Orchestra rehearsing Midsummer

Dress Rehearsal

We just finished dress rehearsal, and welcomed back our beautiful orchestra! Here's Neil working with them on a few sections of Midsummer:



Children-bugs took a rest amongst the trees while notes and corrections were being given after the rehearsal:

And our hair expert, Sarah, tinkered with Alison's (Titania) hairdo. She does gorgeous work on the Titanias with curls and soft, sweeping waves that really make them look like fairy queens.

It's incredible how much work gets done in the last few days before we open. Everything's looking good and we're all ready to get this show open. Enjoy, everyone!

No End to Listening

I read David Stabler's beautifully thought-provoking and insightful column in The Oregonian on Thursday, "A Year of Playing Bach".

He describes his resolution to re-dedicate himself to daily practice of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" after many years away from not just that particular piece, but piano practice in general. Although, of course, the specifics of piano practice are different from those of ballet, the psychological drive, effort, and ultimately the effects of "the art of practicing art" are exactly the same, right down to the physical process and development.

Here are some of my favorite observations from his column:

"I wanted to make music in the first person after writing about it for so long. One reason to play an instrument-- or paint or write or act-- is to bring what is inside ourselves into play. The fact that musicians often do that by learning other people's music is no contradiction. What we hear and how we reproduce it is who we are."

I will add that that is the reason why we dance, as well. We too (for the most part, in the ballet world) are interpretive artists, and the artistic gratification comes from being given a choreographer's work to hold in your body. No matter how big or small the role, when you, the dancer, are performing those steps, they feel like your very own that no one can take away from you, that you have colored with your own personal set of tools.

"Practicing is meditation-- we're practicing a way of thinking; we're practicing consciousness."

We sometimes talk about going on "auto-pilot" when repeating some very familiar exercise or piece of work, but in truth there's no such thing. It's just that the brain has learned the motor patterns so well that the movements no longer take such active, conscious effort. But even warming up, taking barre, doing class work is meditative in that you turn your focus deep inside yourself and the outside world fades away.

David concludes with his realization that the reason he decided to bring Bach's music into his own body was in order to hear it better, and to remember how to listen to it.

"There is no end to listening".

Sneak Preview

Here's a little tiny snippet of today's rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Julia and Javier are dancing Peaseblossom and Puck.

We've begun rehearsing with the children, since throughout the ballet they interact quite a bit with the adult dancers. The children have a special, and huge, responsibility in Midsummer-- they actually move parts of the set. There are several "trees" on stage which the kids shift into different arrangements as the scenes change. There are markings on the stage floor to help them remember where exactly they're supposed to go, but still... I must say I'm glad I don't have to do that! They're doing great with their roles as bugs, flowers, and scene-shifters, thanks to Anne Mueller's conscientious rehearsals with them. Anne's been working with the children on Midsummer for weeks now, teaching them not only their steps, counts, and spacing, but also all of the tree-shifting. Watch for their adorable bug-choreography, like when they shiver in fear and concern, or rub the backs of their wrists together like real bugs.

Around the studio and theater, we are rarely without our water bottles. Most everyone has their own, and since they are such an indispensible accesory (and now are available in so many unique shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns) we could probably identify everyone's bottle if a "match the canteen to the dancer" contest were held.

Lately, Kleen Kanteen has become the bottle of choice. I noticed that Adrian and I had matching green ones-- his in a large grandaddy size to my little kid size. We set up a family portrait with another related pair the other day (Grace's is the one with the nifty sport top):


Soon, other drinking vessels in the room got interested and wanted their picture taken, too:

And since we were on a five minute break during rehearsal, snacks were present and sauntered over to add texture to our still life:

Hey, hands off my sandwich!!

Rehearsal Wings

Hanging on a rack in the hall outside wardrobe:

It's not a kite with suspenders, they are the "rehearsal wings" for Oberon and Titania (quite different than training wheels). They wear their wings for a few sections of the ballet and therefore need to rehearse with them. They're quite large and unwieldy, so you can imagine what it would feel like to have something like that strapped to your back while trying to move.

YES!!!

This box is sitting on the reception desk, awaiting musicians to come pick up their music for Midsummer. Need I say more?