Street Ballet

I gave myself my first street ballet class-- in my own neighborhood, Delhi street. Just before you walk out onto South street, there is a wheelchair access ramp with a rail; I used this railing as a barre, and...it functioned just fine as one! Facing the brick wall to do the jete combination, I heard applause. I turned around and saw a group of friends standing in the street corner watching me.

"You look beautiful! We're dancers too!"

That was so nice. Ballet has brought me so much pain lately...It's nice to experience some solidarity and positive attitudes from fellow dancers, from strangers who appreciate it and have no association with...inconsistencies, empty promises, and other not very nice things. I should not take any of this personally, and yet I cannot help it. It distresses me. It hurts me. Every time I hear the old adagio music, I am reminded of a time two years ago when ballet meant nothing but pure bliss to me, and it always plays with a tinge of sadness.

This trip to Russia which approaches so quickly will be a time of searching. What do I wish to get out of ballet? I wish to be self-sufficient; I wish to be able to train on my own, but how can anyone learn how to do this in 11 days? I will not experience some sort of magical transformation in Moscow, just because it is the mecca of ballet. It will have to begin here, in Philly, and it will have to follow wherever I happen to go. Practically speaking, I have this diary of exercises.

A choreographic class. A class worth framing in the mind.

-rond de jambe with a long, beautiful prep
-from plie to sus-sous, maintain the turnout of the backfoot
-fancy back pas de bourree: deepen plie in back tendu; step and cover space (travel)
-we leap into piles of aSymmetric objects
-a first attempt at complete recall reveals chaos in the brain: a puzzle completed, then thrown haphazardly back into the box; a method of notation must be devised to include counts

Home from work. A fedex envelope greets me at the door. It contains a visa to Russia! At last, my official pass into the Mecca of ballet!