April 4, 2013

Balancing Ballet, Life and Work

Over at my internship’s homepage we’re currently asking,  “How do personal choices about family and love affect your life/work as an artist?”

While none of us make a living out of being recreational ballet dancers, sometimes life, family, work and more can get in the way of dancing as much as we’d like. It can even affect our performance in our ballet classes (a late Friday night out can kill my Saturday morning ballet class just like a busy day of classes and school work can kill my Thursday night class). I often give up ballet classes to get more work done, go see a performance for an internship, or just because I’m plain old too tired.

Luckily, I have an amazing dance membership that allows me to take as many or few dance classes I want for a month, so I can take some “me” time when I feel like it’s necessary and I don’t have to feel strapped into a schedule. Not only that, it allows me to shift what days I want to do ballet. For instance, my boyfriend and I are participating in an “Urban Scramble” tonight with Philadelphia Runner, where we’ll be running around to different businesses in center city to collect raffle tickets. This makes me really glad I’m not chained to taking classes every Thursday–I can go on Saturday and Monday instead.

I'm super excited for this.

I’m super excited for this.

What I’ve learned recently, as I’ve mentioned, is that balancing things so that I’m happy is key. Just like I don’t want to push myself with running, I don’t want to feel like I HAVE to go to ballet when I’m not feeling 100% or a fun activity comes up. I need to make choices that make me happy. I can both do a fun activity with my boyfriend on Thursday and still fit in time in the ballet studio this week.

How do you balance ballet/dance and the rest of your life?

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March 16, 2013

Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet

midsummer ballet capture

Last Thursday, my boyfriend and I went to go see the Pennsylvania Ballet‘s performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream to review for thINKingDANCE, my internship. I loved it and it made me want to go back to ballet even more (I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to go back Thursday!)

pa ballet tweet

You can read my review here.

What performances have inspired you to dance?

 

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January 23, 2013

Floor Barre (and why can’t I take ballet in a swimming pool?)

dance-academy-heatwave-cart-c19In a post on my old blog (around the time I first injured my ankle/leg), I posted about how I wished I could do ballet in a pool. I’ve always really enjoyed swimming (I was a lifeguard full-time for four summers and part-time for two summers). I first got the idea from an episode of Dance Academy entitled Heatwave where the academy holds their barre class in the pool because it’s too hot and the air conditioning in the studio is broken.

While I have messed around with barre exercises a little in the pool, I don’t really have a place where I can put this into practice as my school only has lap swimming at odd times. So I’ve been looking into floor barre, or doing exercises normally done at the barre while sitting or lying on the floor, as an alternative.

This Dance Advantage article entitled “How Low Can You Go?”  lists several benefits of floor barre, including it being good for injuries, developing strength, and helping to improve with movement execution (including realizing what you might be doing wrong with bad habits).

While there are no floor barre classes in Philadelphia (that I could find) you can find a list of instructors of the method developed by Zena Rommet here. Another book I’ll be looking into checking out at the library is Maria Fay’s Floor Barre.

Would you ever consider doing floor barre or taking a floor barre class?

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January 1, 2013

2013 New Years’ Goals

Arabesque - Image from "Bio of a Dancer"

Arabesque – Image from “Bio of a Dancer” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hate the idea of New Years’ Resolutions and in the past few years I’ve avoided most of them. Instead, I figured I’d make a list of goals I’d like to accomplish in ballet (and for this blog) over the next year.

Perfect my pirouettes.

Complete the 30 Day Stretch Challenge.

Make stretching a part of my daily routine.

Go to the gym at least twice a week.

Get my left split.

Get my right split.

Get my straddle split.

Achieve a decent 90 degree arabesque.

Go to every ballet studio in Philadelphia for adults.

Travel to NYC to take a ballet class.

Build core strength.

Strengthen my feet for pointe.

Take awesome photos of me in my ballet gear.

Create a forum for adult ballerinas.

Create a list of studio reviews for adult ballerinas.

What are your goals for the new year?

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November 26, 2012

What was it like to get your first pair of pointe shoes?

Bloch Signature Rehearsal pointe shoes with a ...

Within the next couple of weeks, I’ll be going to get fitted for my first pair of pointe shoes at a store nearly everyone recommends in Philadelphia, The Rosin Box.

I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified. I’m worried they’re going to tell me I’m not ready. Or none of them will fit me. Or I’ll somehow spectacularly fail at something as simple as a shoe fitting because I’ve never worn pointe shoes before and I’m 21 years old. (Okay, I’m a worrier.)

So I want to know, what was getting your first pair of pointe shoes like? Were you nervous? Anything wish you’d done? I’ll be posting the answers in a separate page for future adult ballerinas to read and get your advice! Make sure you include what your first pointe shoe was!

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