Dance United 2010, continued

Seven generous OBT supporters arrived at OBT today to collect their winning auction item from Dance United 2010: a semi-private ballet class at OBT on a quiet Sunday afternoon. It was such fun to lead a class of these devoted fans! I think we all had a great time, and an extra thank you to David Saffert for providing us with inspirational and fun music to make learning a develope seem less challenging!

... And hello again to Portland

We're long since back to Portland after our summer adventures overseas. This blog has fallen silent due not to disinterest but extreme busy-ness. Sleeping Beauty opens in three weeks (slightly less than, actually) and there is still an enormous amount of work to be done. Choreography to be set, variations to be perfected, corps de ballet sections to be rehearsed, supers to be incorporated, pantomime to be learned, children's roles to be taught and rehearsed... I could go on and on.

The hallways of OBT are full of crates marked "BALLET WEST SLEEPING BEAUTY". We are renting Ballet West's costumes for our production, and they arrived last week. Costume fittings began in a hurry on Wednesday and will be ongoing until the moment we open the show. Space is so tight that racks of costumes are being parked in every available space in our building-- hallways, offices, the lobby. Sleeping Beauty is a big ballet, with a lot of characters, and a LOT of costumes! (And a lot of wigs, by the way.)

The dancers are working full-tilt for this production, as is every other person involved with OBT. The whole building has a sense of electricity to it, there's so much going on at any moment, and everyone's watching the clock and the calendar... But as as Leonard Bernstein said, "To achieve great things, two things are needed: A plan, and not quite enough time."

Agreed.