Tutu, Hush, and The Core at Miller

Uhhhh, Hello?

Jordan?
Are you alive?

Yes.

To my 21 followers:
I apologize for never blogging.
I know you are just waiting eagerly by your computers, ipads, ipods , smart phones, iphones, dingleberries, doodleberries, marionberries, and every other new piece of technology that you can get on to view the next post by the crafterina. If this is the case I suggest you stop and check back once every 17 years for a new blog post....
NO!
I take that back.
I WILL BE BETTER.
AND MORE CONSISTENT.
DEAL?
DEAL.

NOW I present to you.

The Miller Outdoor Theater

For me one of the most enjoyable performances we do each season. There is always a great and enthusiastic crowd for these shows. I mean I don't know how you couldn't be excited. Ballet? A picnic? The outdoors? A hill to roll down? Sounds like the ULTIMATE!

Well this year our rep was Stanton Welch's "Tutu" and "The Core" and Christopher Bruce's "Hush". All three incredibly different pieces and each amazing in their own right. We performed "Tutu" earlier this season at the Wortham and I believe I wrote quite an extensive blog on it. It was fun to bring it back and made it easier to throw together with all the other things we are working on right now. I was happy to see "The Core" come back for an outdoor theater. I knew the audience at Miller would really like the "Broadway" sense of the ballet and the Gershwin music is always nice to hear. Also I got to perform "Jane", which is always fun!

"The Core" waiting room


Christopher Bruce's "Hush" is one of my favorite ballet's of ALL TIME. It has the most amazing soundtrack by Yo-Yo Ma with vocals by Bobby McFerrin. The music is infectious. You can't help but hum and sing along. The movement is AMAZING. And maybe one of the most special things about this ballet is the fact Christopher Bruce created this ballet for the Houston Ballet. It is like our own little gem. Every single time I see this ballet it gets better and better. One of the highlights for me is the Mother's solo. It is perfect. The way it flows and tells a story, the constant struggle of being a mother and caring for children, and managing the every day chores. It is absolutely flawless, it gives me chills every single time.

Jess in the Mother solo in "Hush"

Here is a clip of the little girls solo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw6xpRTph38

TUTU, FORGOTTEN LAND, AND THE CORE

The question is, should I just stop apologizing about never blogging? Probably, it's not like I am Martha Stewart, or Joy the Baker, or THE PIONEER WOMAN. If they didn't blog daily people would probably revolt. There would be an Internet war, cyber guns guns guns.

Anywho, The first two reps of the season are already done. They flew by far too fast and threw us into Nutcracker rehearsals 2 months too early... Just think of snowflakes in Texas in September. LOVELY.
Our first rep was a triple bill of Stanton Welch's "Tutu" and "The Core" as well as Jiri Kylian's "Forgotten Land". Tutu was a ballet that I got to learn my apprentice year and fell in love with it. The costumes are midriff tutus, the leads in blue, red, and gold and the corps in periwinkle. The choreography has birdlike corks throughout and fittingly, we wear a sparkly birds nest on our head. Each of the leads has their own distinct quality. Gold starts off the ballet with a clap to the conductor and attacks the music with fast, sharp with dagger precision. Definitely a part for the small speedy dancers of the company. I remember watching my apprentice year and seeing Leticia Oliveira and Sara Web move at lightning speed with the cleanest technique I had ever seen. The red couple has this beautiful set of pas de duex that are sensual and seamless. The first time I saw Mimi Hassenboehler and Nick Leshche run the pas I was in tears because the music just ran through them in the most beautiful effortless manor. So inspiring. The blue woman begins the third movement with a variation that is every ballerina's dream. It is to the most gorgeous music and all about the insecurities of being a ballet dancer. She is continuously looking into the mirror observing her body and lines, struggling with the thing that is constantly bogging her mind. It must be the most nerve racking solo too, all alone onstage in almost complete darkness only light by a few dim side lights. I was apart of the corps. All about perfection. Lines, Lines, Lines. Ridged sharp movements with absolute precision. It's such a fun part to do onstage. Every single show there was something different I felt and had a feeling like I needed to strive to make the few seconds I was onstage perfect.

Sam as the Blue girl

The next ballet in the Triple bill was Jiri Kylian's "Forgotten Land". This was my first Kylian ballet and it was one of the most wonderful experiences I have had dancing. Even though I had a small dancing part, the entire experience from rehearsing with the lovely Roslyn Anderson to performing onstage was one to remember. The ballet starts off by walking upstage to just the sound of wind. All the timing of the movement is taken off the most upstage man so it can be different every show. The movement is very earthy and grounded which is more of a struggle for me. I have not had many opportunities to do this style of movement, but I hope I did it justice. For me all that matters is that I had an amazing time and it was an experience I will never forget.
Here is a description of the story.
"Forgotten Land 1981 explores memories, events and people that over time are lost or forgotten and how people sometimes vainly try to recover them, or a sense of them in order to regain their former power and value. The work its self is inspired and based on a painting of women on a beach by the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch. The work mainly involves duets who move their arms in various stretched positions, as if they were reaching out for something. The dancers arch their backs and dance expressively, reflecting both the music and the haunting painting that influenced the work. Kylián makes a statement of lost homelands, lost lovers and lost times and there are also duets that reflect violent moods. These duets end up as a large ensemble 'and then the women are left on the shore, stretching their arms again like bids that cannot fly."
from wikipedia:


Me in Beige

From Louise, the picture is one of the paintings the ballet was inspired by.

The final ballet was a Broadway style ballet named "The Core". Danced to the classic sounds of George Gershwin. This was the second time this ballet has been performed while I have been in the company. The first time I was a neurotic "executive employee" who literally ran around the stage being overly dramatic the whole time ;). I was a little too good at that. Often getting called out for overacting. Whoops. This time around I got to be a equally over dramatic character. Gwen, a dancing girl who gets clobbered in the face by the "Diva" played by the very diva herself Kate Precourt (JUST KIDDING KATE! :) ) I often times had far too much fun in this part with my fellow dancing pals, Leslie, Cyd and Moira. Our role was to (obviously) be dancing girls. Performing the classic moves as a kick line and jazz hands. In the beginning when I get smacked in the face there is an understudy named "Jane" who tells the choreographer that she can go in and finish the dance while my character Gwen is passed out on the chair. I also got to perform the role as Jane (in another show obviously).


Gwen's Costume

The paparazzi


The Diva and the Choreographer

Nao as Moira

Lauren as Leslie

The USO girlies


Me as Jane


It was a great run of shows. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Oh the Joy of Plantar Fasciitis

I have to apologize. No wonder I have only 10 followers. I go on a blog hiatus for weeks..maybe months.. at a time. Oops. Let's see where to start, where to start?! It looks as if my last blog post was my homemade pop tarts. I don't even remember what was happening at that point in my life. Usually there is something going on when I bake things. It is a little outlet for me. Whether I had an amazing day or the worst day ever, I can bake and it always makes everything better. (HEY YOU LIKE THAT RHYME?! I do.) I baked a lot the past few weeks. I have a bothersome injury that has been lurking for months now. It's called plantar fasciitis. I know, it sounds like some flesh eating disease that is going to take over the world. But it's not. It only the most obnoxious "injury" I've had. Our physical therapist, Emery, continues to tell me how I would be much better off breaking my foot. He also continued to tell me horror stories about his volleyball player who kept playing on her severe plantar fasciitis and eventually tore it. Thanks dude! I can just feel the confidence welling up inside of me.... NOT! ha-ha The injury started with the setting of the ballet "La Fille Mal Gardee". We were doing 6 hours a day of this ballet which is full of prancing, skipping, running in the "pink coffins" (pink coffins are what Emery calls our pointe shoes ha-ha), pretty much every step in the world that you can't put your heels down to give your calves a rest. So my calves got extremely tight and in part made me use my foot in the wrong way and I strained my posterior tibial tendon and gave me plantar fasciitis. The injury is very common among runner's and the normal population. It is horribly irritating to treat because the simplest things bother it, walking, biking, standing, sleeping.... breathing... Okay maybe not breathing but pretty much EVERYTHING else. The issue is when you sleep your foot is in a relaxed position, usually "pointed" against the sheet. So when I wake up in the morning the first couple steps out of bed are like the most hideous pain in the world. It feels as though the sole of my foot has been set on fire and someone is stabbing me with a knife. The solution? I now sleep with a night splint. It is a lovely contraption that keeps my foot in a flexed position all night so my fascia stay stretched and extended while I dream of ponies and rainbows. Now it got so unbearable in the La Fille rehearsals I had to sit out of most of them. Meanwhile the next two weeks we were performing the triple bill of Balanchine's Ballo Della Regina, Mark Morris' Sandpaper Ballet, and Stanton Welch's Pecos. I was in all three for all 7 shows. To keep my on for all the shows of the triple bill our director decided it was best for my to continue rest during the week rehearsals of Fille and then perform the triple bill on the weekend. This however meant I would be taken out of the first weekend of shows of Fille and return after rest for the last 4 shows of the season. It is never a nice feeling when you cannot perform. It doesn't matter what ballet it is. You just want to be part of every second of the process. After weeks and weeks of off and on dancing from a Village girl, to a Balanchine girl, to a jolly green monster, to a Spinster, to a Bar girl prostitute, I finally am back to a Village girl tonight for my own "opening night" show of La Fille ;) Wish me luck! ha-ha

Sandpaper Ballet, costumes by Isacc Mizrahi