But who can help it when one has been crowned a princess?
That’s right.
Princess Rori, comin’ atcha!
I guess there somehow ended up being an odd number of princesses in Cinderella, so I just got drafted to even out the ranks.
I do hope this means a tiara is in my future! 
Oh… and, uh… I guess this means I need to stop being a slacker about pointe class. Good thing I finally got my custom Freeds sewn up!
Did I mention that my studio is doing Cinderella for our annual recital?
We are.
And our all-adult ballet class is playing the role of Winter Fairies. In case you don’t get the drift, the Spring Fairies are little kids (6-7 year old range), the Summer Fairies are slightly older kids (10-11 or so), the Autumn Fairies are the teens en pointe, and then there’s us… the Winter Fairies, AKA the one-foot-in-the-grave fairies. Hahaha…
Of course fairies need wings.
This week we got to practice our dance wearing the wings.
Keep in mind that we have not yet received our costumes, so it was us in our normal dance attire with wings on top.
Did I also mention that this studio has a LOT of windows that face into the rest of the school?
So here we are, a bunch of “mature” ladies, rehearsing away in T-shirts, leotards, and… wings. While the other students and their parents come and go, looking in the windows as they pass, and GIGGLING!
Giggling, dear reader!!!
Now who would laugh at old ladies in wings, who?! I ask you.
Okay, it was a pretty comical sight.
One of my dance friends got too close to the mirror and got the edge of her wing stuck in the crack in the mirror mid-dance. A few of us got bopped in the heads with our flapping wings. Flying takes practice, it seems.
They do have a nice added benefit of ensuring lovely posture, however. You can’t help but keep your shoulders back when the alternative means being smacked in the face with a glittery wing.
I can’t wait to see what dancing in a shield with a hood will be like for my hip-hop Guard dance. Or dancing in an apron and mob cap with a basket in hand for our lyrical Baker dance. Thankfully our mixed teen/adult ballet Townspeople dance seems to be straightforward with no props or funky costume elements whatsoever!
In case you were wondering how my DWTS competition went:
Yes, that is the championship trophy in my hands right there! Woohoo!!!
Okay, in all fairness, I think it was a tie between us and the other couple from our studio. That star’s table was louder. My star had more tables. The applause-o-meter was probably registering about equal. I would have been happy if either of us won. Because the mini mirror ball trophies the other couples got were trés adorable and I was a teensy bit jealous. Seriously.
But all in all a tremendous experience. And so happy for the music school we were fundraising for. They sold out and I think next year might have to find a new venue to accomodate everyone. The faces I saw were all smiles and there was a ton of buzz around. It was an honor to be part of it. The winning trophy was just the icing on the cake.
Also… I think I may have been born in the wrong era. I kind of loved my 1940s get-up.
I’d posted about my desire to get into alignment a few weeks ago.
I’ve decided to do something about it… and for some unknown reason feel the need to blog about the experience.
Because I’m a weirdo.
But I don’t want to clog up this site which is, at this point, a dance blog. I’m guessing that most of my visitors are not exactly clamoring for posts about orthodontia, but for the bizarre few…
You can head over to The Alignment Chronicles to read about that.
So… yeah.
There was a funny dance-related experience during my inital consult visit with the orthodontist, though. The coordinator was setting up my future appointments and was trying to fit everything around my work schedule. She asked if I had availability on Saturdays, to which I replied, “Well, I have ballet class, but I can come in afterwards.”
“Ballet?! Really!? Wow, that is SO CUTE!!!” she said. And then peppered me with questions about where I dance and how long I’ve been doing it and what styles I take and whether I get to perform. She danced locally as a kid and is looking to find a studio for her young daughter to start at next fall, so I was giving her the details on my studio. She was SO excited. And then was all apologetic for getting off-topic.
Heck, I don’t care. I love talking about dance, especially if I think I might be able to get an adult back in the studio!
I attended my first show as an offical Subscriber.
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered there was no red carpet rolled out for me. I guess I need to give a bit more than my measly $25/ticket to get that sort of treatment.
Never mind, though!
On to the review!
So, I invited my competition (ooohhhh, I haven’t told you about my competition yet, have I, dear reader… well, hang on, it’s going to have to wait for another post… suffice it to say, she is surely friendly competition!) to join me for an evening at the ballet.
We made it to the big city with plenty of time to spare despite dodging drunken hockey fans who were milling about the street. (There was an afternoon game at the Gahhhh-den and the hometown heroes [ew, ick, gag] had won… though, win or lose I’m sure the bars would still have been packed. Perhaps I should note here that I am a rather rabid hockey fan myself, but rather detest the B’s. Boooooo!)
Sorry, back to the subject of ballet.
The doors weren’t yet open, so we hung out in the foyer, people-watching and admiring the architecture. The doors finally opened and, although this probably isn’t great for the ballet, I so appreciated the fact that it was much tamer than the last time I came to see BB (for the nutty Nut). There was no mad jostling or shoving. I was able to stop at the merchandise stand and pick out a beautiful little souvenir for myself:
Who can resist that darling tee? I saw it online and knew I had to have it. Oh, and my subscriber card got me 20% off the price… Perks and bennies!
Seriously, I’m not usually a “gotta-get-the-T-shirt” sorta gal, but this was just so gorgeous I would consider wearing it outside of dance class! Blue (my favorite color) with that stunning graphic image of the upside-down tree and the words woven in so subtly… all in a lovely, soft, fitted, V-neck. Come to me, my pretty!
T-shirt procured, we proceeded to the mezzanine and stopped at the bar for some pre-show refreshments. Because nothing says high class like booze and M&M’s! Although the bartender did whip me up what may be my new favorite drink: Kahlua and Bailey’s on the rocks. Oh YUM!
Since it was still somewhat quiet, we stopped to sip overlooking the lobby, admiring the gorgeous ceiling and sweeping staircase and gilding and such. It’s always nice, when you have the time, to drink in the atmosphere along with your refreshments!
We took our seats up in the mezzanine. Seats weren’t quite as great as I’d been hoping. While I like the vantage point from higher up, our seats were towards the right side, so the wings and part of the stage on our side were obscured. I’ll have to remember this for next time I order!
Time to settle in with the program. As you can guess from the title, this was an evening of pieces choreographed by Jiří Kylián, the Czech-born choreographer in residence and artistic advisor (and former director) of the Nederlands Dans Theater who has been creating pieces since 1970. Boston Ballet has performed works of his previously, but the three on this bill were all BB premieres this season.
I knew going into this that Kylián is not big on the program notes thing. He prefers people to view and come to their own conclusions about the pieces. Which is cool, especially with abstract works, but my inner plebian comes out with some of these when I all I seem to get out of it is, “That was cool.” I hope he’s okay with people just thinking his stuff is cool without coming away with some sort of major message.
I found this particularly true of the first piece, “Wings of Wax” (1997). This is the piece with the giant upside-down tree featured on the T-shirt. And that’s pretty much the first thing you see when the curtain goes up. Giant tree with a spotlight orbiting it. At first I found myself a bit transfixed watching the light, but it soon faded into the scenery. There were four couples in this. For the most part when they weren’t actively dancing they stood upstage in the shadowy part of the stage, but rarely left the stage completely. The dancers were all costumed in black. The men in black shirts and pants. The women in black unitards (two of them in tanks, two of them with long, but sheer sleeves). I don’t remember much in particular about the choreography, but I did get a glimpse of what I think may be Kylián’s signature style (as I saw it echoed in the subsequent pieces)… that of fluidity and an almost one-ness of the partners.
What struck me about his choreography was how… modern it was. When I think of contemporary ballet I tend to think of ballet in a less classical form. I suppose that sounds self-evident. But I’m thinking Balanchine, for example. Still very much ballet, but with a pared-down costuming to highlight the lines moreso than the emotion, sparse sets to highlight the dance rather than the story, but still with an emphasis on length, height, UP. Modern I tend to think of as being very grounded, danced close-to-the-floor, with the stage not just being the place of the dance, but a part of the dance. Lifts are not simply to provide height, but to move a partner and make a gesture. I also think think of modern as expressing emotions quite strongly and even violently. The hands and the face are a vital part of the dance. Partners may push and pull one another instead of simply using each other for support. I also think of modern technique as being more amenable to the avant-garde, and I felt that Kylián fell easily into the realm of avant-garde.
So, while I suppose I could be annoyed with myself for not picking up as much of the meaning of “Wings of Wax” as I might have liked, I think this was, in many ways, a perfect opening piece for an evening of all Kylián. It introduced his style very nicely and prepared me for what was to come.
Intermission one, in which I wonder what exactly they do with the tree (does it go up and hang out in the rafters? or do they have to take it down, and if so how do they keep from breaking the branches/roots? hm…. enquiring minds want to know!). And I watch as new flooring peeks out from underneath the curtain and gets adjusted.
Next up: “Tar and Feathers” (2006). BB is (according to the program notes) the first American company to perform this work. The flooring I mentioned is one of the first things you notice as the curtain rises. It is a very shiny marley – the left side of the stage (as you’re facing it) is black, while the right side is white. On the black side, upstage, is a piano on 10-foot tall stilts. Tomoko Mukaiyama is the pianist and apparently the only person in the world who has accompanied this piece when it is performed. I wonder if she’s the only one willing to perform while perched on a rather small platform up in the air! On the left side is a large, lit up… well, what vaguely resembles a polar bear lying down on its stomach… but it’s made out of bubble wrap and lit up in white light. There is also one couple on each side. On the white side the female dancer starts moving towards the bubble wrap mound and some very frightening growling noises come out of nowhere, causing me to jump in my seat. She has a very fierce face and a piece of bubble wrap in her hand that she twice twists with a violent glee. In my mind I referred to her, throughout the piece, as “the predator.” No idea if that’s what the choreographer intended, but there you go.
For the first half or so, the two couples danced on their own side of the line and I began to wonder about the symbolism of this divide. What did the couple on the black marley side represent? Why was the female on the white marley side so angry and why was the male so passive? And what was the role of the other female who joined them? Eventually there was some crossover and there was a section later where two men crawled out, mostly using their arms to propel them and the woman stood with one foot on each of their backs… made me think of a musher and her sled dogs… either that or some crazy sort of elliptical machine.
While I’m not sure I quite “got” the story or what was being portrayed, this piece definitely pulled me in moreso than the first. I found the various elements fascinating and couldn’t help but marvel at how everything comes together. What did the choreographer think of first? The flooring influenced the dance as it was slippery as well as shiny and allowed the dancers to have more of a sliding quality to their dance. He couldn’t have choreographed it without the special floor. But the floor also played a part in the lighting. Towards the end of the piece the lighting hit the floor so that it reflected onto the black backdrop, silhouetting one of the dancers, but also reflecting the floor itself looking like a reflection from a rippling stream. This wasn’t the only part where the lighting had a role, though. In the beginning you notice a band of white light across the top of the backdrop, except for one spot that reminds me of a sputtering flourescent bulb, the kind that drives you absolutely nuts because of its flickering. At first I thought it WAS a faulty light, until the band of light moved down the backdrop to span across the middle rather than the top and you could see the full effect of this one color-shifting light. And then there’s the music. Not only the elevated (and, according to one article I read, tilted) Steinway, but the fact that Mukaiyama is THE accompanist. There is some music in the piece that is a formal composition (Mozart, I believe), but there is a portion that is pure improvisation. I had to wonder, after 6 or 7 years of performing this, is it really improvisation anymore? Does she really play something different each time? And if so, how do the dancers deal with changing music? Do they just dance and she follows along? There was one point where Mukaiyama stood up and appeared to look over the piano at the couple dancing on the other side of the stage and I wondered if she was looking to them to lead her in selecting the notes. So many questions on this piece.
I couldn’t help but take a peek at the Boston Globe review of All Kylián even though I knew I would get angry (I’m sure the critic is a lovely person, but I’ve disagreed with her on every review I’ve read). This was no different. She felt this piece was contrived and too modern, apparently. I can see how this piece might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when the curtain went down I felt a bubbling curiousity. There was something here that spoke to me. I’ve seen plenty of modern dance that I felt took itself too seriously and tried way too hard, but this piece was not one of them. I felt there was a strong dose of humor mixed in with the ferocity. It was weird, sure. But I find a lot of the classical story ballets rather weird, too. I would rather like to see “Tar and Feathers” again. From a different vantage point (maybe a little closer to stage!) with all these questions in mind, to see what, if any, answers I come up with.
Second intermission. Phew. Much-needed mental break.
Then the final, and also the oldest, piece: “Symphony of Psalms” (1978). The backdrop for this is made up of a plethora of reddish-colored Persian rugs. The women are in dresses in muted, grey-ish colors. The men are in black pants and grey-ish shirts. While not exciting costumes, somehow it works with the vibrant backdrops. There are four wooden chairs upstage, stage right. The feeling I got from this was almost… I dunno, a European cousin to Ailey’s Revelations. Not sure if I can explain what I mean. I guess I think of Revelations as being an expression of the spirituality and vibrancy of the African American religious tradition. Symphony of Psalms had a similar representation of spirituality, but I felt it was a much more somber, perhaps Puritanical tradition that was expressed. The kneeling and prostration seemed less of an exultation in God’s glory but more of a self-flagellation… I say this as an atheistic person with rather scant knowledge of the world’s religions, so I probably should stop babbling. But that was the feeling I got.
Now a note about the ending of all of this. Nothing to do with the dancers, the choreographer, or the venue, but everything to do with the audience… I was appalled at how many people got up and left at the moment the curtain came down on this piece, before the performers even had a chance to take their bows. Absolutely appalled. To me that is the epitome of rudeness. It is saying to the people who have dedicated hours upon hours of rehearsal, set design, costuming, etc., “You are not important to me.” Hey, now maybe you hated the show. Maybe Kylián makes you want to vomit. Fine. You can feel howsoever you want. That is your right. But regardless of your feelings, you can at least respect the time and work the company, musicians, and house staff put into the production and salute them. Rushing off to catch the train or get your car out of the parking garage before everyone else is simply rude and unnecessary. As a performer, I would be crushed to look out on the audience as I was taking my bows and see everyone rushing for the exits. To me that says, “You are not worthy of my time.” It kind of ruined an otherwise lovely evening.
Back to the show. Was BB’s choice to present a full evening of one, quite distinctive, choreographer a bit risky? Sure. But I think BB presented it stunningly. The three pieces chosen highlighted Kylián’s evolution as a choreographer (though not in a chronological order). I feel as though there are similar elements among the pieces, particularly in his style of dance, but he is in no way repetitive and each is unique. I came away with a huge amount of respect for him along with heightened admiration for the dancers who clearly threw themselves into this very challenging work and pulled it off superbly.
Check out the trailer here:
And a fascinating interview and rehearsal scenes here… I got to see the beautiful Whitney Jensen perform the night I was there. What an incredible dancer!
Frivolous Friday ranty-post (because I feel like posting something, but don’t really have anything noteworthy to discuss… until tomorrow… after tomorrow night I will have something noteworthy to discuss… and that something is All Kyliàn).
My rant is this…
Children need to wear pants!
Or skirts. Or dresses. I don’t care…
But they need to cover their little tiny behinds!
Why am I saying this?
Because I have seen a rash of children exiting our dance studio wearing their leotard, tights, a parka, and shoes.
And that be it.
No pants.
Occasionally they have been asked, “Where are your pants?”
The shocking replies have been:
“I didn’t have time to put them on.”
“I didn’t wear them today.”
Or the classic, “Idunno.”
If I ever had the audacity to set foot outside my dance studio without pants my mother would have tanned my hide. And not just because my first dance studio was next door to a tattoo parlor (though I’m sure that played a role). In fact, I remember her distinctly telling me that I must never leave the studio in just my dance clothes… I had to put street clothes over top. I think it was a studio rule, too.
But the worst part is, this isn’t just kids being kids… I have seen plenty of parents bringing their children to class and taking them from class in this get-up. Small children who do not yet make their own fashion decisions.
Pardon the colloquialism, but WTF?!?!?
Since when is this acceptable?
I don’t consider myself to be excessively prudish, but there are some things I feel just fall into the realm of common decency. You can wear an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weenie-yellow-polka-dot-bikini at the beach… but when you leave the beach, throw something on over it. Similarly, prance around the studio in a tights and leo all you want, but the minute you set foot outside you had better be wearing real clothes!
I’m not asking for anything complicated here. No fancy dress required. A pair of sweatpants will suffice. Takes, what, like 5 seconds to put on?
And hell, even if you don’t share my views on what constitutes decency…
Dudes, it is COLD out there in my part of the world. In fact, there’s a blizzard raging outside as I type. Even if it was considered decent you wouldn’t catch me out there in just a parka over my dance clothes. Because it’s cold. And I would be miserable. And whiny. And grouchy. So why would you let your kid outside in that sort of an outfit. Hm? HMMM????
I keep hoping our studio will make a rule about this and post it, but so far I’ve seen nothing. So instead I mutter passive-aggressively under my breath when I see these kids escaping onto the street in their fashionable little displays hoping maybe someone will catch my drift.
Okay, end the crotchety, fuddy-duddy, old-lady rant. I’ve been typing this in my robe and need to go find my pants…
The topic of today’s post is only peripherally dance-related.
To segue into it, I’ll mention a thread I ran across in one of the adult ballet student forums on BT4D. An adult beginner was asking if she (and other ballet dancers who started as adults) were doomed to look “amateurish” forever. Which sparked some ever-helpful, “Well, honey, there’s a reason why the pros are pros and the non-pros are… not” along with a fair sprinkling of, “Give it time.”
But I understood what the poster was getting at… the presentation. There are those people (not necessarily pros) who manage to coordinate everything with the music and look stunning. And then there are those who study for years upon years and only persist in looking awkward.
Some commenters on the thread started bringing up how so much of presentation is phrasing and port de bras and epaulment which was accompanied by a good railing on teachers who do not teach enough of this stuff in adult classes.
Basically, the overarching theme of this part of the thread was how much of “looking like a dancer” boils down to what you’re doing with your upper body. You can have killer arches, extensions to the top of Mt. Everest, and be able to whip out 32 fouettés like it ain’t no thang, but if you don’t sell the dance with your arms and your face then it’s just gymnastics. Similarly, your feet can go entirely wrong, but if your upper body is dancing people don’t notice the foibles so much (I’m majorly paraphrasing here).
And I wholly agree with this. I’ve really been concentrating on trying to dance every class. You know, practicing the tilt of the head at the barre, selling my tombé-pas-de-bourrées to whoever might be watching, etc. For the most part I feel pretty good about that stuff. It’s the thing a bit farther north that sometimes trips me up.
The face.
Now I could write a whole post about appropriate facial expressions based on stuff I’ve seen over the years, but my focus here is on the expression of joy: the good old Smile.
Smiling has long been challenging for me. It’s not that I’m unhappy, I just don’t feel the need to smile unless there’s a good reason to. Case in point… first grade school picture. Captured me with my mouth slightly open looking sort of dazed, sort of pissed off, sort of bemused. I still distinctly remember the situation. The photographer had tried the typical 6-year-old stuff on me, asking me to say something silly to get me to smile. Specifically: “Say, ‘Miss Piggy!’” To which I replied, “No.” I wasn’t trying to be snarky, I just thought it was an odd demand. We weren’t talking about Miss Piggy; why should I just randomly say her name… it was embarassing and I couldn’t believe he would make such a ridiculous request.
That was me.
I had my silly moments, but smiling for the sake of smiling was kind of lost on me.
Imagine my horror when, at age 8, I made my big stage debut in my very first dance recital. Teachers, backstage parents, other students all eagerly said, “Don’t forget to smile!” But… why? I had to remember the steps (especially seeing as most of my classmates weren’t likely to), which required Concentration and thus I had to be Serious. What is this smiling nonsense?
I did eventually grow up enough to realize there are occasions one must channel some joy (which may or may not be actually present) for the sake of appearances whether in photos or onstage or meeting a potential future boss or whatnot.
But while I figured this out I stumbled across another issue… adult teeth. In a not-particularly-large jaw.
It’s true. I’m a bit of a snaggle-tooth.
Nothing grave. Children don’t run screaming when I smile at them. I’ve had dates (and relationships). My friends tell me they don’t notice the crookedness, or they’ll tell me that they think it’s cute and gives me character (which, on good days, I don’t entirely disagree with).
But for around two decades it’s bothered me to some degree. Any time someone wants to get pictures it’s on my mind. I try to turn so that the camera will capture my “good side” and give either the closed-lip smile or bear minimal teeth. Candids are my nemesis.
Since resuming dance a couple years ago and doing performances that’s brought another aspect to my smile reticence. I need to smile on stage for a lot of my pieces. But I can’t help but feel shy, not knowing how much of the crookedness is showing.
Now one side of me says, jeez, Rori, no one cares. Let it go. But the other side says, hey, if it bothers you, fix it! I’m reaching the point of saying: it’s time.
My goal isn’t to conform to society’s arbitrary vision of beauty; I’m just tired of expending excessive mental energy worrying about my mouth. I want to smile when I feel like smiling and not feel self-conscious about it. I want to look at photos of me and focus on what’s going on in the picture rather than how much tooth is showing.
There’s a lot of stuff I can’t correct. But slightly crowded teeth… that’s pretty easy.
So earlier this week I trotted off to chat to one of the dentists in the office I go to. Her assistant talked to me for a bit and is going through treatment herself, which somehow made me feel more comfortable. Then the dentist herself came in and took a look-see. She assured me I could keep all my teeth (one of my pre-reqs… I had the wisdom teeth extracted a few years ago and those were the only chompers I was willing to part with) and said that mine was actually a very straightforward case. Which I kind of figured, but was good to hear. She estimated 8-10 months in treatment aligners, 6 months of wearing a retainer full-time, and a few years of wearing retainers to bed (or possibly getting a permanent retainer installed… not sure how I feel about that). The cost was higher than I would like (okay, anything higher than “free” is higher than I would like), but was in the range I expected.
I fully acknowledge that this is an issue of vanity. My oral health is not really impacted (though I do have a crack in my front tooth that overlaps from whacking it with the mouthpiece of my French horn one too many times). And hell, if we’re talking about vanity, I just saw something a couple weeks ago about a new trend in Japan where girls are having veneers put on their canines to create an illusion of crookedness because it’s “cute.” So who knows, maybe if I just hung on for a few more years my current grin would put me at the height of fashion.
I haven’t 100% decided yet, but I’m strongly leaning towards getting the aligners. It would be nice to put this issue to rest and not spend such a ridiculous amount of energy thinking about my damned teeth. Oh, and the dentist told me that she’s having a special day at the beginning of May, and if I start treatment that day (which I think means getting the dreaded impressions and photos and such) she knocks $500 off the cost and throws in a free whitening treatment. So… that might be enough to get me to commit. Though if I have to wait that long anyway I think I’ll go get a second opinion (and cost estimate) from a local, highly-experienced orthodontist.
We shall see. I’m not looking to turn this into an orthodontic blog (hence the reason I didn’t put the name of the treatment anywhere in this post), but it was something I wanted to discuss… especially since dance has played a role in pushing me over the edge of apathy to actually do something about this. If anyone happens to have experience with this topic and they want to share I’d be happy to hear them!
I decided to give the Body Wrappers convertible tights another go-round.
They arrived in the mail today (along with some elastic and ribbon so I can finally [finally!!!] get the custom Freeds on the dance floor).
I want to meet the copy editor who wrote up the packaging for these things.
Because according to them these tights have a… wait for it… “hygienically superior gusset.”
You hear that? Hygienically SUPERIOR!!! I guess I’ll be grateful that they used the word “gusset” rather than my preferred term for that area of the tights. Bwahahahaa… if we could all be so blessed
Oh, we may also note the “no sag spandex” and “recovery action” featured in these tights. Wow!
The back of the package starts getting a bit passive-agressive, though. It advises me that these are “value tights” that “provide an economical entry to the superior Body Wrappers tight line of products.”
Gee, why don’t they just write on them, “Golly, you are a cheap bugger, aren’t you? If you bought the more expensive tights you could be a great dancer, but I guess you are satisfied with mediocrity, eh?!”
It’s not all bad news, though. They tell me I can wear these under my leotard (so… Body Wrappers opposes the tights OVER leo look? probably a good corporate stance) everyday (I’m guessing due to that hygienically superior gusset!) for class, performance and recital for “Performance At Its Best!” (odd capitalization copied verbatim).
Well, then… here’s wishing you all superior performances and hygienic gussets!
I’ve been in a knitty mood lately…
Heard about a mystery knit along that tied in with the Downton Abbey season 3 series in the beginning of January (never mind that I’ve only gotten around to watching the first episode of the season so far!) which got me going, but I would finish each clue quickly and was still itchy to be working some yarn, so I’ve been searching up new projects.
I had come across a cool pattern in a Jane Austen Knits magazine I picked up last summer. I’ve knit scarves, shawls, baby blankets, a couple sweaters in my time, but this was something new… a bag! Or, officially, a “reticule.” How elegant.
So here it is:
And, for a more detailed view:
After I finished it up, I thought, hey you know what this would be ideal for? A dance bag!
It’s a net bag, so there’s plenty of airflow for stinky shoes. It’s small enough that you can toss it in a large dance bag and it won’t take up too much space, but it’s big enough that you could fit a couple pairs of shoes, maybe some legwarmers, a wallet, cell phone and travel light with it. Oh, and I made it out of cotton which claims to be machine washable (gentle cycle, of course!). My gosh, brilliant!
And it was pretty fun to make up. Which made me think, hey, this would make a good prize for a blog giveaway! Hmmm…
I don’t know when this giveaway will be (might be a few months out, I still need to get my last ones in the mail!), but I’d love to know what colors people might be interested in if I did knit this up for a prize. So please vote on a color below (you can pick more than one color or enter your own idea if you want) and stay tuned!
Ughhh…
While the Nutcracker crud stayed mild enough for me to get through our final show, it did not hold back its wrath afterwards.
I’m now three days into an unintended sick leave from work. Monday the relentless runny nose kicked in along with the violent sneezing. I would take long naps and feel okay, but as soon as I got up it’s as if someone turned on a faucet in my head.
To add insult to injury, I made myself a nice hot bowl of oatmeal Monday morning only to find out that my milk had gone chunky (which I discovered only after dousing my oatmeal in it). If I wasn’t feeling great beforehand, that certainly didn’t help! Gag. And… no oatmeal. Or milk for my tea. Whine, cry.
Tuesday morning I awoke convinced that, while I was sleeping, a small army of elves entered my room and bashed my face with a bunch of tiny sledgehammers. My teeth hurt. My forehead hurt. My ears hurt.
I briefly considered throwing a tantrum, but when your only audience is a couple of unsympathetic cats, there’s really no benefit.
So instead I zoned out on the couch watching Sesame Street and similar programs. Eventually dragged myself to the grocery store to buy fresh milk and OJ and zinc lozenges (don’t take the zinc with the OJ, btw!) and boxed macaroni and cheese and lotiony tissues. The typical sickie shopping cart contents.
Probably a bit late in the game to try the zinc thing, but I’ll give it a go anyway.
This morning I awoke thinking, aha, the faucet has stopped, I am better! The thermometer said, “How ’bout a low-grade fever?” Screw you, stupid thermometer. At this point I’m so bored I’m actually working from home because I need something to do other than sleep.
Anyway, the subject of this post was that there was exciting news in the midst of all this germiness!
While I was bumbling around the house on Monday trying to figure out what I could eat from my Mother Hubbard’s cupboards I heard a thunk at the front door. I opened the door to find a box which, when opened, revealed this:
My custom Freed order! Eek!
I placed the order back in October sometime. Nothing major, mostly just stocks with the sides cut down, elastic drawstring, extra piece over the tip (hopefully will make the platform last longer?), light paste on the wings.
I wasn’t really in a mood to wear pointe shoes, but I did slip them on for a minute. I’m not sure if I like how much the sides are cut down… it’s supposed to make the foot look nicer, but I don’t think it does anything for mine. Then again, it’s hard to judge without the elastics and ribbons and without breaking the shank in, so we shall see.
But, dear reader, it is so exciting to get a pair of shoes that you know were made just for you!!! I had to take a picture of the sole… my thumb is covering my last name. My name! On my shoes!
So thrilling! Can’t wait to give these shoes a try and see how they work for me! I’ll be updating for sure.
In the meantime, wishing all of my readers good health!
