OMG! Home 2 Weeks and No Time to Write!

I have to apologize to any faithful blog readers! I have been back from New York City from two whole weeks, and I have not had a minute to write a blog post. In fact, I should be working on a column for Movmnt magazine or editing for a client right now, but I figured I better right something soon or no one would bother continuing to read this blog!

Re-entry into normal life in California was a bit odd for Julian and I. We really found it quite odd to be back home after seven weeks in the city. That said, life was not normal. My stepson arrived just one and a half days after we got back, and Julian immediately went back to taking evening classes at Teen Dance Company.  Plus, we had to juggle my daughters internship schedule, which took her in the opposite direction to the University of California-Santa Cruz; TDC is in Mountain View in the valley. Between doing things with my stepson and reacclimating to driving every day and every which way, my work began to pile up. It was a bit crazy.

The first full weekend we were home, Julian received a text message from a fellow TDC company member asking if he was auditioning for Mark Froehringer’s Nutcracker in San Francisco. Well…we had thought about doing so, but it wasn’t on my radar…at all. In fact, I haven’t been using my daytimer at all. So, we jumped up and showered and drove like a bat out of hell into San Francisco.

Now, the woman who choreographed the Nutcracker Julian was in last year has already been emailing us as well. She’d like him back, although at 5′7″ or more, I think he’s a bit tall for Fritz. (She says he can do more this year; last year he also did the Russian dance.)

Give me a break, though…summer’s not even over and we are thinking about a performance that happens in December. And for Julian, it’s another hard choice: Dance with friends or dance with a professional company. (He was asked to do some awesome partnering during the audition in San Francisco…) For my husband and I, it’s also a hard choice: an hour and a half drive to San Francisco every Friday and Sunday from mid-September until mid-December. (And I was all excited that my daughter is giving up swimming, which means we finally have Friday’s free, since TDC doesn’t have classes on Friday.)

Anyway…back to NYC. I promised to tell you about the great teachers Julian danced with there, in case you should happen to find yourself at Broadway Dance Center. Some of the ones he liked the best were guest teaches, however. By far, he enjoyed contemporary classes with Slam the most. Slam, otherwise known as Salim Gauwloos brings to his teaching and choreography not only his technical ballet training but also his experience as a dancer with Madonna. Yes, he was a big MTV star and her touring dance partner. Yet, he now choreographs for the likes of ABT and the Orlando Ballet. Julian took three classes with him, and loved his choreography and working with him. It didn’t hurt that Salim noticed him and commented on his technique, even using him to demonstrate in the second and third class. (Sorry…had to brag a bit.)

Staying in the contemporary vein, he really enjoyed a class with James Tabeek, who was in the 1st national tour of the Broadway show Wicked,  and appeared on Broadway in Taboo and Beauty and the Beast.

Julian took two jazz classes with BDC favorite and staple Sheila Barker. He adored her class and her. She came out and gave me a hug and a kiss just for being Julian’s mother! (By the way…I got a hug and a kiss from Slam as well, which I think I enjoyed more.) He worked super hard in her class and she corrected him a lot. I highly recommend her class to anyone wanting to take jazz. (By the way, I think I mentinoed that Julian took two Broadway jazz classes at Alvin Ailey with Sue Samuels, mother of tapper Jason Samuels Smith. They were fabulous as well, and I highly recommend her and a trip to Alvin Ailey if you can make it. However, she teaches beginner classes at BDC.)

On to hip hop, which Julian had the most fun taking at BDC. He tried several class, always looking for “old-school” hip hop rather than “MTV” hip hop. He loved classes with Bam and Leslie Feliciano and Kelly Peters. He also enjoyed one with Luam, although that wasn’t as old school as he enjoys. These classes were all packed…I mean packed. Luam’s class had 72 people in the studio at one time. (Again, he was sorry not to take Jared Grimes class, but he was away.)

I’ve already covered tap; check older posts for information on that. Julian really didn’t do any tap the last week — and no ballet. He had done those two art forms for six weeks. He stuck with contemporary, jazz and hip hop that final week in New York.  And he had a blast and got great feed back from almost all the teachers at BDC. He kept up in even the most advanced classes, and his newly-improved technique was noticed. So, overall, a success all the way around.

Plus, he returned home without injury. The heel issue healed up and never  came back.  He never had another bout of dehydration. Success.

This week he completed six hours of dance per day again. TDC had its annual summer dance intensive. He also took a master class at a local studio taught by Sonya Tayeh of So You Think You Can Dance fame. We had met her in New York City. He had his picture taken with her, and it’s now his Facebook profile photo. How cute is that?

The TDC intensive culminated on Friday with auditions for the company. Unfortunately, a few of last year’s members didn’t return, but we have some great new dancers who auditioned and made it into the company. The company is still a bit small, but we hope to gain a few more in the next few weeks or in December. (If you know any teens in the Bay Area – CA looking for a great studio that focuses on dance as an art form and on contemporary, modern and classical ballet, please send them to TDC for an audition. They can still join the company, although they might not be in all the peformance pieces this fall.) The kids also study tap, pilates and a little jazz and hip hop.

Julian is in the company again, and he made it into the first three pieces of choreography, so he is very happy. He will miss a few of his friends who didn’t return this year, but he actually has a few friends joining him from other studios that he knows. So, I hope it will be a great year for him.

Today he’s in the studio all day learning choreography fo ra modern piece. Tomorrow the same. This week, he will miss most of the tap festival in San Francisco to attend choreography sessions at TDC instead, but we might get a few classes in if he’s lucky. It had been our plan to attend most of the week.

Oh, and I’m waiting for MRI results on my twisted knee from that first weekend in NYC. So, think some positive thougths for me!

Okay…that gets you up to date. Off to a running start. I never even got a chance to catch my breath.

Next, a post not from me but form someone from Julians distant past…and then one from Denise Wall!

All Quiet on the Dance Front Until After After We Ring in the New Year

Things are pretty quiet here other than pushing Julian to study for midterms, taking him to tutoring, handling an ear problem and a weird foot rash problem he had, and getting ready for my mother-in-law and stepson to arrive tonight. of course, we just finished celebrating Chanukah and put the decorations away.

He did go with a friend to see the Ballet San Jose Nutcracker last weekend. He went back stage and saw not only a few of the students he knew from attending class there for three years but also some of the professional company members who he knews and with whom he has performed or taken class. Of course, Lise LaCour, the ballet mistress and school director asked him to come back. They seem to have a large numbe of boys there now. I guess they did some recruiting and supposedly have 20 or 30 young men, but I’d have to see that with my own eyes to believe it. While Julian was there (just last year) they had only three.

On January 2nd, Teen Dance Company will perform a hip hop number as part of the halftime show for the Stanford University basketball game. That should be fun, although Julian says the number isn’t totally finished. I guess we’ll see. He’s got one tap rehearsal this coming Saturday as well. Other than that, we are waiting for things to gear up in January.

The last weekend in January heralds TDC’s Second Stage show, which is helpd at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are available on line. (Go to www.teendancecompany.org for more information.) So, January means lots of rehearsals as they company prepares for the first of it’s two big shows. Also, Mandy Moore will be in town several times, as well a few other choreographers. 

We better enjoy the time off while we can, especially since Julian will have to squeeze dance in with his midterm studying schedule those first two weeks.

That mysterious commentor on my Billy Elliot post never did elaborate on how he/she knew which Billy was or wasn’t leaving the show. It would be nice to have some more information on what goes on with those little male dancers…I guess we’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else.

If any of your son’s received holiday money, they might want to think about buying a My Brother Can Dance T-shirt before prices go up. So far, “This is my playing field” seems to be the favorite, although personally I love “Real men lift.” Check them out at  www.purespiritcreations.com/My-Brother-Can-Dance-Boys’-and-Mens’-Dance-Related-T-Shirts-and-Dance-Wear.html .

Have a very happy New Year!

Looking Forward to Nutcracker 2009 as the Curtain Comes down on the 2008 Production

The Nutcracker production put on by San Jose Dance Theater, which featured my son, Julian, as both Fritz and one of the two Russian dancers, has closed its curtains until next year. Yes, while others gear up, we’ve cleared the stage for the next production, put on by Ballet San Jose’s professional company (sorry friends, Julian won’t be in that one this year…) at the same venue, The Center for Performing Arts in downtown San Jose. That said, SJDT’s Nutcracker was a resounding success, and, given that it’s the first time I’ve seen it, I was totally impressed. Really!

This production features mostly local youth dancers and four professionals: Sarah Spradlin-Bonomo and Chris Bonomo, a husband-and-wife team that do amazing lifts and partnering; Maximo Roman Califano, a Ballet San Jose company member;  and Liesl Coffin, a teacher at Los Gatos Ballet. Marcie Ryken, the production’s artistic director, runs Los Gatos Ballet. It also had a few adults as the parents in the party scene and such. By the way, the father of one of the dancer’s played Drosselmeyer, and he was, by far, the best Drosselmeyer I’ve ever seen! In any case, the sets were beautiful and totally professional. The costumes were fabulous,  and the dancing impeccable and as professional as humanly possible with children aged 5-18. (They call the kids they put together for the SJDT Nutcracker a pre-professional company…)

Of particular note, a girl we know played the lead in the Arabian dance  on the night we watched and partnered with Califano. I was so very impressed with her ability to partner with him, which must have been a bit intimidating as well as exciting. (As a mother, I was watching her in that skimpy outfit with his hands on her body…but that’s a fact of a female dancer’s life. I just wondered if she felt uncomfortable…) She did as well as any professional dancer. Of course, if your going to partner and leap into a dancer’s arms, you want to do it with a professional your first time. Then you can be confident of being caught and having your turns go well.

As for Julian, he looked great! He managed to land his flip in the Russian dance every time but one out of five performances. And he did land it that last matinee on Sunday, but ended up with his hands on the ground briefly. Chalk it up to being tired. All his other turns and leaps looked great, and he had a super time. He did a superb acting job during the party scene, although I told him he really didn’t have to act at all – he just had to be himself: a pain in the ass. He was very funny being a holy terror and annoying everyone in sight as Fritz.

He said he enjoyed it enough – and made some good friends (and the girls, of course, loved him) – to give up all his weekends between September and December  next year again.

Anyway, Julian had a great time in the Nutcracker. His dancing improved by working with Marcie, and he plans to try and take her Wednesday afternoon ballet class so he can keep on benefiting from having her as a teacher. He learned a few new skills, like that flip. He also learned to partner, after asking Chris Bonomo to teach him how. (As I said, Chris is an awsome partner. His wife has to be thrilled each time she does a turn or is lifted. He lifts her like she weighs nothing at all. And he was more than happy to offer a few lessons to my son.)

Additionally, Julian also learned how he does not ever want to act to younger dancers after one professional dancer treated him with disdain. 

He also made a ton of new friends (girls and boys) and left a few hearts broken. His phone now buzzes with text messages even more frequently than before. I see him being tagged in photo after photo on FaceBook, and he’s always the one boy among about six or seven girls in tutus.

Overall, therefore, I’d say the Nutcracker 2008 was a success all the way around – at least for Julian. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

(Also, given that we had a boy, we really weren’t asked to do much work either! A few hours of Ron being a security guard and that was it! That’s a benefit to having a boy who dances!)

One last note: I did ask Julian after the Friday night performance if he would consider giving the other boys a scoop and swoop lesson, which they really could have used. However, he flatly refused to do so. “Mom, do you really want them to think I’m looking there? Am I supposed to say to them, ‘Hey, I was looking at your crotch (he used other words) and noticed that you don’t have them packaged up correctly. Here let me show you how to do it?’ I don’t think so!’” I guess that just wouldn’t be okay. Ah…if only they had had a great teacher to offer them the manly secrets of how to use a dance belt… I guess the boys just won’t teach each other.

We’re Cracking Nuts to Get Ready for the Nutcracker…and to Produce T-Shirts for Holiday Gifts!

OMG! Julian’s Nutcracker performances are this weekend already. When he performed with Ballet San Jose, the performances were the week before Christmas (Or was it for two full weeks?), but we came back from Thanksgiving in NY to a crazy tech week schedule. Thank goodness I’ve completed my 30-day writing blog. And we don’t even just have his performances to worry about. I’ve got a friend in town – coming a day earlier than expected – to teach some Kabbalistic drumming classes I organized for him. So, I’m on duty for that most of the weekend. (I see the Nutcracker Friday night.) My daughter is in the Christmas parade with her synchronized swimming team on Saturday. My hubby is doing security for the Nutcracker on Saturday morning. I think we’ll sleep well on Sunday night.

Now, the biggest thing for Julian seems to be whether or not his new boots will work for the Russian dance. He forgot to try them out at rehearsal yesterday. (I’m so glad I stressed about getting them here on time for tech week…) They aren’t ballet shoes but actually jazz shoes on the bottom. After that, he only needs to worry about landing on his feet for the flip he does during that dance. He actually runs up and puts one foot in the hands of the other boy and gets thrust into the air, where he does a flip. Imagine someone who runs up a wall and flips over and lands on his feet. It’s much like that. He’s landed badly a few times, but never on his head.  A few times he’s touched the floor with his hands. Now he has to do it in these boots that will feel totally different on his feet. I hope they will help. Then, of course, there are the other jumps, leaps, turns, and regular old ballet moves he has to do in these non-ballet shoes.

As for the T-shirts I promised you for Christmas…I haven’t forgotten. We ran into a few hitches. The artwork is ready to go to the printer now, and we will see if we can get them produced quickly enough to allow for arrival in time for the holidays. We will price to accommodate priority shipping, I promise.

I am proud to say that my talented daughter, Ariel, was able to design three shirts based on sayings that I came up with! This is the beginning of “My Brother Can Dance Designs©” by Ariel Amir Lacey. I’ll tell you the sayings, and you can ponder the pictures… “Real men lift,” “This is my playing field,” and “The beats go on.” If we get enough T-shirt orders, she will transfer the designs to sweatshirts and sweat pants as well.

That’s it for today…Hopefully, I’ll have artwork to show you in a few days – by next week at the latest, and I’m assured that the shirts can be printed in just days if necessary. So, keep your fingers crossed!