I'm sitting in my room at my home in upstate New York, my arms slightly sore from my first workout with "perfect pushup" brand pushup handles. They rotate as you do a pushup, working both tricep and bicep. It's a harder workout, but more productive. Reccomendable. I am definitely taking these back to the sunshine state. Frank Sinatra is playing softly on my ipod and it's nice to finally have the chance to relax. The past few weeks have been great, but completely insane.
I left off with the Indian festival, in which I was performing as part of the Spanish corps in an excerpt from 'Nutcracker'. This went fairly well. We felt a little out of place as the only ballet dancers and non-competitors, but it was a chance to practice performing.
More and more rehearsals with more and more intensity were scheduled, and 'The Nutcracker' was looming. In my parts as party parent, mouse, spanish corps, russian corps, and matryshka doll, I performed as a few different things every night. More on that momentarily.
I feel obliged to mention that there was a week where ballet seemed not to matter. Nor did school. Worried about my mother, who was in the hospital due to her serious heart condition, I let things slide. The stress of this, as well as my insecurity about my progress in dance, the struggle to keep up with homework, etc. became such that I wanted everything to stop. I missed classes at school and Patel, and Peter, my surrogate father John, and later a friend talked to me and made me realize that this sort of falter could only serve to harm. These lapses in judgement were behind me, and so I focused once more on doing the best I could. A week later, and we were on the stage.
Before that though, we were honored to have a class, a master class, and to watch an intensive taught by Bruce Marks, who then watched our 'Nutcracker' rehearsal. He's got a ballet history as long as your arm, from principal to artistic director. He talked about dance as a movement and not as positions. He talked about feeling and not counting the music. He talked about character, artistry. I learned a huge amount from him and I hope to meet him again someday soon.
There are two things about 'Nutcracker' that created a fantastic experience. The first is obviously to simply be a part of it. To get to perform. The second was to get to watch Boston Ballet soloist, and a definite hero of mine, Jeffrey Cirio, as well as Miami City principal Katia Carranza and ex-American Ballet Theatre principal Jose Correno dance. The experience of Carreno, the crispness of Carranza and the skill of Cirio made for an amazing thing to see. Being closer to my age, I connect more to Jeffrey Cirio than the others. He's inspirational in many ways. His dancing makes me want to be like him. However, I also realize that I am not going to be the same type of dancer as he is. Jeffrey Cirio is only twenty years old, and is a soloist. He won competitions as a child, and is one of the "wonderkinds" that Peter Stark is known to produce. I am not. I don't feel that I really fit the "prodigy" image. I'm fifteen, six foot one, and I'm still catching up. I'm in for the long haul, and I'm fine with that. Being taller, etc., I am going to be a different dancer to Jeffrey. My dream is to dance like David Hallberg, a quite tall dancer. But despite the fact that I know I will not be like Jeffrey, there is one thing that I aspire to take after him. Jeffrey Cirio has an incredible work ethic. He's had to work very hard and mature to get to where he is. To get to the big leagues with people like Jeffrey Cirio, you have to be obsessed.
I saw David Hallberg on the Colbert Report, and he said that despite starting at 13, he was obsessed with ballet and this obsessive work ethic got him to be the first american principal at the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia. Hearing it from different sources solidifies it, but it is a fact that you have to work hard to get anywhere in the dance world.
Since 'The Nutcracker; the Imperial Ballet' is over, I've come home for the holidays. My mom is out of the hospital, but will be going to Westchester to the hospital there next week, to await a heart transplant. For the moment, we are enjoying our Christmas. I will be stretching, working out, and taking vollunteer dance classes at my old studio daily, and this is looking to be a good week.
More as it happens.
