Welcome back to At the Barre... with Isha! a dancer's blog

The Sacramento Ballet Dancers 2010-2011

 

 

Coming to you from inside the Sacramento Ballet studios on this sunny and positive Monday afternoon, I am happy to say the dancers here have made it through two weeks of Nutcracker rehearsals! Woot! Beginning our third week of intense rehearsals, I personally see how much more graceful, dynamic, and smooth all the dancers’ movements have become. The choreography is settling in as muscle memory (hopefully!) and we can begin to work on our performance quality, attitude and character. Though, we still have much to learn in terms of piecing the whole shebang of “the Nutcracker” together. 

Throughout the weeks of rehearsals, we first learn and rehearse the actual dances for each divertissement such as Spanish, Arabian, Trepak, Chinese, and Candy Cane; we then learn a mini version of each divert in the finale’ as an overview of what was shown in Act II; and finally we move on to the entrances, exits, Opening and Finale’ group sections, Prologue and other acting moments to round off each piece. For example, some dancers learned how to “drink the coffee and admire the ring” at the end of Arabian, or some men learned how to ride or steer the dragon for the beginning of Chinese. While, Candy Cane women and men are working with the hula-hoop from day one, and Spanish women get used to flipping open and closed the overly large performance fan from day one. NOTE: it seems All the fans, big or normal sized, are broken in some way. Our Spanish ladies are quite serious about hitting the accents very strongly with those feeble fans… The sharpness from both the men and women make this divert an incredible beginning to the Act II characters.

Also this week Ron and Carinne and the dancers have been working very hard on the Waltz of the Flowers. As a Flower, a Demi, or a Rose, the end of our rehearsal days have been concluded with many runs of this beautiful and magnificent scene. Well, with that said I can tell you, the audience can only imagine the hard work and sweat put into organizing all those bodies on stage – coordination, spacing, formations, partnering and Rose lifts between numerous different groups of dancers. It looks quite amazing.

Heartbreakingly silly event of the week- the kitchen coffee pot was broken and we ran out of coffee. Know that the dancers this season have been known to brew around 3 or 4 full pots of coffee to make it through each day. The mood was slightly off for a few hours. Thankfully there was a spare coffee machine available and an incredible Folgers coffee donor! There are quite a few of us that can admit we are addicts…

Twice so far, we have had the pleasure of performing bits of the Nutcracker for elementary schools at the studios.This week, Washington Elementary was with us thanks to Vanessa Bautista, one of SacBallet School's teachers and Outreach Coordinator. It is so great to do some of our first small showings to a group of children that may become the next generation of professional dancers! 
Take a look - see Chris in the photo by Vanessa Bautista below?

It warms my heart and I'm sure my fellow dancers' as well, to see these children thoroughly enjoying the little bit we presented to them! Take a look at the rough video taken that day...

On a hilarious note, Daniel, our director of production, brought in our Chinese dragon this week as I mentioned before. Besides seeing the exciting Chinese men atop their “high horse” waving jovially to the audience in rehearsals we have the ridiculous looking face of the dragon with floppy ears and tail parked in the back of the studio all day! The silliness somehow brightens the start of my rehearsal day and makes me smile…
SNEAK PEAK~ Look at the Chinese Dragon and then John Whisler performing the opening of the Chinese Dance!

This busy day at the studio has ended and I am more than ready to head home…

Signing off until next week! Keep checking up on us as we cruise our way through the next two months of rehearsals and shows, to present to you the magic of the Nutcracker 2010!!

*do you have your tickets yet?