Performance This Weekend

This weekend is another Performing in NY Showcase!

I'm assistant director of the whole production, which means a LOT of work coordinating 230 dancers under 14 directors. Good thing I enjoy putting on a show because man, it's a lot of emails! Haha. This round I helped my teacher stage parts of Swan Lake Act II and will be dancing as well. Looking forward to it :) http://www.katwildishshowcase.com

Performance Videos + Rehearsals Start Tonight

Just got the first clips of last weekend's Performing in New York Showcase. This was "Tarantella" based on Bournonville's ballet "Napoli" staged by my teacher Kat Wildish. These are mostly adult students who may otherwise not have the chance to really perform. I had just a small part towards the end because it was my last show on the evil achilles.

Renowned ballet teacher Kat Wildish created the Performing in New York Showcases to give her eclectic adult students at The Ailey Extension a rare opportunity: the chance to perform real classical repertoire in a professional theater in midtown Manhattan. The shows, held 3 weekends per year at The Ailey Citigroup Theater, have grown from serving just a 20-person studio audience in 2008 to being sold-out successes. Small professional troupes and open class students in other dance styles join the passionate, international cast. Kat believes every dancer deserves to achieve their dreams of performance, no matter their age or level. Her open-level repertory workshop of weekly rehearsals provides top-notch insight and coaching to professional and beginner dancers alike.

I'm assistant director of these shows basically - so I do A LOT. Besides most of the administrative stuff, I also helped stage "Giselle's Friends Dance" with Kat. My job was basically to big time clean up little details, since we only had 3 weeks of rehearsals. Video below...I'm really pleased with it and proud of everyone :)

I also performed with Exit 12 Dance Company in this show, but that video will come soon...

If anyone - ANYONE - in the city is interested in participating and performing in our November show, they start rehearsals tonight at 9pm at Ailey! Obviously I won't be there for a few weeks to help, but it's so worth doing if you've ever dreamed of performing classical ballet and thought you'd never have the chance. More info and signup here. 4 performances on Thanksgiving Weekend at The Ailey Citigroup Theater. Mark your calendars!

Performing in NY August Showcase Photos

Kat Wildish and our Performing in NY Summer Intensive Dancers

Last weekend we had another of our Performing in New York Showcases - of which I am now officially Assistant Director. I'll write later about all the work that went into the 3-week intensive leading up to the shows, but here are a few pictures!

I danced in (and helped teach) the Tarantella based on "Napoli" (one of my favorite ballets that I also danced while at BAE), and with Exit 12 Dance Company in an emotional work called "Homecoming."

Exit 12 Dance Company - I'm in the wrong costume :o

Exit 12 Dance Company - "Homecoming" Bows
"Homecoming" - I'm on the left

Being silly
"Tarantella"

"Tarantella" - awkward moment just before the end, haha

Celebrating afterwards with my fantastic yoga teacher and ballet teacher :)

Student Showcase #4

Our little (actually, not so little anymore...) sold out student showcase was a success tonight! A few pictures of our Giselle cast.



So tired from 4 shows total today...2 radio city in the morning, then Tuesday is a real 4 show day again...better get some sleep!

pics from Sunday's showcase

Here are just a few pictures from our little student showcase the other day.
We did excerpts from Swan Lake, and the other colorful people did West Side Story suite from the theater dance class.

Student Showcase tomorrow

Wow I should have posted this way earlier.

But tomorrow (Sunday) I'm in another student showcase thing at Ailey. We're doing excerpts from Swan Lake (actually, one of the same things I did in ABT's showcase in June...) and it should be fun. I'm not doing a variation this time for multiple reasons, but the corps stuff is fun.

If you happen to be around and want to check it out there are two shows at the studio at 5pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are $10 at the door.

Pics and details to come tomorrow night after the shows.

more pics from Ailey student showcase

No time to breathe as I finish up ABT this week, so here's another picture post.

Our "official" photographer, the wonderful Arthur, has finally uploaded 300+ pictures from the student showcase we had at Ailey last weekend (actually 2 weekends ago hah). Quite amusing. He took photos practically every 2 seconds so you can flip through the slideshow and pretend you're actually seeing us dance, haha.

Check them all out here.

ABT intensive performances tomorrow (hopefully - or not hopefully haha - Arthur will take pics then as well so I can share) and then off to DC for the weekend.

Blogging will return to my normal, slightly less insanely busy self after that :)

pics from last week's showcase

No time to write today/tonight so I thought I'd share some pictures from last Sunday's student showcase at the Ailey Extension that some friends recently sent me.

Many thanks to Arthur and Tonya for taking pictures throughout the show :)

I positively HATE seeing pictures of myself dancing so most of these are of other people, haha.

Other news of the day..I braved the heat briefly to check out DRA's Dancing at the Crossroads performance in Times Square. They set up a greta stage right in the middle of all the traffic and lights and such and have a variety of companies performing for the charity. The way it was set up wasn't very conducive to the size of the touristy audience, though. Sitting down in their relatively few seats we were unable to see a thing onstage, and when we tried to stand in the back the security people shooed us away (many times). Plus it was a scorching 95+ degrees in the city today, so that added to the fun. I had to leave for work anyway and only got to stay for the first 5 dances or so. Great show though!

Back for my last week of ABT's intensive this week. We have 2 performances on Friday but they only allow you to bring 2 guests to 1 of the shows, so if I invited you to come before I have to regretfully uninvite you now, haha. Sorry...it's VERY limited seating even though the studio is huge. They keep the space more for dancing rather than for the audience!

Alright, on to the photos:

me mid-pirouette...


bows


me doing god knows what during my variation. i just liked the blurriness, haha


other folks bowing

student showing a success

Today's student showcase at Ailey was so fun!

We had a HUGE crowd - way more than last time, and WAAAY more than expected. I was in charge of the program and we thought making 200 would suffice for the 60 person cast + audience, but it so didn't. It was crazy! Apparently they had to turn people away because it was a fire hazard to have that many people in the double studio. Crazy.

Tonya came - see her photo post, hehe.

It was really a lot of fun. It felt like a real performance this time, whereas last time it was kind of thrown together and we only had 20 or so audience members. This was great.

I was fairly pleased with my variation (I only had 1/2 an hour of a coaching session this afternoon and the rest was just be learning it on my own...eek) and the pas de deux went quite well. The other dances were fine, too, and the pieces I wasn't in all looked really good. It was a success :)

Long day though...rehearsing before hand alone and then with everyone, plus the show etc...my body is going to need a nice break after the ABT intensive is done, cause I haven't stopped at ALL haha.

Also got called in to do a VERY last minute article for momvnt, so I was trying to contact people for that in between all of this. PLUS a summer online class for school has started. PLUS work.

Have I mentioned that my life is insane?

Have I also mentioned that I thrive off of that?

...If only I had an equal amount of time in the day to sleep, though. Haha.

On to another week at ABT. Going to a few performances this week to review (Cedar Lake, Trinayan Indian dance, ABT) so keep an eye out for some exploredance articles.

ailey student showing tomorrow

Tomorrow afternoon is the little student showcase I'm in for the Ailey Extension program...

If anyone's in the city and bored, you should come :) It's at the Ailey studio at 5pm. Just come in and they'll show you where to go...we're expecting a much bigger crowd than the last time, so it's exciting.

In other news, today was another busy ballet day. For ABT intensive we had 2 seminars this morning - one on pointe shoes with the expert from Capezio, and another on the new ABT national curriculum (which I have lots to say about but don't have time at the moment).

Then I took my usual Saturday classes I do, running from studio to studio (in the rain...I got SOAKED running from buying shoes at sansha to running to city center and then to ailey!).

Looking forward to tomorrow's showcase even though I could really use a Sunday off from dancing after this crazy week, haha. Ah well, it should be fun.

showcase rehearsal

We've started rehearsing for another little student showcase like we had in February with the people I take open class with. It's set for June 1, but my teacher is going away for the month of May so we are scrambling to finish setting choreographing and everything. There's a lot more people involved this time and it's a little chaotic, but it's fun..

I'm doing the Pas D'esclave pas de deux from Corsaire, and the variation that goes along with it. I'm also supposed to be doing this modern-ish solo thing, but we haven't had time or space to rehearse it in a month so that might be off. Plus there are several group pieces and such in the works, so it should be a nice little show. It falls right after my first week of ABT's intensive, though, so that week is going to be insane!

It's nice to have so much going on though. I'm doing an audition this afternoon and have a few other prospective opportunities in the works, both dance and otherwise, so I'll be posting more soon.

showcase pictures

Some pictures from Sunday's little showcase, and dinner afterwards :)

my visiting family and friends from class...all together! (can't see half the table here...)


my partner for swan lake, gregory


no pointe shoes...that's why i look so short on the right there :(


weird one, but some random moment during my gamzatti variation