On the Mend

Well, my foot is finally feeling more or less back to normal. Phew. Although, I'm going to continue to baby it up until we finish the season, which means a nightly routine of rolling it out on a golf ball to help with the knots, massaging from the tips of my toes up to the top of my calf, and then icing.

That hurts a lot at first, but feels so good after about 1 minute. However, I can't do what a lot of dancers in the company can, which is sticking their feet in a bucket of ice water... That's just too much for me. :-).

It's been a very interesting experience sitting out these last couple of days. As I mentioned in my last blog, I've never taken a day off. I missed class once my apprentice year because my alarm didn't go off, but aside from that, perfect attendance. I guess it's comes from a combination of loving what I do (a lot), and also a fear that the one day I'm not there, something amazing/exciting/important is going to happen. Our careers are so short, and I don't want to miss a second of it. Anyway, I've been so antsy sitting up front and watching everyone get to dance around, I'm practically counting the seconds until I get to take class again on Tuesday. I'm sure this all makes me sound like a crazy person, but I'm ok with that.

I'm glad to see Adrian has finally started blogging. He is one of the people who helped me decide to write here, and he has a really unique perspective on things, so I hope you all enjoy what he has to say. A fun fact: Adrian and I first met at Pacific Northwest Ballet's summer program in 2003 and became great friends, we kept in contact after the program ended, and 5 years later, here we are working together. Small world.

Tuesday we will have our first complete run through of Rubies and I'm both nervous and excited. I've only danced my sections in pieces, and I've been told it's a tough ballet to dance all the way through because it's extremely athletic. We also have a rehearsal with the pianist(s?) who are playing RUSH for us in DC, and I'm very interested to hear what the music is like live (or at least the piano sections of the music). When you rehearse over and over to a recording you get used to hearing certain things in the music which are sometimes less pronounced, or not there at all, when played live. It can be frustrating for a moment, but then the joy of have live music takes over and you don't notice after about the third time you do it with the orchestra.

Ok, I think that's all the news from my corner of the world. I'll finish icing and watching Take Me Out to the Ball Game (starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly) and then head to bed.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day!

~Steven