Last Week

It's the last week of my time in NY. Sad. But I've been busy, so it's been good.
Monday, I went to Pilobolus. It was awesome. They are so good. It's amazing how they throw themselves around and do crazy jumps and flips and partnering stuff. A lot of it wasn't what most people would call "dance," but it all fit into this big picture that was a really good piece. A lot of it was really funny, and the girl sitting in front of me for some reason thought that it was rude to laugh or she didn't like my laugh or something, cause every time I laughed she would turn around and look at me like I had just smacked her upside the head with no warning. Whatever, I still enjoyed myself.
Tuesday, 2 girls and I went to a Yankees game. Here is my now-traditional (2 years in a row makes a tradition, I've decided) picture of my foot at Yankee stadium.

The Yankees won, my friends really had a good time, we danced at all the songs and did the wave and clapped along with the out-of-sync clapping hands on the scoreboard. There was a home run in the 2nd inning, and from where we were sitting we could see the full arc of the ball (way cool). A great night.

Wednesday, I did nothing. But that was good, I needed some rest, I haven't been sleeping well cuase it's so darn hot.

Thursday, my friend and her sister and I stood in line for 2 hours to see if we could get Lion King tickets. We were 8, 9, and 10 in line, and there were enough cancellation tickets for 7 people. So we didn't see the show, but we had a good time eating McDonald's on the sidewalk on 42nd St. It cooled off that day, so it was actually very enjoyable to be outside.

Today was the last day of class. It went alright. The piece we did this week was really crazy, and my back hurts really bad, as do many odd muscles throughout my body, like my left rhomboids, my right adductors, and my right anterior tibialis (get out your anatomy texts, everyone). The muscles that run around the right side of my waist really hurt, too, which is a very odd experience I've not had before. But the showing went off alright, and though I never saw Paul Taylor in person I really learned a lot this month. Plus, losing some weight and gaining some muscle back was nothing to be upset about.

Tonight, I'm taking all night to pack so that I'll be really tired for my 18 hour train ride tomorrow night. Pray I have enough to read...

High of 95

It's so very hot. For the last week and a half or so, the high has been at least 85 if not 95 every day. And I personally do not consider 77 degrees to be a "low." That's just a lower high. I suppose I should have expected that it would be hot here in the concrete jungle in the height of summer, but I didn't expect 95, blazing sunlight, and no air conditioning. Not just no AC, but also no breeze. I swear opening my window makes it hotter in this little room. I've been finding endless excuses to go downtown just so I can ride the air conditioned subway trains. It would be nice to stop sweating every once in a while.
Despite the heat, though, I'm enjoying myself immensely. I pretty much do nothing but ride around in the subway and go to ballets, but it's totally fun. I've seen, thus far, Swan Lake, Giselle, and Don Quixote (the first two by ABT and the last by the Bolshoi). My friend and I are probably going to see Pilobolus this weekend, if we can find tickets (they are a modern company, two of the faculty at Hope last semester were dancers from Pilobolus on sabatical). I may also go see a thing called "Random Dance" which, as far as I can gather, is a modern company, which sounds really interesting. I took a tap class at some Broadway studio on Monday, which was a cool experience. To part from the dance world, though, I have convinced my two friends from class to come with me to a Yankee game next week. We're sitting in the nosebleeds, and they have been instructed to not wear anything that even hints at having anything to do with Boston. It's gonna be a blast. I'm still surprised I talked these 2 girls into coming with me, though I won't complain, cause me sitting all by myself in the nosebleeds wouldn't be nearly as fun.
So I'm doing awesome. I have these 3 hugemongous blisters underneath my calluses on the bottoms of my feet (I have been building these calluses since I got on pointe at age 11), and one ripped completely open today. I seriously didn't think it was possible to have skin that thick on your body. Amazing (and gross too, sorry I gave no warning to the squeemish). Hopefully that'll heal over quickly, cause I can hardly stand on it, let alone turn or jump or any of that fun stuff.
I'm looking forward to home, though, fun as it is around here. I miss my Reevert's girls, and I miss real food (other than peanut butter and jelly and mac and cheese). I could really go for some Michael's cheese curds and a big raspberry shake right now.
I'm catching a tiny breath of air in here right now, so I'm off to enjoy it.

Ocean

So in my last post, I was lamenting not being able to see Merce Cunningham's Ocean. I was a little upset, but then I heard about it from someone who went. She said it was a 90 minute adagio (very slow), with a huge clock so you could watch the boring minutes pass by. Then I read a review from someone's website that made me also kinda happy I didn't go. Apparently there is pretty much no repetition of movements, something that choreographers use to make points and make the piece continuous and all kinds of things that are good. Then, I was talking to Anthony Georgeson today, who is a bassoonist in town and plays random fill-in gigs for lots of guys in good orchestras around here. The guy who usually plays for Ocean got some better gig or something and couldn't go, so enlisted Tony to fill in for him on Saturday night. So Tony shows up, looks at the music to find that it's pretty much just whole notes and there's no meter it's all just timed by the gigantic clock. Then the lady who is in charge of the musicians comes up and is like "I'm sorry, but we have a no subbing policy, you must be at rehearsal to play" and makes him leave. This is very ironic, as Merce Cunningham is most famous for his "chance operations" like not having the dancers here the music until opening night and sometimes changing the music halfway through and run and stuff. So wouldn't a non-rehearsed bassoonist just add to the randomness? Why would something like 3 minute whole notes need to be rigorously rehearsed? Why, among a 112 piece orchestra, would one off note from an un-rehearsed bassoon make all that much difference whether you like randomness in your work or not? Wierd.

Day 11

I'm nearing the midpoint of my stay here in New York. It's going really well. I'm learning a lot, being beaten into the ground, finding lots of things to like and not like. The people get cooler and cooler, I'm actually hanging out with some sometimes. Like the other night 4 of us were going to see Merce Cunningham, but ended up getting dessert at Friday's cause we couldn't afford the $70 "cheap" tickets. A big group is getting together to see ABT's Giselle on Saturday, which should be amazing (with Julie Kent, who I happened to see on the street yesterday). For repetoire this week, we learned a 7 minute piece. One group last week did a piece about that long, but it was Esplanade, which is pretty much just running and skipping in cool patterns. Our 7 minutes is really hard dancing, with lots of cool patters mixed in too. Also, the meter is wierd, so the counts are like a 6 and then a 12 and then a 10 and then a 14 and then an 8 and then two 6's and then....it's crazy, but really cool. I hope the showing tomorrow goes well, maybe Paul will come this week (that would be really amazing).
I'm a little bored sometimes here, but that's mostly cause I'm poor. There are tons of things I could go see or do (like The Producers, or a Yankee game, as Rich recommends). But I can't afford it, which is sad. I'm still doing lots of cool things, but there are nights when I am enjoying just being alone. Today I spent 20 minutes just looking out my window, watching the people in the streets and the traffic patterns and the cops and the clouds. It was great. So I suppose it's worth being here even if I don't see a Broadway musical every night.

New Coldplay cd = AMAZING. I absolutely love it. Sorry, random side note.

K, I'm gonna go play a little on Facebook (Mary somehow got me to join, though I've been putting it off for like a year). I refuse to get addicted, but I'm too tired to go wandering around tonight.

New York, New York

I can see her from my window, how cool is that?

I'm not actually in NY, NY, in truth my address is in Brooklyn. But right across the water from me, a short 30 minute subway ride away, is the heart of New York. Yummy. I've got a room at the YWCA, and I'm loving it. I'm dancing my little backside off (pretty much literally, I'm being worn to the bone), and eating up every moment. I'm bruised (literally), sore, exhausted to the point of not having the energy to want to eat (me, not wanting to eat, there must be pigs flying by someplace), and having such a great time. This is awesome. If I ever doubted my wanting to move out here when I graduated, all those doubts are totally gone. Even if I make zero money dancing, even if I get fully rejected by everyone I audition for, it will still be a chance to live for a year in this fabulous place. I took a walk around the block yesterday, and passed about 5 African apparel shops, an equal number of Islamic apparel shops (not to mention Islamic fragrance stores, which I'm a little confused about), and about 10 groceries with names like "Jorge's" or "Gonzalez." Fun. I love the subway, with all the impatient people and odd characters and smashed humanity. I love being able to buy tea for 50 cents from a stand on the street, and count the number of people with iPods I see around (I think I got 15 yesterday), and be in the minority being white. It's cool to see how nice people are, especially with all the stories and stereotypes of mean New Yorkers. I'm also really amused by picking out the little ballerina teenagers who are here for ABT's workshop, their pink tights and severe buns are like a neon sign no matter where they are, not to mention that characteristic ballet stance they all asume while waiting for the light to change (they are the only ones who wait, too). I saw a policeman crossing the street against the "don't walk" sign today, that was fun.
If you hadn't noticed, I'm loving it here, and I've only been in town for 3 days. I fear August will come way too quickly.