Tag: Blackpool Dance Festival

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Crappy Wireless Connection

So I’m finally able to connect my computer at the internet cafe, but the wireless connection is bad and intermittent. Plus, there are only two tables with a close outlet so I had to wait nearly 1/2 hour to plug in, and I’m getting several evil eyes right now… Anyway, I managed to download all of my pictures that I took during the first two days (including opening Congress — series of lectures) and the team match. I don’t have all of the captions up and correct, but please look at my pics under photos, under 2007 under Blackpool (don’t have time to link now!). I’m also posting via mobile phone (can’t wait to see my T-Mobile bill when I return…) — pics my cellphone takes are crappy, so sorry about that, but it may be the best I can do until I get home. I have soooo much to write about! OOh, have just been told my little internet cafe is closing in 10 minutes, so now I have to get out of here… I’ll try to write more tomorrow, but if I can’t get a coveted outlet table, I’ll write when I get back home… please enjoy my pics in the meantime 🙂

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I'm Off…

The Times review of Othello is now up — Gia Kourlas wrote it! (I just expected Macaulay would take all the biggies but he seems to be handing them around, which is nice 🙂 ). Anyway, she says a lot of what I was going nuts over at 1:30 a.m. the night / morning after, but in a much more civilized, reasoned manner 🙂 The thing is, now that her review is up and people are reading it and going to want to go see the ballet, they only have tonight to do so … which I think is all the more reason for ABT to CHANGE ITS BLOCK PROGRAMMING!…

Anyway, I’m almost off. I will try to blog from the festival, but Blackpool‘s a super small town — the owner of the B&B I’m staying at didn’t really know what email was so I don’t think they’re going to have an internet connection for me, and I’m not sure if there’ll be wireless access anywhere (and not sure if our computers are compatible to their wireless network anyway???) Anyway, I’ll try, and if I can’t, definitely expect loads of pictures of crazed ballroom dancers when I return 🙂

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Chunnels Chunnels Everywhere…

Ha ha, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, looking at my last post, I was pretty harsh! It’s fun to be angry though … the truth often comes out when you’ve just come from something that impassioned you and you’re writing at 1:30 in the morning all cranky because of all the work you have to get through the next day to go on your dance vacation the following day — under such circumstances you’re not bothering to edit yourself and you’re just more honest… Anyway, I was basically trying to ponder ways to make ballet more popular. I feel that some of the reasons young people are turned off is because of the melodramatic acting and the story-lines that they can’t relate to either because they are too silly and not relevant or because they’re too abstract and don’t make sense. Everyone knows Shakespeare, everyone can relate to Shakespeare, he is timeless… I feel that if you do Shakespeare you can’t go wrong, and, even though I would most definitely go see Lubovitch’s Othello again and again and again, because that’s just how I am, it was still far from perfect, and I don’t know that a non-obsessed ABT-o-mane would do the same…

Anyway, apropos of all this, I had asked Apollinaire Scherr why she thinks opera is so much more popular than dance, and she and some other critics and readers responded. Go here to see that discussion.

By the way, not a whole lot of people went to Othello. There’s hardly any chatting on BalletTalk, not many pro reviews. And where is Alastair Macaulay’s NY Times review? Shouldn’t it be online by now? The audience Tuesday night wasn’t very full — I’d say 1/2 to 2/3 seats filled, which upsets me, especially given that this was the NY debut… We have to make younger audiences understand how great ballet is, how relevant and exciting and profound and moving and beautiful and poetic…

Speaking of which … Apollinaire has great hopes for ABT’s Sleeping Beauty! (Yay!!) … the debut of which I’m unfortunately going to be missing because of my trip. But I’ll be back for one of the later performances… I will also, horribly, be missing “Essential Balanchine” at New York City Ballet …

why oh why oh why does Blackpool have to come at this time of year! Can’t someone re-schedule it to coincide with opera season for cry-eye????

And why oh why can’t I take some other form of transportation … I love travel, I love trains, I love cars, and I LOVE ships — can’t I take a ship across the Atlantic?… like in the Titanic? I mean, not the Titanic per se of course, but a big huge ship — so romantic to travel in 19th Century fashion! Or why can’t there be underwater Chunnels everywhere like that between London and Paris? That would be soooo cool to take a big long Chunnel train to England, or Australia or Thailand or Japan… chunnels everywhere… who decided to create air travel instead of underwater transit…

Anyway, packing is oh so much fun:

 

I’ve been packing all week little by little, as I always do so it’s not so overwhelming all at once… I tend to forget less this way. Everyone makes fun of me because I’m so anal, but who was the only American at the dance festival last year who could use her cell phone and palm pilot and re-charge her digital camera???? — because who was the only one who remembered to bring, not just all of her chargers, but U.K. / Hong Kong electrical converters as well! I was very popular last dance festival…

 

I always go through my money belts as well scrounging around for any pounds and pence I can find. England does still use English money, right; they didn’t switch to the Euro yet? Look at all this pre-Euro European money I have (on the right) — I hope it’s worth something someday!

And look at all this Russian cash. I have so much left over because when I was in St. Petersberg, I met up with friends who were going on to Moscow while I was (traveling alone) returning to Helsinki. Since I was planning on giving my leftover cash to them, I didn’t exchange or spend it, but then whilst trying to catch my train at Finlandia Station, I couldn’t find my proper track because I was spelling Helsinki with a Cyrillic first letter that looks like our “E” instead of the letter that looks like our “X” – (the Russian alphabet doesn’t contain our “H”). So, I almost missed my train and forgot to hand over my cash! What am I gonna do with it now?!…

Packing my Winger t, for dance-y comfort 🙂

Aw, a pic from packing last year. My dear little Najma passed away last October from congestive heart failure. I miss her so much. Packing is just not the same without her…

Anyway, on one last dance note:

hehehe, I was joking around earlier about a male Bayadere and Marcelo Gomes dancing the lead. Then I saw in this week’s Time Out New York Gay and Lesbian section that there actually are some gay bars with male bellydancers!!!