Consummate Professionals

What do you get when you add some cushions, a bunch of dancers, and a camera? This:
(all photos © Ashby Baldock)

Caldera (part 2)

Last night we talked our accompanist Irina into making us a traditional Russian dinner. On the menu was Borscht, some kind of fried patties made of ground turkey, onions, and garlic, bread with butter, and fried potatoes and mushrooms. It was absolutely delicious. Despite her shying away from the camera, I managed to snap a few shots of the evening.

Irina started out by cooking in her cabin, but the space proved to be too small, so we moved over to the large kitchen in the Hearth Center.

Irina in the kitchen at the Hearth Center.

Ground turkey, onions and garlic rolled in flour and fried. So. Good.

Dinnertime.

After dinner some of us chose to take advantage of another nice feature of the Hearth Center: the screen and projector that we can watch movies on.

This morning it was still a little chilly out, so we decided to make a fire again. Naturally, everyone decided to make it the new pre-class warm-up spot.

Caldera (part 1)

Greetings from Central Oregon! As you may know, a group of 7 dancers, plus 2 staff, and a couple family members are out near Sisters, Oregon on a small residency/tour. When we first got here the weather was as beautiful as the landscape, however, things have taken a turn for the drearier... To combat this we have chosen to take advantage of the huge fireplace located in the Hearth Center where we are rehearsing, and where we will be performing this Saturday and Sunday. It's amazing how having a fire going helps to make the gray, rainy weather seem a bit more bearable. It makes me wish we had a fireplace in our studios back home.

Anne and Alison have been trading off teaching classes in the morning.

Lucas during class.

Christian in our second "studio"/ video study area.

Brian and Lucas rehearsing some new work by Anne that will be a part of the Stravinsky Project next February.

Finished for Now

We're done for now--- just finished setting almost all the children's roles to a group of Korean kids who not only speak no English but have no previous exposure to Balanchine's Nutcracker.
This week has been an adventure and a whirlwind, and all of it has been facilitated by our incredibly generous hosts, New Venture Entertainment, the presenting agent for OBT's appearance here in August. This is a group of people that provided so much more than mere hospitality--- they became our friends and guardians over the past few days. Sam and Paul also were our translators in rehearsals, and let me say that if they hadn't been such incredibly attentive, conscientious, sensitive and humorous interpreters, we would not have gotten this job done.

To celebrate our last day of work here, they took us out to a traditional Korean bar for "makguli"--- or something like that---- a sort of fermented rice wine that looks like milk but sure doesn't like it. Here's the gang of us afterwards:




And this is some of what we ate--- seafood and vegetable "pizza", Korean-style.

Seoul Arts Center

Jet-lagged but happy, Thyra, Kevin and I finally made it to Seoul, South Korea, last night. We arrived at about 6 p.m. local time, which is about midnight (the night before) in Portland. The eleven-hour flight was made to seem much shorter than I'd dreaded thanks to the loveliness of Asiana Airlines and a Tylenol PM. We were met at the airport by two representatives from New Venture Entertaiment, the presenting agency here in Korea, who whisked us off to our hotel for a briefing on the schedule of events for the next four days and some info about the area and what to expect. Then the three of us stumbled our way into a Korean restaurant for our first try at communicating with limited (aka ZERO) language skills. Success! Delicious!

The real adventure begins today-- we just got back from a meeting with the technical director of the Seoul Arts Center and a tour of the theater, and in a couple of hours will have our first rehearsal with the children from the Korean National Institute.



More on the rest of our time here will be forthcoming.......... now must nap to stave off effects of jet-lag in anticipation of rehearsing until 11 p.m. tonight....