So I went to my ballroom competition I told everyone about and my rankings went up!!! It has taken some getting use to, but this “ballroom way” of competing is actually quite interesting. If jazz, ballet, etc. competitions could somehow integrate this way of scaling, it might make things a bit more interesting. So every ballroom dancer when entering any competition has to enter with their NDCA number (national dance council of America)…you must register yearly for this membership. Every time this number is entered into competition, you can actually log-in online and see where that dancer has been and how they scored at the competition with heir different partners, different dances, etc. it is very interesting. Every ballroom competition is run under one main organization and follow the same set of rules and require each participant to be a member o the NDCA. Each competition has a different organizer who puts the event together but there are never any competing competitions in the same area on the same weekend, so the same people compete each other constantly to get ahead in their ranking. Anyways, I thought I’d share this new way of thinking with some of you to see what you thought…let me know.

Briana Haft

Hello!

My name is Rachel Ross. I am a professional makeup artist and hairstylist from Hollywood, Ca. I have worked on many television shows, including “So You Think You Can Dance”. I an currently working on the daytime drama “The Young and The Restless”

I was a dancer growing up, and am now on staff with Showstopper American Dance Championships. I tour with their competitions, and conventions to share my knowledge with students and dance moms all over the country.

I have created a perfect makeup kit for competition dancers that I sell on my website, www.rachelrossmakeup.com. It contains 3 eyeshadows,false lashes,red lip liner, red lip gloss, and a white highlighting pencil.

I will be blogging about everything related to beauty. On and off the stage.

Hi everyone…have had some busy weeks lately, sorry you haven’t seen anything from me…but some cool things have happened and wanted to update you all. Just this last weekend, I had competition again in Woodland Hills. Mary Murphy, from SYTYCD took over ownership of the competition this last year and it was her first time putting it on. The event was called “Hollywood Classic”…it was a ballroom competition. I was extremely impressed with how well it was put together…the theme when you walked in was all Hollywood glamour…disco balls and boas on the tables, red tablecloths and chairs, red carpet when you enter, a huge academy award background, Oscar statues around the room, cut-outs of hollywood superstars…it was very nicely done. Due to it’s first year there were not as many entrants as a normal competition, but I think that will change next year. My partner was pretty nervous this time performing again, since we have not competed in about a month. I think he did okay considering, but still a lot of hard work ahead of us !!! That night after we competed we stayed to watch a wonderful showdance couple, world champions of the world perform 3 different cabaret (theater arts…kind of like pas de deux…all lifts) routines by Victor Da Silva & Hanna Kartunin…amazing!!!! At this time Mary gave Nigel Lithgoe a lifetime achievement award for all of his work on the dance industry, as he has opened so many doors and accomplished so much since he has been in America. Overall it was a great weekend, and now back to work since I will be going to competition in another two weeks and then my Christmas showcase with my professional partner December 5th. Have a great Monday…

Briana

So instead of watching a performance and giving you feedback I’m going to read the review first and then see the show on Saturday. Here’s a link to the review in the NY Times.

From reading this review her work sounds very interesting. I’m anxious to see what she means by “pop-ness” because we all know that LA dance has the stigma of being very commercial and “pop” music oriented even though there are many modern and contemporary choreographers and dancers trying to make it out there. I hope that Ms. Armitage can express what contemporary dance mixed with commerical or pop music would be like. I’ve always struggled with that fusion – well not struggled, but have always TRIED to fuse the two together since those are the best of both worlds for me. I’m excited to see the performance this Saturday, however, I may now be partial because of that awesome picture of the woman tilting. Such beauty! Just incase you missed it here it is again:

A scene from her “Itutu,” with Luke Manley and Kristina Bethel-Blunt. The African ballet is coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Here’s a link to their website and to view some videos of Ms. Armitage’s work:

I don’t want to watch too much of her work just yet so I don’t get too biased before seeing her work so let me know what you think! Thanks for reading and I will keep you updated after I see the performance

Last week was very bizarre for me. It felt like about a months worth of things happened in the span of 7 days. To begin with, on Sunday I flew down to Tampa to perform in another gig organized by Daniel Ulbricht. I danced Agon and Nutcracker pas de deux. It was a rather hectic day because I had rehearsal with the company until 7 pm the night before so I couldn’t fly out until the morning of the show. I got up bright and early at 5:30 (actually it was still dark) and flew south, when we arrived we marked through our spacing and immediately got our make-up and costumes on and performed at 3 pm. I honestly don’t know how we all did it, but I guess after performing professionally one learns how to prepare for such things, even in a crunch. What made it more stressful for me was that my original partner sliced his thumb badly 2 days beforehand and was unable to partner so we had to find a replacement last minute. Considering all of the obstacles I think that it was a very nice performance and it is always fulfilling to go to smaller towns and meet the local ballet students and bring them ballets they may never see unless they travel to large cities when ballet companies happen to be performing.
I returned home after less than 24 hour in the Sunshine State in order to make it back in time for my college classes on Monday nights. When Tuesday rolled around I was exhausted considering I didn’t really have any time to rest over the weekend. I had a rather busy day ahead of me as I was called for 3 hours of rehearsal for the new Peter Martin’s ballet that will premiere at NYCB’s gala in less than a month. I was a little confused when I saw the schedule because I remembered hearing that it was his intention to create a ballet with all principal dancers, but there were 4 soloists called to this rehearsal. I figured that he had changed his mind and wanted a larger cast so had decided to expand into the lower ranks. When Peter walked into the room Tuesday afternoon the pianist immediately began playing “Happy Birthday” and all of us quickly realized it was his birthday.  He got started on our movement without any particularly special introduction or explanations. Then about half way into the rehearsal he was refining a step and  was wondering if we could make a single turn into a double turn and specifically said: “Well if you were a principal you should be able to do a double.” He then proceeded to tell the 4 soloist in the room that we had all been promoted! Without much time to absorb this huge news we had to pull ourselves together and continue on with the new choreography. It was not the most glamourous way for a promotion to happen, but none the less it is a huge deal for any dancer. It has been a dream of mine, and I am sure of thousands of other ballet dancers around the world to reach the top echelon of a dance company.  It honestly has not sunk in in the week since this happened. I have been in the company for 9 years (the anniversary of my first day is Halloween) and promotion to principal is something that usually happens a little faster than that at NYCB.  I was perfectly happy to finish my career as a soloist and I’m not sure how many things will be different with my new rank, I guess only time will tell.  But for now I am extremely excited for the future and hoping that I can live up to my new title.

Yesterday was my first experience of Halloween in NYC. It was such a trip! There is an annual Halloween parade every year in the village and unfortunately I didn’t attend, but walking around in my neighborhood is more than enough parading of costumes for me! There were massive amounts of people dressed up in very creative costumes and it was also raining! Not very hard, but it did get a little too wet at times. Here’s a link to read more info about the parade:

http://manhattan.about.com/od/eventsandattractions/a/halloweenparade_2.htm

And here are some pictures of last year’s parade:

http://manhattan.about.com/od/eventsandattractions/ig/2008-Village-Halloween-Parade-/

It’s quite exciting! It’s also very crowded so it was a very interesting and fun experience all at the same time. The only bummer of the night was when I left my purple sunglasses in the cab ride home . Good thing they were only $8, but still, they were purple. Many of you who read my blogs know that is my favorite color. Here’s a picture of me and Wen-Jen, one of my other MFA Tisch classmates (and yes that’s a purple wig…living close to St. Marks has it’s perks!):

Earlier that day we went and saw, “This is It”, and of course I enjoyed it because I am a MJ fan. It might not be the greatest artistic film in the world, but as a dancer who grew up aspiring to one day dance for Michael, I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. It was such an honor to see the creative process that went into that concert. I actually wish that I could see more footage because I can only imagine how much work goes into making a production that large.  Anyway, I’m not a movie reviewer like my fiancé, but I am a fan so if you are too then I would recommend seeing it. If you’re not then…don’t bother.

So Halloween in New York City…it was definitely unlike one I’ve ever had in California! Hope everyone had a safe and fun one this year!

I saw another show today – the Companhia de Danca Deborah Colker under the direction of Deborah Colker at the New York City Center. I enjoyed the show, but this reviewer thought a little differently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/arts/dance/24colker.html

However, you can read the description of the show. Deborah Colker uses a lot of props and, personally, I enjoyed it because of how she used the props. As I said in my previous blog I’m a huge fan of dancers with great athleticism and physicality. This show definitely required a lot of strength and control to make it look so easy. Here’s their promo video where you can see some of her previous works and a snippet of the work I saw today (with the vases):

http://www.nycitycenter.org/content/misc/dc10.aspx

I am truly inspired by these amazing choreographers and dancers that I’ve been seeing and am only reminded of exactly why I chose to leave my comfort zone and come out here to dance. The question is if I will be able to pull it off, but I can only die trying!

This next week we get a new technique teacher for our ballet and modern classes so it’s kind of like a new semester or quarter. It will be interesting learning a different style and teaching pedagogy that we’ve been getting for the past 7 weeks. I will keep you all updated.

Thanks for reading my short blog and check out the Companhia de Danca Deborah Colker.

So as you can read in the title if you don’t know who Cedarlake Contemporary Ballet are then look them up! I saw their show tonight and it was absolutely amazing. It was called, “Orbo Novo” choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Here is the link to see the promo video (copy and paste the link so you can watch it now and know what I’m talking about):

http://www.cedarlakedance.com/index.php?id=10

As you can see in the video the dancers are so very talented, athletic, and amazing. All of their movement was so fluid and seamless, yet very physical and demanding. I got to sit pretty close to the stage so I could see exactly how much energy and strength all the movement required and to see it executed so fluidly almost brought me to tears because it was done so amazingly. I so appreciated how talented the dancers are. I am a big fan of dancers who are very strong not only technically, but physically as well. The way they danced was everything I believe in with my own personal movement. It was physical, demanding, yet fluid and seamless.

Here is a link to their review in the New York Times. The reviewer, Gia Kourlas, can describe the show much better than I can:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/arts/dance/22cedar.html

Like the writer described the show they climbed on the “cages” that were moveable and poked through and hung from them. They also made it look very easy, which we all know takes a lot of strength and control. I also really admired the costume design. I agree with the writer that the clothing looked “strangely dated”, yet it also had a retro feel as well. Usually I don’t enjoy lavish and overly embellished costumes in a dance performance (not saying that theirs was), but I really enjoyed the costume design in this show. The designer utilized long skirts for the women in which they changed in and out of so that they didn’t dance in them the entire time. They would have pants that had matching material as their skirts.

The movement they happen to do in the show involving “falls and recovery” is a lot like what I’m choreographing in my solo currently. The choreographer also had them do a lot of floor work, which really inspired me as well, because the whole beginning of my solo takes place on the floor and I transition myself to standing. I’ve been having a difficult time working through that transition, but I am rehearsing again tomorrow and will use my new inspiration to help me.

On another note, I found a composer to work with! It’s another NYU student who is a part of the Steinhardt School of Music. His name is Elias and he and I got to meet for the first time today. He had a piece of music already for me to listen to because I had emailed him a video of my working choreography (with no sound) so that he could see what would inspire him. He had a piece of music he had done from a fashion show so we listened to it and discussed what sounds could be added, taken out, etc. It was a great experience being able to have some collaboration with a composer. I’ve never done that before so this is a great learning experience for me. Elias is also interested in collaborating on a project where the choreography literally inspires the sound. He has a program on the computer where it takes in live video feed of the dancers and when the dancers move through space the music will reflect in a certain way. It’s a little difficult to explain, but I am so excited for this collaboration! I will keep you all updated.

So check out Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and thanks for reading!

The title of this blog is the last line from one of my favorite childhood books: The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. For some reason I always say it to myself when I return home after a long or hard time away. We just got back from our tour to Tokyo last Tuesday and while it was a very challenging, fulfilling and interesting tour I think everyone was happy to get back to New York. I really enjoy Tokyo but there are so many little things that are just so fundamentally different there that make it hard for me. Silly things like the fact that everyone walks on the left side of staircases or sidewalks (it took me a few days to figure out why I kept running into so many people) and also the Japanese were constantly bowing to us and while I appreciate their respect I couldn’t help feeling a little awkward. I think that if I took the time to research their culture more I would grow to love the country but I didn’t have time to do that for our 8 day trip. All that being said I did manage to have a good time despite the unfamiliarity of everything. My favorite part of each day was actually dinner because I love Japanese food and wanted to soak up as much of the real stuff as I could. My favorite places ended up being the cheapest meals: ramen, there is just nothing as comforting as a big bowl of soup. I also had some excellent sushi, although the miso soup I ordered one night came with a fish eyeball in it (I still had it and it was delicious!). I am also happy to report that all of the performances went very well. This was the company’s 4th trip to Tokyo and I image that we will be returning again. The audiences in Tokyo were very polite, you would have almost thought that they weren’t enjoying the show because for the first 2 ballets of an evening they would only clap quietly for a relatively short amount of time. However, after the last ballet each night they would show their approval demanding 4 or 5 curtain calls every night. There are also some very devout fans coming to the stage door multiple days in a row to get autographs and take pictures. I even received a gift from a fan or a porcelain crab (in lieu of flowers since they are not lasting) as a memento of the trip. There were even a few people that came to see our buses off at 7:15 in the morning our last day there!
I am still trying to fight jet lag 6 days after returning home, it is amazing how quickly your schedule can be turn upside down. We start rehearsals for our winter season on Wednesday so I am trying to squeeze in as much rest and relaxation before that begins.

You know how I know it is almost winter…I am sick!!! hahaha…the only time I ever get sick is when kids go back to school and fester between each other…get each other suck, and then bring it into the dance studio to get the dance teachers sick. This is why I have been silent the last few days, I have just been trying to get over this thing, and I think I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the midst of all of this, I have been rehearsing for an upcoming Christmas Showcase I am putting on at my ballroom studio this December. I will be dancing with my professional partner, Martin Tomaszewski, and also with some of my students. Overall I believe I have about 8 routines to learn…don’t know why I do this to myself, but it is my business so I guess it’s my job. Now I’m in the process of doing the fun part and finding costumes for all of these dances haha, which can get costly so I have to be creative. At the end of the night, I’ve invited a Professional Latin couple, husband and wife, to come and perform a few dances for us, which I am very excited about. They are ranked in the top 8 of the world right now in their Latin division, so I cannot wait.

With Halloween coming up I am also throwing a costume party at the studio for everyone to come to with a live DJ, food, and drinks. We’ve had it in the past, and it has always been a blast. I’m thinking of doing a tribute to Michael Jackson and teaching the group who comes how to do a small section from “Thriller”…can you imagine a bunch of older Asians dancing to “Thriller” in Halloween costumes and ballroom heels…..OOOOOHHHH my I cannot wait! I will videotape it and post it on here for you to see if they actually agree to it…it’s going to be hilarious, so stay tuned. Hope you’re all well and staying healthy!

Briana