pulled them out of my ABT dance bag. Shaking his head, he told me it was no wonder I was losing sensation in the foot. I told him all Latin shoes were this way. He told me no serious worries, loss of sensation in the foot did not amount to loss of motor function. So, basically, just because I couldn’t feel my feet didn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to walk.

Next, atop the Internationals, are a brand called Gamba or something like that (I honestly can’t remember all the brands I’ve tried). Basic problem with those is that they don’t hold my foot in them — kind of defeating the purpose of having a shoe in the first place: the straps are too far apart at the toe, so my toes come straight out of the edges of the shoe; if I have the ankle strap buckled tightly enough so that my foot doesn’t come out the front, it cuts off my circulation and sometimes literally creates a bloody mess. Exact same problem with the Freeds, to the right of the Gamba’s.

Proceeding to the top circle, from left to right. On top left are black tango shoes. These, and the LaDuca’s next to them have the best heels — only 2 inches tall and wide, allowing me to keep my balance. However, the tango shoes, though fitting at the heel, are too narrow at the toe (I have 1/2 hour tops of wearing them before I’m in such pain I can’t walk, let alone dance). The LaDucas work okay, but if I’m ever going to compete, closed toed shoes in Latin are an absolute no no. In any event, LaDucas all come in medium width, making them too wide at the heel for me. I had to take them back to the store three times to have more holes created in the strap so I could buckle them tighter and tighter, but now, because of that slightly off center t-strap, they’re pulling too much at the toe, creating serious toe pain. However, LaDuca guy told me I need the t-strap shoe, because, in the shoe sans t-strap, my foot will pop out the front when I point.

Next to LaDucas are the Blochs. Bloch just started making ballroom shoes, and I was told by the clerk these were the ones the ABT ballerinas wore in “Fancy Free.” However, upon seeing the ballet recently during ABT’s City Center season, and sitting practically onstage, I can assure her that only Angela Snow, who danced the very small part at the end of the ballet, was wearing these — and she looked very wobbly in them. Indeed, the heel is so narrow, it’s nearly impossible to stand on let alone dance on. Also, long toes come out the front of the strappy straps. Also, these, when buckled as tightly as I need to buckle them to keep my ankle secure, rip into the vein running underneath my ankle.

To the right of the Blochs are the second pair of Freeds. These are fine except the front of my foot, from ball to toe pops out of the front of the shoe when I point because of my high arch. So, after pointing, I somehow have to nonchalantly stomp on the front of the shoe to get my foot securely back in — which I don’t think will look too keen during competition or performance. Also, Freed does not design their buckles well. In neither Freed shoe style can I buckle the strap when it’s tightened tight enough to keep my heel in place. So, I can only get the metal thingy in the middle of the buckle into the hole, without being able to get the strap then back through the buckle. Looks stupid, and, needless to say, is not very secure.

To their right are the fancy pair of Internationals. These are so high (3 1/2 inches) that I really can’t balance. Plus, I’m taller than all of my male partners in them. Plus, the toe is not flexible enough and doesn’t allow me to point properly. Plus, the toe is sooooo open, my foot comes forward and out the front leaving my heel insecure risking the twisted ankle.

Finally, all the way at the top right are these Mootsies Tootsies brand (can’t remember the exact name but it’s something like that). Everyone makes fun of me when I wear them because they’re not a serious competitor brand (as the name implies), but a social dance brand. I didn’t care when I bought them; I was just desperate for a shoe that fit, and they seemed to in the store. But, as I learned, when dancing my rhumba routine with Pasha, the soles are so soft that they buckle under my foot. At one point, while trying to do a sexy rhumba walk around him, the toes of my right foot pointed (in arabesque position — so foot was behind me), and, as I brushed my foot forward through the floor, toes went completely through the straps, leaving the shoe under my foot, the ankle strap ripping through my skin while my foot went forward without the shoe. I literally tripped and fell.

“Tonya, you must get used to one pair of shoes,” Pasha always used to tell me. Having some kind of a shoe malfunction was nothing new with me, so he almost laughed with the Mootsies Tootsies mishap. Okay fine, but which pair? If I force myself to ‘get used’ to the wrong pair I could end up with a twisted ankle, severe bunions, or complete loss of foot sensation.

Oh, why can’t I just wear these! I know, not exactly attractive paired with a sexy Latin costume… I often wear the soft jazz shoes (on right), or teacher ballet shoes, which have a slight heel and suede bottoms allowing them to glide over hardwood floors (on left), but then when I go to practice the routine in the proper shoes (ie: evil Latin stilettos), I’m two to three inches taller and the partnership is all off. When I practiced my snake with Luis (where he dips me sideways, then I slither down and go through his legs, ending up behind him), we did it a bizillion times perfectly in my soft jazz shoes. When I started wearing the high Latin heels, I was suddenly banging my head into his crotch on the way through…

Well, one fun thing about these street Samba classes I’ve been taking recently at Ailey, is that, I just wear these:

No super skinny heel that I can’t balance on, no toe straps to fall through, no ankle straps to slice my skin, and, most of all, really inexpensive!

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Street Samba, Part Deux

Quenia Ribeiro DVD

Last night my friend, Kathy, and I took Quenia Ribeiro‘s Samba class at Alvin Ailey (me for the second time now, Kathy for the first). Kathy seemed humorously dumbfounded (like I think everyone is the first time they try the dance!), but she seemed to have fun — at least I think she did! But I thought it was actually harder this time — it seemed that the actual steps were more complicated than last time. Then, I at least knew where to put my feet on the floor, and just struggled like crazy with moving my pelvis and rib cage properly. But this time I couldn’t even get the steps down well enough to focus on body movement. Ugh.

In class I saw an acquaintance from my ballroom studio. We chatted a bit and she said she’s trying to save money by taking street Samba instead of ballroom as well. I guess I’m not the only one overwhelmed with the cost of ballroom…

Anyway, Quenia told us last night that she will be in Brazil for the next month for Carnival (lucky lucky her!), so there will be a substitute teacher at Ailey, which will probably be good for me since the sub hopefully will not know how advanced all of the “beginner” students are (maybe the more advanced dedicated Quenia students won’t even show?…) and will go A LOT slower. Fingers crossed anyway. Well, I bought Quenia’s instructional DVD and am going to practice like crazy over the next month so maybe I won’t be such a sorry sight when she returns! Hopefully by just watching her on tape, SOMETHING will seep in…

Speaking of great Brazilian dancers … the awesome Chimene sent me this link. Funny thing is, though of course I HAD to add it to my blogroll immediately (the link is the exclamation points at the top of the ballet section, because that is how I think of him — in exclamation points 🙂 🙂 ) and know I am going to be searching MySpace for his comments to his friends, I can’t help but feel kind of weird doing so. I remember reading a discussion on Ballet Talk not long ago where people were agreeing that it was probably better not to meet your favorite dancers for fear of disappointment. Not that a huge amount of info is revealed on MySpace, but still, do I need to know that he’s “in a relationship” or that some of his friends seem a little … hmmm … outlandish!? I don’t know… It’s just weird seeing someone who has kind of a celebrity status to you, whom you admire / worship / have a gigantic crush on 🙂 just talking freely in an open forum like that .. and whether it’s actually hanging out and conversing with or just watching in on the conversations of said admiree / idol / crush object — I mean, you’re bound to be disappointed if they don’t live up to your expectations, if they’re not perfect, which they won’t be since they’re human of course…

On the other hand, look at the cute cute puppy! (who looks rather contemplative in this pic). And look at his answers to the profile questions 🙂 … Ugh, how could anyone not just LOVE him?

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LVHRD, Dewars, and Dueling Architects

LVHRD event Last night, my friend, Alyssa, and I went to an event that Kristin had told me about when I met her on Sunday. (She also posted about it on the Winger, here). LVHRD (live hard without the vowels), an arts organization whose mission is to bring together progressive artists, holds events throughout the city in which different kinds of artists compete against each other. The materials to be used in the competition and the location of it are not disclosed until the day of the event and are then relayed to participants via text-message. They’ve previously held competitions between dancers, visual artists, and fashion desingers, but last night’s duel was the ‘Battle of the Architects.’ A duo of female architects from two firms were given a limited amount of time in which to plan and design a layout, then build a model of it. The main material to be used was — cheese, which female registrants to the event were told in the text message to bring. I had a Media Bistro panel discussion to attend immediately before, so Alyssa bought our cheese — Alyssa rocks!

alyssa

After letting the architects go at it for three hours (oh, by the way, the competitors are separated by a big screen so they can’t see what the other is up to), we voted by text message for our favorite.

winning team Field Operations (above) was the winning team. I think everyone liked them mainly because they wore dresses made of material that they used in building their model — so throughout the competition they ended up cutting off large portions of each other’s costumes (the one with the more geometric design ended up with a rather short skirt). Interesting schtick. Below is the other team, Balmori Associates:

team 2 The LVHRD people all had cameras and video recorders and were going around snapping pictures, which they’d then post on the giant screen behind the action. In the very top picture above, if you look hard at the screen, you can see Kristin. They got two silly ones of me — one where I look like I’m on something serious while talking to Tony Schultz from the Winger, and another where I’m at the front of the crowd at the stage looking a little too excited about getting a shot of one of the models.

So, as I just mentioned, Tony was there too, and Alyssa and I spent a lot of time chatting with him. Found out that I totally got his bio wrong in my last post — oops! But, he said he rather liked my reinvention of him, so didn’t correct me 🙂 Anyway, he’s really a PHYSICS grad student at CUNY (which explains why 99% of what he says is way over my head!) and teaches at Sarah Lawrence — go here for his real bio.

Scariest thing about the night was that Dewars had hosted the event, so there was a free Dewars bar. Alyssa and I each got a cup of Scotch and gingerale. Alyssa was practically on the floor after finishing about 2/3 of hers, but somehow I downed my whole glass without feeling a thing — extremely weird since I am usually a complete lightweight… Either the bartender must have taken one look at my face and thought I couldn’t handle much alcohol, so went heavy on the soda, or else I am becoming a lush 🙂

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NYC Dance Blogger Get-Together!

Dance Bloggers Meet in NY

Doug Fox, who runs the excellent, extremely informative and technologically innovative blog, Great Dance, was in town this weekend for a dance conference he was covering. So, several of us NYC dance bloggers arranged a little get-together with him. From right to left is: Kristin Sloan (ballerina with the New York City Ballet, in case you’re new to my blog and didn’t know that from the umpteenth times I’ve talked about / linked to her!) who created the best-known and I think first (?) diary-esque dance blog a couple of years ago — the awesome Winger — and is hence really the mother of all dance bloggers!; Tony Schultz, a modern dancer and PhD candidate in dance and technology at Sarah Lawrence who contributes to the Winger (and has a very fun personality by the way 🙂 ); Parker, a ballet dancer, turned Belly / Latin ballroom dancer AND law student by day who writes the sweet Salome Justitia; Doug; and on the end, little ole me (with extremely flat New York winter hair!) I love how Kristin is holding that light away — in true pro dancer fashion with the flair of her hand!

We met at a little bistro across from Lincoln Center — where else! — and chatted for a couple of hours. Everyone is working on such fascinating projects and is so interesting and ambitious and inspiring. I was so happy finally to be able to meet everyone. I’ve been faithfully reading Kristin’s blog for almost a year now — it was actually the first blog I ever really read (at least daily … okay, hourly…) and is what made me want to start my ballroom one, so it was really kind of surreal meeting her! 🙂 And I can’t wait to read all about this event that Doug attended. It seems that he saw tons of great performances and met many interesting people, so check Great Dance, where he’ll be posting about it for about the next week or two.

Fun fun time 🙂 If you’re a dance blogger and you’re in the area and want to be included in the next get-together, it looks like Doug is setting up a list, so contact him!

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Crazy Dance-Less Week…

It’s Saturday morning and my dance studio just called me to make sure I was okay, since I haven’t been around in the past week and a half. How sweet to be missed 🙂 And I’ve missed them too — I HATE being away from dance for so long… Just had a couple of crazy busy weeks.

Cornelia Street Cafe

Tuesday night I went to the monthly Writers Room member reading series at Cornelia Street Cafe. Readers that night were the sweetly funny Jill Dearman, Douglas Light, reading from his (published — how jealous am I!) novel, East Fifth Bliss, and Julia Lichtblau, who read her charming short story about a Guatemalan girl adopted by U.S. parents making the difficult decision to search out her roots. Just a few months until I read, for the first time, and I’m honestly getting nervous. How I can be anxious about reading in a cozy cafe in front of about 50 people from a manuscript read by practically everyone I know, as well as several agents and editors, and too numerous to contemplate writing classmates, when I have shown off my not so brilliant, two-year-old dancing skills on two real stages to a total of about 1,000 audience members, I’ll never know… but somehow I am. Well, the dance performances have been practice, I guess.

The host, Stan Richardson, was a bit punchier with the readers this time than last, asking them questions like, what is your most prized writing accomplishment (what am I going to say, my blog???), and what hours do you keep at WR so people know when to mob you, and, do you have anything else in your life that you’re proud of. The only question he asked that I would have any kind of interesting answer to was, when did you join WR. I joined right after Brooke Shields (who I assume was using the Room to write her memoir about her post-partum depression). They take everyone’s picture when you join and then post photos of the new members right above the entranceway for about six months. So, my lovely mug shot, in which my eyes were half closed, was right beside Brooke’s superstar photo gracing the doorway for six long months. I never did see Brooke in the Room, although I’m an evening and weekends member; she was probably there during the day. Or maybe she just joined thinking it a prestigious organization, and really has her own fancy loft somewhere in Manhattan in which to write? In any event, even having a crappy picture next to Brooke’s gorgeous face, I have to admit I felt very cool belonging to the same organization 🙂

Entrepreneurial publishing panel at Small Press Ctr

Wednesday, I attended a panel discussion organized by the Women’s National Book Association, on alternative publishing methods, entitled “Entrepreneurial Publishing: Print-on-Demand, E-books, Back-into-Print, and Other Alternatives to ‘Publishing-as-Usual'”. Ever since reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail (which I actually discovered through dance, when Kristin Sloan posted on the Winger about attending his book-signing party), I’ve been interested in how the internet is affecting the publishing industry. I was particularly interested in POD (print-on demand — basically self-publishing wherein a small number of books are printed and sold by the author directly on Amazon, for example), but knowing very little about publishing, I still don’t entirely understand it. I oftentimes feel, when I am attending a publishing panel discussion, that I’m eavesdropping on a conversation already underway since most of the audience members are in the industry. But I do glean small bits of information, which is why I go.

Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of the discussion was a last-minute addition to the panel — Adam Bellow, who is pictured above with the mike. Bellow (who I just found out by doing an internet search so I could link to him, is the son of Saul Bellow — wow!!!), is an editor at Random House who just started a new pamphleteering press. He said that pamphleteering has in the past been very important to intellectual life — think John Stuart Mill‘s On Liberty, On the Subjection of Women, John Locke, Adam Smith, etc. etc. etc. — and that creating such a press was not possible until the emergence of the internet and the lively intellectual culture it created. Hmmm. Sounds very cool!

Here are some books they had for the taking at the discussion — two romance novels published by Lori James’ Linden Bay Romance, which specializes in electronic formats and trade paperback, and one from Bellow’s company, which is titled, “Everything Could Explode at any Moment: Dispatches from the Lebanese-Israeli Front,” by Michael J. Totten. How very fascinating that the internet has made possible the return of lively 18th and 19th Century intellectual-political discourse!

books from the entrepreneurial panel

Then, Thursday night I pulled practically an all-nighter at the office finishing up and filing a brief. And last night I tried to go to a birthday party for a fellow dance blogger — happy birthday, S.J.! — but only made it about ten percent of the way through before having to go home and crash, ridiculously early, on a Friday night 🙁 (and, to boot, was so tired I forgot to take pictures — bad bad blogger!!!) Anyway, I’m pooped and looking forward to a relaxing weekend…