Jennifer is from the inland empire and took charge of leading a small group of us around on our one day off, Monday. After optional class we headed down to Laguna, a sleepy (for LA) hamlet by the beach south of the theater. We spent most of the day lazing about, eating great seafood, and basking in the sand and sun.

The real coup was that Jennifer’s friend Jackie has a family-owned old shack on the beach. It’s slated for demolition, but they haven’t gotten around to it yet. So we sat around candles and watched the sun set over the Pacific from an amazing vantage point. A very relaxed calm before the storm of prepping and performing two different programs. There is something culturally magical about a warm day in the sun with palm trees in California; you forget that living in SF, so I was glad for the reminder. The photos will tell the rest of the story.

Corps de Ballet member Jennifer Stahl and friend (Photo by Quinn Wharton)

SFB dancers Jennifer Stahl, Frances Chung and Alexandra McCullagh (Photo by Quinn Wharton)

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Corps de Ballet member Alexandra McCullagh (Photo by Quinn Wharton)

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Photo by Quinn Wharton

Sarah was contacted by the organization to be a judge for the event–they like to have local experts in arts areas get involved and give feedback.  They asked her if she would be interested in mentoring some of the groups, however she was going to have to coach them on hip hop and urban dance.  Sarah, regardless of being the amazing artist she is, has no background in hip hop, so she recommended that I do it.   I was honored that she thought of me and very glad to participate. I would like to do more outreach than I am capable of right now, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to start getting involved.  Fortunately they were able to work around my schedule and I got to meet up with one of the groups last Sunday.  It was three young girls, ranging from 7 to about 12, and their mother who was the choreographer and coach.  I was a little worried at first about coming off as being too high and mighty as a white boy from Hawaii. Regardless of my training I don’t pretend to know more about a dance style than people who grew up in the communities that birthed it.  Fortunately once we got comfortable with each other, it didn’t seem to be an issue.  I watched them perform the routine, and then just jumped in to giving any feedback I could.

They were very talented, just lacking in all the areas that kids have trouble with: being confident about performing, making eye contact with your audience, and remembering complicated rhythmic patterns and formations.  All things considered, they did a really good job and I can imagine with all of the rehearsal before the show, that they will be stunning.  I can’t say I got to know them incredibly well, I only spent an hour with them, but it was very rewarding for me, and hopefully they got something positive out of it.  The show is called “A Night With the Stars” and the venue is the Herbst theatre, April 27th. Come out and support if you are able. For event details, click here.

Artifact was created in the 80′s and is actually a full-length, narrative ballet that has been pared down to a streamlined, dance-focused, tour de force of movement. Chroma was created in 2006 for the Royal Ballet and when unveiled, hadn’t really been seen in the classical ballet world before; a piece whose movement was all about angles and awkward poses.

We began Chroma in October, with Antoine Vereecken setting it on us for Wayne.  The ballet is to music by The White Stripes that has been orchestrated and extrapolated.  It’s very intense, almost jazzy music that lends a pulsing driving force.  By the end, you feel as though you are no longer in control of your body–the music has taken you over and is pulling you along.  The most difficult thing about the work is that there are no names for the movement vocabulary. In classical ballet we have names for everything: tendue, arabuesque, plie.  In this work, it’s all about body rolls, jutted elbows, swayed backs, and hyperextended arms and legs.  The vocabulary actually shares more similarities with urban dance than it does with ballet.  The set of the piece, which we haven’t worked with yet, is a minimalist, neutral-toned piece of stark architecture.

I had so much fun learning and doing this work. I partnered with Courtney Elizabeth, and the pas de deux is one of the most intense that I’ve done in awhile.  It is very combative, almost as though you are fighting the whole time.  Lots of punching, pulling, and throwing of limbs and force.  It helps that The White Stripes song is “The Hardest Button to Button” which was already a favorite song of mine.

As soon as we were done with Chroma we moved right into Artifact Suite.  Artifact is the polar opposite as far as movement is concerned. It’s based entirely on the classical movement vocabulary, but more extreme. Forsythe asks that you take every position and extend it beyond where you can physically go. So the energy of your movement extends out into the space around you. This ballet takes everything that you know about technique in ballet and makes you apply it because you actually have to think about it.  If you’re pushing yourself beyond your normal training limits you have to think about exactly where those limits are. Another interesting contrast: Chroma is very light, bright and close, while Artifact is the opposite.  The wings and back are completely removed from the stage and replaced with a giant black curtain that extends as far out and back as the stage will allow. It’s lit only from the top for the majority of the ballet, so dancers appear and disappear out of darkness. It’s one of the only ballets I know that has more dancing for the corps than the principals.

You spend 30 minutes on stage dancing as hard as you can, almost never stopping your movement. By the end of the ballet you feel as though you have run a marathon: there’s a burning in your lungs and you can feel your hands tingling from your fingertips to your armpits. By the time you’ve finished and rested, you’re exhilarated.  I felt as though I had completely pushed my body as far as it would go and drained it of all energy, so you feel light and almost weightless, assisted I’m sure by the huge amount of endorphins released by the exercise.

All in all it has been an intense few weeks; I feel like I’m in better shape than I have been in a while, ready to start the season.  I’m excited about getting back on stage.

Our busy schedule is not only due to the amount of work that we put on stage for each season, but the high level of performing it requires. Dont take it the wrong way, we love performing and the work that we do. It’s just funny when you realize that the only time you spend at home is sleeping, and that you haven’t spent time with anyone who is not a dancer, in months. This is why our week off in January is incredibly important: it’s our last big break before the end of the season. So this past January, I petitioned my group of friends to take a trip to Hawaii with me and visit my family who lives on the Big Island; I thought it would be a great way to relax. We managed to get a pretty big group together, mostly dancers but a few non-dancers as well, eight people in total. It was a fantastic trip.

My family has lived on the island for about 14 years now and have settled in quite a bit. Our house is up the side of the mountain in the middle of nowhere, just west of a little town called Paauilo. We spent a few nights there and then three days camping on Makalawena Beach, a gorgeous nature reserve on the west side of the island. We lucked out and it was a full moon while we were camping. It was literally so bright you almost saw color, there was no need for a fire and it almost made it hard to sleep. The whole experience was just the recharge we needed to feel prepped and ready. Hitting my stride in the middle of the season now, I find myself drifting back to that trip pretty frequently, and I wanted to share those moments with you all. Click here to see more photos from our trip.

Principal Dancer Frances Chung amidst sparklers

Makalawena Beach

Soloist Elana Altman camping

Local students at a San Francisco Ballet Community Matinee.

These last two weeks have been a whirlwind. While Swan Lake was the beginning of the season, Programs 2 and 3 were the real dancing kick-off for me, personally. Being onstage every night is something that I haven’t done since last year and it always takes a little time to get acclimated. The difference between schedules is huge in many aspects, from what you eat and when, to how you push your body during the day. It also takes time just to get used to putting on a performance face every night. During rehearsal periods, we aren’t expected to perform every day and even during final rehearsals, while you need to project, it doesn’t have to be all the time. So switching to being on stage is almost a meditative practice. You have to come into the theater every night and remove yourself from all the bad or good that happened that day. Throughout your routine: warm-up, makeup, and getting into costume, you free your mind from distractions and focus on the character you’re portraying that evening. Of course the characters/roles range, from high to low stress, but there is always that period where you clear your mind. If you don’t, you get onstage and it can take you halfway through the performance before you transition from your introverted self to your outward, performance persona. At least we know first-hand, the definition of a stage vs. street identity. I’m sure movie stars and famous personalities have a much harder time with this distinction.

All of these musings comes to bear on the recent matinee I performed in. The Community Matinees (CMATs as they are referred to here), are special performances presented twice a year, to local elementary school children. CMATs are part of the Ballet’s community outreach efforts and a great way to experience a different audience. The children are much more moved by base emotion; they don’t have the performance etiquette or “training” that adults do, so there are constant outbursts from them which makes the performance really gratifying and fun.SF Ballet recently received a grant to further our new media efforts and technological capabilities, and the company decided to put some of this towards outreach. The idea was to stream the CMAT performance live, to a number of the schools in the Bay Area, allowing the show to be broadcast to a larger age range, which meant making the performance content more educational and behind-the-scenes. It also gave us freedom to get creative from a filming stand point. I was asked to perform some hip hop for the beginning of the show as a catalyst, a way to draw the older kids in immediately and get them to keep an open mind about ballet. I trained in hip hop early in my life and have kept up with it throughout the years, but this was very different than the regular performing I do (or the company does). It was almost more like being asked to choreograph something.  I was given complete freedom as long as it got a stamp of approval in the end. I picked the music, choreographed the movement, chose my outfit, and dictated the lighting to an extent. It was such a freeing experience in a way. As a hip hop dancer, I relish the freedom of movement and I was glad not to have any boundaries. Ironically the hardest part was deciding what to wear since we usually have Wardrobe telling us what costume to put on, so the freedom of choice was almost overwhelming.

Tying back to the beginning, I realized very quickly that the mental process of this preparation was going to be very different. I was wearing regular clothes, opening the show without anything to feed off of, and my warm-up had to be completely different for what I was doing. That sort of variety really threw me off.  Standing in the middle of that giant Opera House stage five minutes before the curtain went up, my heart rate began to pick up and I kept wondering if there was anything else I could do to be more prepared. I could hear all of the children right on the other side of that curtain, talking to each other; I’m sure they expected to see tutus when the curtain went up.  Luckily for me, my instincts are pretty ingrained at this point. When the curtain came up and the pool of light was on me, my mind went pretty blank. I remember very little sound from the performance, even the music I had picked seemed faint. I just remember looking directly up into the spotlight as the music swelled and wondering if this is how Michael Jackson ever felt, and that it was completely worth it. It’s the rush of a thousand eyes on you alone and the feeling of total exhilaration as you let your body take over and do what it knows best. It’s like you stop thinking and processing, and just let physical memory take you from one movement to the next. My part was over before I knew it and luckily, it won’t be the last time I get this opportunity. The feedback was really positive after the show and I think it will be repeated for the other CMAT performances this year. Now I’ll be able to prepare more and hopefully enjoy it a bit more in the moment.

Dores Andre

I got bored a few weekends ago and decided to do an experimental photo shoot with Dores Andre. I’ve become really interested in a lot of fashion photography lately. It’s bright, colorful, attractive. When I started photographing, I admired David LaChapelle‘s work a lot and all of his stuff has those characteristics. It also helps that the use of his images in advertising is ubiquitous, it’s everywhere. Knowing a bit about photography and trying to dissect it, immediately you try to figure out where the light is coming from, the source it’s coming from, what techniques the photographer used, and how much Photoshop was involved.

Dores Andre

To recreate one of his shots, it’s surprisingly easy to get the basics. What’s much more difficult is pulling everything together and, regardless of materials, getting the product to come out right. You can have everything in place, but if the camera is in the wrong person’s hands or you’re just not focused enough, everything can go wrong.

Dores Andre

So I wanted to try and do a basic studio set-up with a large backdrop. I don’t usually do backdrops just because it’s annoying to set up. It’s much easier to go to a beautiful location with some light and be able to move around. Being in San Francisco we have plenty of amazing locations. Doing a studio set-up involves bringing giant backdrops and stands, plus light and camera gear. You also have to have a large indoor space to use. Fortunately, a friend of mine, Gavin Coombs, lives in a large loft space that appears made for a photographer. It has huge windows that curve up halfway into the ceiling providing plenty of beautiful natural light. He also has lots of interesting props, as you’ll see in the photos, including a white full, grand piano.

Dores Andre

Dores and I proceeded to put some outfits together and see what happened. I don’t think it necessarily came out like a high fashion shoot (no Gucci or Dior here), but it produced some really interesting results and most importantly, taught me something new and helped me see what I would change next time. I fluctuated between having lots of movement to give a natural flow to things, to more static, focused shots trying to capture the essence of the moment and what was going on. All in all, it was a highly successful day. I didn’t have to rent any equipment, got some interesting photos, and had a good time. You can’t ask for much more. These experiments also do a great job of keeping me excited for the next one. Already I’m planning on doing a woodsy shot with lots of movement and streaming light. I’ll pass it along when it finally happens.

The Summer Palace is the most intense cultural experience I’ve had in China so far, excluding that evening I got lost in the slums of Shanghai. The Palace is where the emperor and his family would go during the summers to escape the city heat of Beijing. It’s a glorious, old place resting on a lake northeast of the city. The day I went it was really foggy. So while that obscured the view a bit, it also meant less people which is always preferable when you’re doing touristy things. And the fog actually helped some of the ambiance as well. The grounds contain a large forest that was made more magical by the calm hush of the clouds overhead. And looking out over the lake, all I could see were gentle shapes drifting in a netherworld of white toy boats losing their way in the mist. All of the palace grounds—the gates, the gardens, the pagodas—were all very beautiful, but the centerpiece is what took my breath away.

A boat on the lake in the mist

The main palace consists of two large temples—one in front of the other. Both overlook the lake and are protected by a large gate and courtyard. I had to make my way up five or six huge staircases before finally reaching the top, but the architecture was amazing so there was plenty to see. In my mind, the temples bear a striking resemblance to some Mayan and Aztec structures such as the sets of long, stone stairs and the shapes of the buildings. The only major differences from my perspective are the decorations and fluted roofs tops.

This is only of a portion of the steps to get to the top!

Alexandra McCullagh and Clara Blanco head into the temple

Inside each temple are huge Buddha statues and quite a few tourists praying. These massive, ancient halls are dominated by a single, golden figure so very different from the churches and cathedrals I’m used to seeing in the West. They carry the weight of ancient times. I could easily picture them thousands of years ago: the emperor praying in front of them standing just as tall and impressively as they do now. It made me wonder why we appreciate these connections to our past so much.

The Temple of Buddha Incense

I cherish old buildings and art and places of great significance. I suppose they are reminders of what we have done and where we have come from, which in our quickly changing world is a valuable thing to have. It’s a gentle reminder every now and again to for me step outside my small span of time and feel the sweep of eons past. Then again, maybe we just like to gloat about how great we are now and how far we have come, but I suppose that would be a cynical way of looking at it. Regardless, the Summer Palace was a great trip, and I’m glad I got to experience it.

A wall of Buddha's in the temple

]]> http://www.sfballetblog.org/2009/10/a-trip-to-the-summer-palace/feed/ 1