Oregon Ballet Theatre: The REAL beginning of summer.

For the last 7 years of my life it has never really felt like summer until my first day at a summer intensive. After 2 summers at San Francisco Ballet School, a summer at Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and a summer at the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre, it just doesn't feel the same without taking class with a bunch of new faces and the sun shining outside.

Since joining the company I've always taken at least the technique classes, sometimes jazz, and sometimes taken or taught the men's class at OBT's Summer Intensive. However, those are just a fraction of the classes offered. The level 4 students take: Ballet, Pointe, Choreography, Jazz, Modern, Yoga, Flamenco, Character, Seminar (things like how to eat well, make-up, costuming, lighting, dance history, etc.), Men's Technique, Partnering, and Weight Training. A typical day goes from 10-6 with a lunch break and a couple smaller breaks in between classes, and you do this 5 times a week (there is just a Technique Class on saturdays), for 5 weeks. So, as you can guess, it's extremely exhausting, but it's also the time when I saw the most improvement both in myself, and in those around me. When all you do all day is focus on ballet, for 5 weeks, how could you not improve?

In other news, my summer is going very well so far. I took most of the Adult Intensive last week, which was a nice way to sort of ease back into shape. A friend of Adrian's and mine came to visit for a long weekend; We all met 5 years ago at the PNB summer intensive and have been friends ever since. Other than that I've just been cleaning my apartment, after a month or so of neglect it was in pretty rough shape, and enjoying the weather. I don't start teaching until next week, so I've got 6 more days to relax before I have to do any sort of work again.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures from the SOBT Summer Intensive: