a moment to breathe...

Instead of running off to morning class today I decided to take a moment to breathe after not stopping for the past 48 hours or so, haha. In efforts to organize my thoughts and start fresh today with mooorrre work, I figured I'd take the time now to blog about the past two days.

WEDNESDAY

-In the morning, the company had a master class with Karin Averty, a former dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet. What a great opportunity! It was nice to be in a small class for once, and she was such a good teacher...it was a super fast class, not just the combinations themselves but the way she taught them. For instance, petite allegro is usually my favorite because it's complicated and quick and something I can do, but even I couldn't get her combination! It was all tricky because it's a different style...not different in the same ways that Balanchine or Russian or Ceccetti styles have distinct differences in porte de bras or timing etc, but different in terms of transitions and in between steps. I really enjoyed the class, and hopefully she'll teach again before she goes back to Paris.

Right after that we had rehearsal as usual, and I had to fill in for a different dancer than I did on Tuesday. Luckily I took a copy of the rehearsal dvd home Tuesday to go over the different part...the way this piece works is complicated because everyone does similar phrases but in different timing and spacing and with different people, and it's a lot of patterns and crossing with people and such, so I really didn't want to mess up and be crashing into people, haha. It went well, though. It's kind of fun to be different people every day.

-That rehearsal ran late, so I barely made it uptown in time to teach as I usually do on Wednesdays. I gave the kids a really quick warm up because I wanted to push through the rest of the choreorgaphy to get this piece done, since it needs A LOT of cleaning. We didn't finish it as I had hoped, but we did get another minute or so done in only an hour, so that was good. They work well with me, which apparently is surprising to their normal teacher who doesn't get much respect from them. Interesting...I think it's good for people to branch out from their regular teachers once in a while despite leaving their comfort zone (myself included...).

-Took my usual night classes that night and broke in new pointe shoes...ouch. The only good thing about new shoes is that you can balance forever, so that was fun, haha.

-Also between Wednesday and today, the company (RKB) has asked me and been on me about helping them with publicity stuff. I'm honored that my opinions are valued, but it's so hard to help with such limited time. They're working on marketing plans for the season in April and want me to write some things, etc. More on this to come...I'm meeting with their development people next week to try to help out. As the director mentioned once before, "there's no problem that couldn't be solved with a lot more money." That's too bad...

Moving on.

THURSDAY

As I mentioned, my boss went out of town for the holiday weekend, so I basically had to take over for him, doing things way beyond my normal intern duties. He had shown me some of the things I'd need to do over the past few weeks, and he left my a details packet of directions (with added humor...hey, it's the cartoon department) so that I would be prepared for anything that came up.

So I thought! In the morning, the editors have their meeting to decide which cartoons to purchase from the artists, but those don't usually run in the issue right away. Well yesterday they decided to get one to go in THAT DAY's issue (the one that will come out this Monday, but it closed yesterday). So that put everyone into a frenzy and added a whole hurried process that I had to be a part of that I was unaware of. It was like treading through the dark, hands outstretched feeling my way around the unknown. I was pretty much clueless, and the editor people were like talking fast and assuming that I knew the process. I must have looked at them like they had 5 heads, because eventually they got the idea that I was lost, hah. Wasn't my fauly though, and they knew that and were super helpful with showing me what to do. We got it done and taken care of, but since it was a timely issue and everything it definitely added some stress! It was exciting though...I like the publishing world, haha.

Speaking of that, a few times recently people, both in and out of this industry, have mentioned to me that publishing is a "cut throat" industry. I would say no more so than dance! And in my experiences thus far, everyone has proven to be helpful in aiding a newcomer like me :)

Anyways. After the exciting morning things calmed down a bit. I followed all my directions and got everything done, but it was a long day. I stayed til 7pm to get some of today's work done since I knew I couldn't go in as long today. It felt good at the end of the day to have accomplished a full day of almost being a real contributor to The New Yorker (okay, I'm sure my little exciting escapade wasn't THAT essential to the magazine, but I felt like it was pretty darn important at the time, haha). I was so tired by the end of the day though!

Somewhere in all that work I found time to keep up with my own email and got another few writing assignments for the next week or two. Lots coming up...and lots of people asking for my help/advice with things, which I find amusing. I don't know that I have that much to offer these people in terms of advice, haha, but it's nice to be asked.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some details of the past few days, but that's enough for now. I'm running to pointe class now, before more New Yorker excitement. Later today I'm doing one of my interviews for movmnt...details on that to come...I may get to go backstage at a Broadway show ;) not positive yet, but that seems to be the convenient meeting place for the moment. Then taking class all night as usual. What a life I live, haha.