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To whom ever reads my blog:
I probably wont be blogging much anymore. i figure its best to just live my life because it has become more of a task to write my posts. i'm pretty sure audrey and mia are the only ones that read it, and they already know most of the stuff anyway.
If you have been following, thank you!
See you later guys.
-Lilia Deering <3

Sleepy Saturday

ballet started out really good today but by center i was just exhausted for no reason and couldn't focus. i left ballet like 10 minutes early (you can do that in open ballet). I decided i needed to sleep so i went in the back room and crashed for about half an hour. I got up and went to afro Brazilian after that. that Leo dude thats in my ballet class to it and he was ok. its gotta be hard if thats the first time you've ever tried anything like it. Anyway, AB was sooooo fun and i was really energized by the end which was good!

Last Show and a DB meeting

After ballet today the academy was scheduled to have a meeting with Artistic Director Donald Byrd. Kinda scary but i was anticipating it the whole class. In the meeting, we talked about how the year was going, DB told us what he rest of the year would be like, and we discussed how to improve the academy program (like adding dance history!!!). Afterwards, i changed into my black clothes and helped work the show. i thought i was supposed to do lighting today but it turns out that Kate wanted seneca to do it. :'( I swept the floor and set up chairs etc. and had a lot of fun anyway.

Thursday: Eva

Advanced contemporary today. I had to leave early, but we finished our dance for alice! yay! its really pretty good. im excited. not much to tell i guess since i had to skip choreo for my orchestra concert. couldn't find my choreo notebook anyway.

Amber!

Wednesday:

So today i had ballet which was good. it was a 5/6 class so it was on the easier side. about a week ago i was messing around with some echappes and i did this thing where i go to fifth on one side, then turn 180 degrees and go straight to second on the other side. my teacher saw, and now she uses it in a combo called the "Lilia."

That new guy in our class named Lio is really starting to improve! I hope he gets good enough to be in 5 next year. tha might not happen tho...

After ballet i went with audrey and sydney to starbucks and they got some coffee. when we got back to the studio, i noticed that i hadn't seen vincent around anywhere and he was supposed to be teaching the DB contemporary class! ahhh! i thought i was his last class this week! unfortunately he didn't show, but the good thing is, we had Amber instead.

Amber is another member of the company and shes a really good teacher. in her class we did a lot of the same combos (it was only me and mitch today >.<) but we went across the floor instead of doing choreography. What i like most about her class is that she connects a lot of the work to ballet stuff, she talks more about the DB style and how he likes to work, and she really personalizes her comments so that they are more useful.

After class she asked me how old i was and she thought i was 17ish. i get that A LOT!

Poopy Pirouettes and Buttinsky Buses.

Monday:
The bus that i usually ride got to my stop super late today so i had to sit in the cold for ages! when it finally did come, both seneca and paige were on it (usually its just paige). We rode the bus together for a couple of blocks but then, since there was another bus of the same route behind us, the bus driver made everyone get off since he was late and needed to turn around. We all got on the second bus which was fine except that when we were about a block away from our stop, Seneca realized that she had left her bike on the front of the first bus. She talked to the bus driver about it while paige and i walked from the bus to class. Seneca never showed up...
Barre was fine, but in center i just couldn't turn. i dont know why but i just sucked at it!!!!!!! it made me sad.

p.s. mitch didnt come to class so i got to stand in my own spot at the barre! yeeeeeeees.

Marco and Afro

Marco's class (12:00 open ballet) today was actually not too bad. it still wasn't my favorite, but i actually had an ok time. Vincent said i should drink more water if i want to keep my flexibility so i drank my whole water bottle during that class. It doesn't seem to be working. I was the only one doing barre in my socks which i though was crazy because they just make it so much easier to pointe you feet! and hey, if you dont have to wear shoes, the why would you?
After ballet i waited around for a while with michelle (see previous post)
We then took afro Brazilian which was soooooo tiring but super super fun! i'd taken that class once before and i've done quite a bit of afro-Brazilian so i kinda knew what to expect.
It was very nice to go home, take a shower, and sleep.

Since When Did We Have Our Own Board???

Between classes on saturday, michelle and i were exploring the back room (like a lounge thing for academy, company, and staff) because there was like no one there. as we were looking around, we discovered that here is a bulletin/white board labeled "academy." There were like 2 little cards on it and there was tape stuck to the white board so michelle and i decided to fix it up. we found some multicolored pens and i wrote a little note on it and drew some hearts and flowers. I'm going to start bringing in flyers and stuff to post on it. But how fun! the back room has so much random interesting stuff!

BEAST!

so after ballet today, i went with amadea to grab some starbucks and then went back to the studio. I was working at the beast so when classes got out at 6:30, we invaded the studios to start setting up. Mitch wasn't there so i was doing most of the setting up with jovian which was waaaaaay better! this time i did cutains, swept, and set out chairs. It was pretty similar to last time but way more chill. During the show i was in charge of changing microphone volume to ensure that they didnt squeak in the middle of the show and that they were quiet when the musicians werent playing. After the show i got to go on stage with jovian to set up chains for the Q & A which felt kinda weird... the q and a was interesting but with that and all of the after-show cleaning and packing, i ended up staying SUPER late! thats ok. it was all super fun.
Omg im actually soooo scared to do the lighting next weekend! ive never done it before and its much more important than any of my other jobs! wish my luck! ill need it.

Falling and Friends

Today in contemporary, we started our piece for the show in december (its aline in wonderland this year). Its for the scene where alice falls down the hole and its just called "falling." We finished about 2 minutes of it an its pretty cool. One of my best friends, Mia, who's 11 is in that class and since shes the smallest, we do a lot of lifting of her.
In contemporary, we discussed the beast for a bit, then team 1 learned about Trust and Sensitivity and Body Parts. The second years got about 45 minuted to choreograph a solo based on their best friend. they all did very well and all their pieces were super interesting.

An Awkward Starbucks run

Had ballet class... it was fine. pretty normal. ms. erricka doesn't really get super creative with her combos so we have a pretty standard bar. honestly, it get kinda boring after a while and all the days kinda blend together. Anyway, after class audrey c, mia, and i went to Starbucks while we waited for our other classes to start. We are about to order our drinks when we see vincent and amber from the company walking across the street. They walked into Starbucks and it was the most awk thing ever! On the way back, I look back and realize they are following us because they are going back to the studio too. Then, to make stuff even more awkward, i saw one of my friends from school, who is apparently helping out with the Ballet III/VI class and she doesn't even take ballet anymore! She took it when she was 10 then stopped! How come she gets that job?
In contemporary, we got to use music that was used for a past company show which was kinda cool. We started to work on a new combo which was cool because vincent used my hyper-extended arms as a part of the choreo!!! That class is always so fun and it makes me sad that we only have one more week with vincent before he leaves town for a while. :'(

Mitch...

He took my spot at the barre AGAIN! when i got to the studio at 3:00, i draped my theraband on the barre clearly marking it as my territory. When i get out of the dressing room, i see that he is standing in my spot and im like "dude what the fuck get out of my spot!" and hes goes "oh yeah well by coffee mug was NEAR this barre first." I let'm have it, but i think he knows i'm not messing around. I told him that if he is going to reserve that barre, he needs to put something ON the barre, not NEAR it. He agrees but, because he takes morning class at 9:00, he has a huge advantage on me. I just have to hope that he forgets. Cross you fingers my lovely followers!

One more thing that was really bugging me about him today: He has some weird injury that prevents him from pointing his foot. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU TAKE CLASS AND JUST FLEX YOUR FEET FOR EVERYTHING? if you cant point you feet, dont take class. end of story. eventually he started to mark his arms as wel which really pissed me off. im really surprised our teacher didnt say anything about it cuz shes kinda strict and old-school ya know?

He left after barre. He didnt thank the pianist or the teacher. he just left. HOW RUDE!

Can i kill him?

So THIS Is What It Was Meant To Look Like!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnkoVDsihH0&feature=player_embedded

I was just looking at my feed and realized that we did this variation in class! it was fun. we didn’t get to do the whole thing tho. It was just what we used for like grand allegro. <3

Watch This. Its Cool. And I Just Realized I Know The Choreographer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHkcRmYCh2s&feature=player_embedded

Mmmmm

Alonso King Lines Ballet by Andy Phillipson

OMG i’m going to get to see alonso king this year!

Lyrics

Another question to ponder: What is your opinion of using music with lyrics in a contemporary or ballet piece? I what to know what you guys think!

The Meaning of Dance

What is you opinion about dance having a meaning? do you think it always has to convey a message or have a story to tell? Can it just be a string of beautiful movements that flow together to create a work of art? Come to think of it, this question can also be aplied to painting or any other art form. I have conflicting feelings about this and i would love to hear your thoughts!

Pointe? I think not.

Tried to do pointe today. couldn’t get through plies. FML.

The Beast Unleashed

starting at about 5:30 after my ballet class was over, i began helping set up for the beast. I started with decorating the walls with ribbon, then i spent about a million years with mitch trying to hang the curtains in the lower studio. It took sooooo long! the cool thing was, that was also where the company was warming up so i got to watch the being all flexible and stuff. After that, i had to run up and down the stairs a ton of times because i was putting programs on all the chairs. the problem was, all the programs were still being printed so i has to take multiple trips up the stairs.

The show was pretty good. i had my own little seat right in front of all the tech stuff so i had a pretty good view. I liked the show, but i didn’t think it was AMAZING or anything. Because the piece was about domestic violence, a very serious issue, a huge amount of emotion was demanded from the dancers. i thought they did a great job with this and the dancing. The part i didn’t like was just the choreography in general. I dont know if it was because i hadseen it so many times in rehearsal so the shock value was gone or what. i usually like the DB style but this show didn’t quite do it for me. that isn’t to say that it wasn’t a good show and that you shouldn’t go. i still enjoyed it. it just wasn’t exactly what i expected.