It was a long ride through the beginnings of rush hour traffic into midtown Manhattan, but I was giddy to step into my Park Avenue rental’s spartan lobby; the same loft I found last year was by some miracle available again for exactly the dates I needed it.  If I were a Presbyterian I suppose I would call it, what?  Providential, maybe?  Mainly I was relieved to dodge the city’s public transit, as my commute to ballet school at American Ballet Theatre was literally a couple of minutes around the corner by foot.  I did my best to politely shoo away the well-meaning housekeeper when she started her schtick—where I was to put the soiled linens, take the trash, which key opened the lobby door.  I asked her for the laundry card and a little help with the wireless Internet service, and then sent her packing with a friendly Southern smile on my face.  Once more, I was a New Yorker, if only for a few days.

This time I felt decidedly more seasoned.  Last summer—with no small amount of trepidation—I undertook the same trip to obtain certification in Primary Level through Level 3 of American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum.  I was returning this summer a bit less fraidy-cat about flying, but also with a just-acquired credential as an Affiliate Teacher at American Ballet Theatre after my young students undertook ABT’s Affiliate Exams.  Now I would continue my own training in Levels 4 and 5 of the NTC.  Most importantly, though, now I knew where to go for groceries WITHOUT having to ask.  Not that there is anything especially wrong with asking, mind you, but it does mark you straight away as One Who Has No Clue.

Once I had settled into my familiar digs and stocked the pantry, I was delighted to hear from my former ballet school roommate, Sophia Fatouros, who called to invite me the next evening to the Latin Choreographer’s Festival at Dance New Amsterdam, where she is currently on the faculty.  We were to be joined by Kristen McGrew, who until then I had known only as a Facebook friend with ballet and family ties to East Tennessee.  Now a New Yorker, Kristen ballet mistresses for Eglevsky, and teaches at the Ailey School, Sophia’s former stomping grounds.  I enthusiastically accepted their kind invitation, which would be a fabulous way to spend the evening after the day’s big event:  a professional head shot with the talented and versatile Matthew Murphy.

A couple of years back I stumbled across Matt’s multifarious and very personal blog while searching for news about a tragedy which had struck two of ABT’s dancers—dancers I had recently met in person at the piano bar in the Watergate following a performance of Othello at the Kennedy Center.  Matt, I discovered, had himself only just left ABT’s corps de ballet after being sidelined by an illness, and had blogged liberally about the difficulties and challenges he faced after his transition out of the professional ballet world.  I was drawn to the story of this talented young man who it seemed had been dealt an unequivocally bad hand, but who was facing his situation with the aplomb and maturity one would expect of a much older person.  Through Matt’s blog, and some irregular cyber correspondence with him, I watched from afar as he reinvented himself as a professional writer and photographer.  When the news broke of his first gig as a freelance photographer at the NY Times, I felt a little swell of pride for him, in spite of never having met him in person.  Since then he has enjoyed a number of Times credits, among others; take a look at a recent image of amazing ABT Principal David Hallberg here, where Matt somehow managed to capture stillness and motion in one instant.

I missed Matt on last summer’s sojourn to the city, as he was traveling.  This time around, though, our time overlapped, at least by a couple of days.  My friend and frequent guest artist at Knoxville Ballet School, Ryan Carroll, had urged me for some time to get an image of myself onto the school’s website and into its printed materials.  Here seemed the perfect opportunity to do that and to meet Matt in person; in short order, I arranged a sitting with him.  So on my first day in the city I had my first-ever bonafide headshot made by my new, in-the-flesh friend, Matthew Murphy:

Matt shot scores of pictures of me that day; this one happens to be my favorite.  I have a new appreciation for not only the work of a professional photographer, but also the makeup artist:  the very talented young Alex Michaels (who happens also to be an actor) managed to make me look like something while I was engaged in unceasing conversation with Matt.  I also quite possibly made Matt’s job more difficult because I could not wipe that silly grin off my face if my life depended on it.  Matt and Alex kept me in stitches, but I was also genuinely happy to be there, and my face betrayed that sentiment.  So no matter how much Matt may have wanted me to wear my serious hat, it was a lost cause.  Giggles and grins notwithstanding, I could not be more pleased with the outcome.  (I must confess, I had some initial doubts:  Matt shoots some amazing, young, attractive Broadway starlets, and scores of other young entertainers—the key word there is young; you’ve seen them if you visited his website.  How would he wrangle an old lady ballet teacher?)

After the work was over, Matt treated me to Pinkberry—an amazing frozen concoction that is sadly unavailable around these parts; here we are outside the shop, wearing alarmingly similar sunglasses.  Our conversation went on for a long, happy while, during which time we did what dancers do when they get together:  talked shop.  (I should mention that I first learned about Pinkberry from Matt’s blog, where he posted a delightfully silly sketch about it a couple of years ago, by Jeffery Self and Cole Escola.)  Parents, be advised:  this video is emphatically NOT appropriate for young audiences.

Matt and I each ordered (you guessed it) a medium.  Oh, and I had a wonderful time that evening at Dance New Amsterdam with Sophia and Kristen (will the two of you think any less of me if I tell you I really liked watching Felix Cruz hamming around to the Shoop Song?), where I was privileged to meet several effusively friendly dancers and choreographers, and treated to a behind-the-scenes tour courtesy of Sophia.  Thence to a late night dinner at Republic in Union Square—where the wait staff welcomed us in, but virtually carried us out when we did not finish quickly enough for them—and more visiting back at my place.  Not making this up:  we talked (silly dancers) until 4:00 am.  On the East Coast in the summer, that’s just before sunrise.  The city that never sleeps, indeed.  An amazing first day back in New York.

Before my unlce died he explained to me that the instrument badly needed some repair work, in addition to tuning.  Enter Matt Coker, owner of Knox Music Studios, seen in these photographs disemboweling, cleaning and reparing it:

 Setting up

 Disemboweling begins

Piano guts, on the table

 Exposed to the light of day, first time in a long while

Piano surgeon at work

Filing hammers

For the first time in many years, the piano sounds very nice indeed.  Matt also suggested an accomplished musician he thought might be interested in playing for some of our classes at the school.  But while she is by all accounts a brilliant pianist, she has never played for ballet class; likewise, I have not had the luxury thus far to teach with live accompaniment.  This will be a learning experience for us both.

In addition to the goings-on in the classroom, I have once again attended ballet school myself this summer at American Ballet Theatre, this time learning Levels 4 and 5 in the National Training Curriculum.  While there I had the privilege of consulting with two wonderful accompanists—Michael Cherry and Miro Magloire—whose recorded music has accompanied many of our classes at KBS for some time now.  They each advised me on how best to go about helping a pianist learn to play for class; Michael gave me the titles of two texts aimed at doing this (go here and here for more about these texts; talk about a niche market!), and Miro had some very good, hands-on suggestions for a first-time accompanist.  Hat tip to Michael and Miro, pictured here with me in studio 9 at ABT:

 Michael Cherry

 Miro Magloire

Miro is seen here wearing his name tag, as he was also a classmate at the training:  in addition to being an accomplished musician and classroom accompanist, Miro is a dancer and choreographer, with his own NYC-based company.

I have many more stories to tell of my ten days in the city, but I will save those for follow-up posts.  Meanwhile, I anticipate the return of my young students with much enthusiasm, and can’t wait to hear the Gulbransen once more in the able hands of a professional musician.  Thank you, Matt, Michael, and Miro; I think Uncle Stan would be pleased.

Primary Level A numbers, socks, and flowers for hair, at the ready

Primary Level A candidates pose for pictures before class 

 Primary Level B candidates ready for class

 Level 2-B candidates, cheerful in spite of nerves

Hair thingummy up close:

Merde to all my young students!

Technique, technique, technique.  Visit the Prix de Lausanne.  And go here for more about Emanuel.

These last weeks as I have begun working with American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum in my own ballet classroom I find myself bumping up against a small dilemma:  improvisation is to be explored in the lower levels of the curriculum.

Er, okay.  See, the thing is, I suck at improvisation.  I always have.  Once I discovered this truth about myself as a young ballet student I managed to finagle my way out of just about any situation in which I would be asked to improvise dance on the spot; I even “missed” most of my modern dance classes—where improvisation was likely—when I went away to ballet school (until the school notified my parents of this oversight on my part).  Note to my friends in the modern dance world for whom improvisation is practically second nature:  go ahead and collectively roll your eyes.  But American Ballet Theatre will be on my doorstep on April 24th to see how my young students have fared in their classes with me during the course of this academic year.  So improvisation it is.

I had an opportunity to take classes in Primary through Level 3 of the National Training Curriculum this past summer at ABT.  I recall a moment during the Primary Level class in which our teacher—the lovely and able Harriet Clark—said something along the lines of, Now here is where we would do our improvisation, waving it away so that we could proceed to the next exercise.  A little voice inside me screamed, Wait!  Stop!  Improvise what? Everybody else seemed satisfied that she was going on, so I put on my best poker face and nodded knowingly with them.  And unfortunately, we were not able to observe any classes in the very lowest levels of the curriculum, as the summer intensives students whose classes ran concurrently with ours were older and therefore in slightly higher levels (where, you guessed it, there is no improvisation exercise).

But I also recall an especially painful moment during the training in which one of my classmates attempted to “show” an improvisation.  This happened in a small group session, where we each had a chance—over the course of several days—to create exercises in Primary through Level 3, demonstrating them for the group and then listening to feedback from each other and our instructor.  Improvisation Lady, we’ll call her, stood and announced the scenario she had created, and then painstakingly took us through each and every aspect of it in agonizing detail.  Cringe.  In truth I was mesmerized by it, but struggled to find its relevance for the ballet classroom.  When Improvisation Lady had finished, our instructor solicited comments.  After an uncomfortable silence, she suggested that you can’t really give an improvisation:  to do so would be, well, NOT improvisation.

Ouch.  Proverbial slap on the wrist.  I at least had the wherewithal to make a mental note at that moment that improvisation is NOT to be dictated to young students; it would be sort of like a prosecutor leading the witness, sort of.  I think.

Left to my own devices, I’ve had to figure out this improvisation thing so that my students are ready for their examination classes in the spring.  So I decided to plow ahead with my own ideas.  I’ve been experimenting with the orchestrated music from familiar ballets—Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker for the time being (it is, after all, Nutcracker season).  On some days I give each child her own piece of music, typically about thirty seconds to a minute.  I tell her she has the entire room to herself, and to imagine she is on a stage.  I encourage her to do anything—anything—that inspires her imagination, but I suggest that she draw from the movements already in her collection: skipping, galloping, swaying, tiny runs on demi-pointe, turning movements.  Sometimes I include “props”—hoops placed on the floor, for example—and then see how the presence of the hoops affects her movement:  will she jump into and out of them? run around them? ignore them altogether?  I place a scarf in each of her hands, because I discovered in short order that a child is more likely to use her hands and arms that way.  And then off she goes.

On other days I select one piece of music and allow each child to create an improvisation to only that piece of music.  First, we listen.  Then I solicit ideas:  what do you think of when you hear that music?  I get all kinds of answers to that question (a fairy, a hummingbird, a witch, a butterfly), and then I tell them to go for it.  What interests me the most on these days is how each child borrows ideas from the ones who went before.  I think both “versions” of the improvisation are useful.  In the first case, each dance is unique.  In the second, each dance has unique aspects, but each young artist has the opportunity to improve on or at least change what went before.

So how is it going, you wonder?  So far, so good, mainly.  The overwhelming majority of my students look forward to improvisation.  Some of them can’t wait for that moment in class; the joy they feel in the movement is written all over their faces.  Others volunteer to go first just to get it over with (I feel their pain).  I do appreciate the idea that it is important to keep the artist alive in our children, as Raymond Lukens so poetically observed during the ABT training.  I also think it is entirely possible to be a wonderful young artist without creative exercises that put you on the spot.  Still, I think it is fair to say that the improvisation exercise is pretty overwhelmingly successful thus far.

Frankly, I’m enjoying trolling for new music to use for improvisations.  And there have been some other interesting epiphanies, as well.  On one recent day, one of my Primary Level B students (that’s the class pictured here) inadvertently executed the most gorgeous grand jete entournant as part of her improvisation.  Of course, she has no clue what that is.  But her movement was so lovely that I gasped out loud, just like when I go see ballet in the theatre.  We are after all a bunch of bunheads at Knoxville Ballet School.  Improvising bunheads, that is.

In an earlier post I told you that my tenure in New York City was punctuated several times by visits with some dear friends, so now I would like to share those happy moments.  (This, by the way, is the building at 890 Broadway, where ABT has its offices and studios, and where I studied for seven days.)

First, I had made plans weeks before my trip to reconnect with my former performing arts school roommate, Sophia Fatouros; currently Dance Director at the Harlem School of the Arts, she has lived and worked in the city for many years now.

In the summer of 1976 my parents and I walked through the Daniel Street dormitory’s heavy front door at the National Academy of Arts (now sadly gone, this was once a beacon of performing arts excellence in the unlikely town of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois) to find Sophia and her mother.  Sophia—a tiny, smart girl—quietly informed us that the Daniel Street zip code was 61820; an important little nugget in an age well before personal computers equipped with email and Facebook.

I was thirteen and a long way from my native Memphis, literally and figuratively.  Sophia helped me settle in, although I had to sweet talk our dorm mother into allowing me to change assignments to make her my roomie; apologies to the loud girl from Chicago.  Sophia encouraged me to contribute to her impressive gum wrapper chain, which extended from one corner of our long room diagonally to the opposite corner.  (I still know how to make those chains and have passed on that important life skill to my teenager.)  She taught me how to eat a gyro.  And she also supplied me with this useful information:  if you wash your hair in cold water, it will not have static.

We had not seen each other in about three decades, and I must say, she looks fabulous—she has held up much better than I.  After what I gather is a Very Long subway ride, she met me for a late night catch-up at my apartment, where she delivered a lovely stack of ballet books, and then treated me to wonderful repast at a funky diner (really funky:  grasshopper was a menu item) a few blocks south of Park Avenue and 19th, and a block or two to the east.  We talked and talked for a long, happy time, and could have continued for weeks.  Next summer, Sophia!

I also had the opportunity to finally meet “Auntie” Karen Schlotter, whom I’d talked to many times by phone since my Uncle Stan’s untimely death a few years ago.  Karen and Uncle Stan were very close friends for decades and she has been like family to me in recent years, supplying all kinds of anecdotal (and more substantive) stories about him.  Uncle Stan was involved with the Light Opera of Manhattan (LOOM), as both musician and conductor.  He and Karen lived in adjacent apartments in Queens.  He was always dear to me, but especially in the years leading up to his death, as he struggled with his HIV; I had the great privilege of giving the eulogy at his funeral.

Karen insisted on treating me to dinner at Brasserie Les Halles on Park Avenue, a few blocks north of my apartment.  It was a delightful time, with animated conversation and fabulous food and wine.  As we were leaving, our waiter chased us down on the sidewalk and shoved a paper into our hands, beseeching us to find the YouTube video featuring, er, him, of course.  If you have exactly nothing better to do with your time, go here to meet Tim-the-Waiter; look for him around 4 minutes 15 seconds.  P.S.  He is nowhere NEAR as good a waiter as Anthony Bourdain suggests.  Sorry, Tim, and Anthony.  But the food there is pretty dang good.  And Auntie Karen, you are a hoot.

And finally, my good friend and occasional KBS guest artist Ryan Carroll met me mid-afternoon following his class at Peridance Center, just after  I had finished my oral exam on the last day of the intensives, and right across the street from ABT and Peridance at the wonderful Fishs Eddy store.  He took me to an amazing little place on Bleeker Street; I was force fed the World’s Best-Ever Banana Pudding across the street in a park with the most fearless and aggressive pigeons I have ever seen….

Then it was on to the lovely apartment where Ryan lives with his beautiful wife, Diana; that’s the view from their bedroom, above—Diana helped me set up the shot.  We schlepped our stuff down, took the doggie for a quick walk, and then went to the grocery store to get ingredients for the amazing Barefoot Contessa dinner Ryan prepared in their tricked-out kitchen.  We gathered food, wine, and doggie-in-her-crate, and enjoyed a sumptuous feast on the building’s rooftop deck with yet more incredible views of the Manhattan skyline.  A perfect ending to an amazing ten days.  Thanks more than you know, Ryan and Diana!

I will be back next summer, NYC, to continue with Levels 4 and 5 at American Ballet Theatre.  What an amazing adventure.  And I had plenty—PLENTY—of clean underpants.

Until next July, I remain yours truly,

Princess Glad-to-Be-Home Deb

I went to New York to learn, plain and simple.

I was not sure where I would fall along the continuum of teachers attending the National Training Curriculum intensives at ABT, although I feared it would be dangerously close to zero.  In fact, I think I barely squeaked past the admissions committee because of my training credentials, which are respectable at least.  Some of my classmates, though, had danced as principals and soloists with top-five companies.  Yet each of us stood to gain something from the training, not least of all the official stamp of approval ABT would grant us on successful completion of the examinations at the end of our week-long session.  Even the celebrities among us were chewing their nails in anticipation of exam day.  Certification notwithstanding, my primary mission was to soak up as much wisdom as I could from the sterling faculty during my brief tenure there.

I told you last time about Raymond Lukens, our main instructor (at left).  Joining him were Harriet Clark, Kate Lydon, and Julie Daugherty, who is ABT’s physical therapist.  On most days we sat in rows of metal folding chairs in ABT’s Studio 9 while Raymond explained the curriculum, his lectures seasoned by his trademark humor, a tiny mic (or as he called it, the Voice of God) fastened to his shirt collar and copious notes laid out on a music stand in front of him.  He often stood to demonstrate for us, and on occasion  implored us to stand and try something along with him.  Sometimes Harriet and Kate also demonstrated and helped answer the questions that were lobbed at the front of the room relentlessly.

After a couple of hours of lecture we had the opportunity to take ballet class in the very level we had just learned, so that we could get some of the technique into our muscles.  Some trainees particpated actively, others observed and took notes.  Harriet and Kate variously taught these classes.  We were also divided into much smaller groups and assigned classes to observe.  This was a useful exercise, as we could watch others who had completed the training actively teach the curriculum to the lucky children who had been accepted into the ABT summer intensives.  Each summer intensives teacher delivered the material with a distinct style; I began to comprehend the built-in flexibility in ABT’s guidelines.  In short, I saw myself standing at the front of my own classroom, teaching ABT’s National Training Curriculum to Knoxville’s young students.

Our final session of the day was typically a review of what had transpired, a question and answer session, or a lecture on the progression from one level to the next.  The progressions lectures proved indispensible, as the material therein was to figure prominently on our examinations.  More importantly, it was in the progressions that we began to see how a particular movement evolved in the life of a young student—how something that felt more like a game in Primary Level, for example, was in reality helping to establish important lines in the upper body and arms that would be necessary later.

So I considered my mission accomplished within a very short while.  It was fun and enriching to meet others of my ilk, and a real treat to hear Raymond’s hilarious anecdotal stories day in and day out, but mainly I learned.

We were about halfway through our training when it was announced that we would be invited to observe an unscheduled demonstration class for Level 5 students enrolled in ABT’s prestigious Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.  This class was prepared especially for a visitor to the school, none other than Nigel Lythgoe—the executive producer and judge for the popular television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.”  This news was met by equal parts enthusiasm and silence.

I have blogged about Nigel and SYTYCD in the past.  And if you happen to follow the link, you will see that what I had to say about him and his show was unflattering, bordering on unkind.  Now the cheeky Englishman had resurfaced in the flesh at American Ballet Theatre to observe a class arranged especially for him, and then to speak to the rest of us after class ended.  I will say that the class itself was amazing, pure and simple.  I wanted it to go on and on; the JKO children have obviously learned from the finest, and have impeccable technique underlying burgeoning artistry; what a treat to watch them dance.

But Nigel’s presentation (a thinly-veiled pitch for his new Dizzy Feet Foundation) overran the time allotted; I began looking at my watch nervously, as the minutes ticked on well into our Level 3 technique class scheduled for that afternoon.  Edginess grew to irritation as I listened to Nigel tell us—the hundred or so ballet teachers gathered there to listen to his spiel—that we in the ballet world were elitist, and if we did not change, our art form was in danger of dying.  He went so far, in fact, as to poke fun at the way dancers walk, by way of a ridiculous pantomime:  he stood up with his spine stick-straight, and proceeded to waddle across the floor, his feet splayed open 180 degrees.  Thanks, Nigel, for that pointless (so to speak) demonstration.  Interesting approach to fundraising, too:  gather 100 ballet teachers in a room, insult them, and then ask for money.  Good luck with that.

With my mom’s voice ringing in my ears (If you can’t say anything nice…), I figured it was my fault that we were being subjected to an afternoon dose of Nigel Lythgoe.  I would dismiss it all as pure silliness, but I can’t escape the notion that he is not actually helping the dance world.  He may, in fact, be hurting it.

I recently came across a Times article about a dance film that has been in production for the last couple of years, documenting and resurrecting Jerome Robbins’ Opus Jazz; it is being shot at various locations in NYC, and features dancers from New York City Ballet.  The film’s producers hope to bring high-quality ballet to a broader audience; the key phrase here is high-quality.  City Ballet soloist Adam Hendrickson, who appears in the film, thinks it might serve as “a more sophisticated alternative to television shows like ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’”  He goes on to say, “All of those TV shows glorify bad dance and bad choreography:  it’s artless, but that’s the pinnacle of dance now, and it bothers me as a stage performer who has worked on a craft.”

Nicely put, Mr. Hendrickson.

Until next time, I remain yours truly,

Princess (Go-To-Your-Room) Deb