Stepping Back

I'm starting a dance company.
I wrote about it a little in my last post.

When I set the gears in place to form the company, I knew what kind of work I was looking at. I knew it would be a challenge to squeeze in this extra-responsibility to my life so quickly but my single-minded brain didn't care. I could do it. I would do it because I needed to.

Almost immediately after launching the website and an IndieGoGo campaign to raise the funds for our first performance, I felt like something wasn't quite right. My husband started questioning whether I thought the timing was really right. I insisted it was and kept moving forward with plans, looking through dancers' resumes and trying to figure out how everything would be funded.

We went on vacation to Texas over Easter where we discussed further whether a summer performance would even be possible. I've decided to take my husband's advice and postpone any further work on an official first performance for the company. We think a show can happen in the fall, giving me the summer to get a solid group of dancers together. I need a few months to focus on being a mom and a wife and that book I'm editing first. I can choreograph ballets today or five years from now or ten years from now but my son is only going to be a kid once. I don't want to miss that.

It doesn't feel great to back track. I hate it. I want to be able to do everything all the time. Learning my own limitations is tough.

Seeking Dancers for Summer Contracts

Big news! I'm launching a dance company! 

This past year, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that our rural area could use its own dance company. My head's also been full of all kinds of ideas for ballets and other works that I just can't set on my young students. So it's time. The pieces are falling into place and I'm aiming to launch Genesee Dance Theatre with a small performance this summer! 

My two biggest needs at this point are dancers and funds. If you'd like to support my new company financially, you can make a donation here. 

If you'd like to be a part of the company, take a look at the audition notice below and get in touch. Initial contracts will be just for summer rehearsals and performances (2 -3 weeks) but I am also hoping to extend longer term winter contracts to local performers (or those who'd like to make themselves local for our season!). 

Since this is a brand spankin' new company, I also appreciate help getting the word out. Tell your friends and get ready to see some fun and innovative dance in the Genesee Valley region. 

Casting Notice 

Genesee Dance Theatre is seeking versatile male and female dancers for short contracts in July 2014. Dancers must have excellent classical ballet technique. Contemporary, modern and jazz dance experience is a plus.  Rehearsals will take place in Houghton, NY (Rochester/Buffalo area). Housing and transportation will be provided for NYC-based performers.To be considered for an audition, please send an email with your resume and headshot to info@geneseedance.org. Performers of all ethnicities and body types are encouraged to apply.

Steel Magnolias

Oh, hey blog!
I just wrapped up performances as Shelby Latcherie in Steel Magnolias with The Valley Theatre at David A. Howe Library in Wellsville, NY. There was a lot of hairspray, nail polish and pink eye shadow involved. I feel like Shelby is one of the more challenging roles I've had to tackle and I had a lot of fun being part of such a fun ensemble show. I also loved the great vintage theater space we used! If you live in western NY or the southern tier, keep an eye on the Nancy Howe Auditorium website for information about upcoming free events, movie screenings and performances.

After three almost back-to-back straight plays, I'm refocusing on ballet for Houghton Movement & Arts Center's upcoming mini-production of Swan Lake in May. I also have some exciting news about summer dance projects in the area which I'll write about soon!

In rehearsal with (L-R) Megan Specksgoor, Amanda Cox, Sally Murphy and Debbie Young

Exercise: A Healthier Approach

I've always loved movement. Exercising has never really felt like a chore for me. It's something I enjoy and something I look forward to, particularly when I get into a nice routine, but over the course of my twenty something years I've endured periods of time when my outlook and attitude toward exercise became warped and unhealthy.
For a big stretch of my life--adolescents into early adulthood--I exercised to be skinnier. Burning calories was my primary goal with toned abs coming in at a close second. (I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, ladies.)  I saw any workout that didn't burn hundreds of calories an hour as essentially pointless, particularly since I figured I was already getting all the strength and flexibility training I needed in dance class. I was wrong.
After wading through various body-image issues, eating disorders and compulsive overexercising, I now like to focus my workout energy on getting stronger not smaller. I don't want to take up less space--I want the muscles I have to be as healthy and capable as possible so I can, you know, live my life. Feeling more confident in a tank top isn't a bad side effect either. Primarily, though, I exercise because it makes me happier. It's an act of self-care (and also of family care because no one likes to live with the cranky monster I become when I go too long without moving enough).
I've been teaching a lot of barre fitness classes lately, which I love, along with Pilates and heavier weight lifting on my own. It's sometimes challenging to balance my teaching workouts with my personal ones and I'm now trying to negotiate the line between keeping up with a routine that makes me feel good and the possibility of over training. Part of the "self-care" attitude I've taken regarding exercise means paying attention to the signals my body's giving me. Sometimes this means I skip a workout and take a long bath or trade a planned gym visit for some gentle stretching at home. Other times self-care means fighting my desire to stay inside in my pajamas feeling sad with a short walk around my house. It's a balancing process that I'm still trying to figure out.

In conclusion, exercise. Exercise for the right reasons. Get stronger, feel better. Take care of yourself. The end.

Dance, Mama!

    In every book or movie about ballet, there's a scene in which the uptight-but-lovable ballerina reluctantly attends a modern (or jazz or African or hip-hop) dance class. She's uncomfortable at first, but ultimately lets loose in a montage of flowing hair and slow-motion pirouettes. Rolling around on the floor to the beat of a bongo helps her rediscover her passion for dance and gets her through her existential ballet crisis. Ballerina will then become a modern dancer or join a hip-hop crew or become a principal dancer with Cooper Nielson's new company.

Jody's chronic lip bite finds a home in jazz class.

   Those kinds of scenes always frustrate me because, as a ballet dancer, that first modern or hip-hop class is rarely liberating. It's confusing and frustrating to have to use your muscles in whole new ways, to sift through years of classical training to figure out what you can use to your advantage (alignment, strength) and what you need to throw away (turn out, everything you thought you ever knew about dance) to perform those strange new movements correctly. Rekindling my passion for dance has always been more about the context in which I'm dancing than the style or technique itself. When burn out rears its ugly head it's usually because I haven't been dancing enough in the right place with the right people.
One of the major drawbacks of doing something I love for a living (teaching dance) is that I often start to feel burned out. I've written before about the ways I combat boredom when it comes to teaching the same classes over and over again, but burn out is a slightly different monster. Burn out makes me wonder why anyone wants to take ballet. Burn out makes me doubt my abilities. Burn out makes me want to delete ever Finis Jhung class album from my phone and curl up under the covers.
I know that a big part of it has to do with overwhelming myself with private lessons and classes to the point where I never have time to do much actual dancing myself outside of the classroom. I know intellectually that dancing more (not teaching, just dancing) will make me feel better but I usually end up just wallowing and whining about my burn out until someone snaps me out of it. This morning, that someone was my toddler.
I woke up with plans to tackle the housecleaning I'd neglected during my busy week of teaching. After getting dressed, changing a couple of diapers and feeding that toddler breakfast, I turned on my favorite Tony Bennett album and sat down for a few fortifying sips of coffee before beginning the day's work. My son heard the music and ran over to me with the biggest grin on his face. He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me to my feet saying, "Dancing! Dance, Mama!"
It about melted my heart. I love that he associates my favorite music with dancing and that he associates dance with me. I loved being pulled onto the dance floor, even if the dance floor was my living room and my partner was my 20 month old son.  For the next few minutes we swayed and jumped and stamped to the music holding hands. I didn't think about technique or choreography or how many costumes I still had left to order this season. I just moved to some music with someone I loved.
It was good.

Steps I Can't Teach

I've been doing this dancing thing for a long time. 

A very long time.
Ballet never came naturally to me as a student--I had to work harder than many of my peers to gain the flexibility and strength required of me. For years, I worked against forces in my body I couldn't control, like the arches in my feet (or lack thereof) and the tightness in my back and hip flexors.  That extra work pushed me to really think about the way my muscles had to engage or move in each step and position. Little did I know that the frustrating experience of studying ballet in a non-ballerina's body was preparing me for a career in teaching. 

As a dancer, I have to be able to perform steps correctly. As a teacher, I have to understand the mechanics behind every position, shape and action in ballet. Furthermore, I need to be able to relay that information clearly to my students.

There's a whole separate language of movement, a vernacular specific to ballet, at work in every classroom. When teaching beginners, I'm acting as a translator. For the most part, I think I'm okay at this. Of course I'd like to improve. I'm obsessed with researching new teaching methods and reading about what other respected teachers are doing in their studios but teaching itself has come pretty naturally to me--with a few exceptions. There are a few basic, easy steps I absolutely fail at teaching. 

I really struggle with teaching balancé (a simple waltz step) and petit battements (a small beating movement of the foot). I love both of these steps. I find them fun and straightforward, but frustrating to try to explain. Maybe these movements feel so organic to me, so much a part of my body after so many years, that dissecting them piece-by-piece gets me all garbled and confused, like when you say a word so many times it loses its meaning.

 I demonstrate the step slowly. I have students mimic me as I do it. I look at each moment in the step and probably use some stupid metaphor like, "Swim through the jelly, dancers! Swim through the jelly!" to clarify. The metaphor does not clarify anything. Students look at me like I'm insane. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Am I alone on this? Do any of you teachers out there struggle with teaching certain steps or concepts? 

Busy, Busy January

Hi, Friends and Readers:

January has been a rewarding--and cold--month. I've been working on prioritizing and time management as I gear up for my busiest time of year. So far my efforts have paid off and I'm feeling ready to face the rest of winter!

I've started teaching BarreFIT at my studio and absolutely love it. I became a devotee of barre workouts in NYC since they combine two of my passions--ballet and Pilates! BarreFIT is my own program that seamlessly blends those dance and pilates elements with yoga and cardio. If you live locally, come check out the class on Thursday mornings at 6:30 am. A Monday morning and Friday evening class will begin later next month.

On the dance side of things, I've been busy choreographing dances, ordering ballet costumes and trying to make some tough decisions about the future direction of my business.

My humble studio is undergoing some ceiling renovations this week that I'm excited about. After those structural things done, we'll continue working on the cosmetic improvements we began last spring. I'm not the best interior decorator but it's always fun to give a new look to an old space.

As a performer, I've been busy with rehearsals for another play--this time a dinner theater production of Daddy's Girl with the Short Tract Town Theater (where I did Rogers & Hammerstein's Allegro last summer). It's been fun to play the mean girl.

Onto February!