Eleventh workshop and adult ballet back then!

This weekend was pretty fun! I attended a brunch with a Slavic lit professor from my school at my alumni club, who later brought us to watch the met opera (Queen of Spades!) It was my first time seeing an opera, and I was worried that I was gonna fall asleep in the middle of the performance, because it is 3.5 hours long! The opera was quite dramatic, with lots of strong emotions that were powerfully demonstrated through singing. I was sitting at the edge of the seat the whole time!

During brunch at my alumni club, I met a few amiable alumni who were in town to attend their grandkids’ birthday party. A woman was talking about how when she was a young professional in the 1970s, she discovered that her boss, a very proper, gentleman looking lawyer, was taking ballet classes after work! So she started taking ballet with him. It was a different era, so when other people asked them, what do you do for a living? They had to say they worked office jobs, sitting around all day and typing out words. They had to disguise that they were lawyers, because at that time, people could not imagine lawyers dancing ballet. Such a different time back then! Now the CEO of Goldman Sachs doubles as a DJ who regularly performs at the hottest night clubs in New York!

The professor talked about the idea of obsession, which is interesting. The story is about a man chasing after a woman and a secret gambling trick, but in the end was so obsessed with the gambling trick that he killed himself after making a mistake in his last hand. Pushkin talked about how two equally important ideas cannot occupy the brain at the same time, just like how two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Quite interesting!

Ok, now back to class! Today was a really demanding but good class, we perfected several movements:

Breathing

Breathing was the biggest takeaway during today’s class. Our teacher said you have to breath in order to dance freely. Basically, ballet should kind of be like yoga, you breath in when you are trying to lift your spine and ribcage to do a tendu/ronde de jamb/releve, and you breath out when you put your foot back to the floor. If you do not master breathing at the absolute beginner level when things are all slow, you will not be able to make it when you reach a higher level.

Gesture

It is very very important to always think there is a string attached to your belly button, pulling it back to your spine, so that you do not overbend your back.

Third position port de bras

Try to think your heart is lifted up by a string towards the ceiling when you are doing a port de bras third position, pulling your head back and bending your back backwards. This will prompt you to lift your back up while doing the port de bras, enhancing alignment.

Port de bras to the front

Bending your upper body to the floor to form a 90 degree angle with your legs is no easy task. You basically should feel like you are falling off a cliff, and you are really bending forward instead of moving your hip backward.

Tendu/Degage

When doing tendu, it is very crucial to know that it is a movement of 2 legs. Both legs should actively turn out, with the standing leg pushing the foot to the side while the tendu leg pushes through the floor.

Et voila! Today was the second to last class for the workshop. Time flies by so fast! I was truly glad that I was able to attend all but one class and see my progress. I hope to continue dancing before the next workshop starts in January, so I will probably take a few open classes at the ballet academy east or other studios.

I recently discover a ballet blog, http://latetothepartyballet.com which documents a woman’s journey through perfecting herself of being a ballerina. I really hope to be like her in the future!

Also read this article about how another girl balanced life and ballet. She spends 6-8 hours dancing and another 6-8 hours doing other workouts. So committed! I think I have too many diverse interests to keep up even 8 hours of dancing!

I’d love to investigate and read more about things happening in my industry, as well as exploring other artsy interests/explore new york. I guess 2-3 classes /week would be my magic number, cant see myself dancing every single day.