zaterdag 14 november 2009

He people,

One more week of performances of 'Holland', 3 more shows to go and than 'Holland' is finished.. wauw feels strange.. After doing this piece so often I feel its almost in my blood :) I will miss it.. But I dont have much time to grieve, because one week after we will have the premiere of 'The Nutcracker' of Marco Goecke...

The Nutcracker is nice, a super different way of moving though, its inspiring, new, fresh, funny, superdetailed, etc. Its weird to rehearse a piece through the day and than rehearse another piece in the evening..
The rehearsels of the nutcracker were different than the creation of Holland, we just watched the tape from last year (because they did the piece last december also) and worked with the balletmasters on the material. For a lot of dancers it was nothing new, because they worked allready with marco goecke and they know the piece from last year. But for the new people, like me and Jeroen the other stagiere, it was a different cookie :) ;) !!
Its really isolated, fast and detailed material; which feels so strange on my body. Im used to move, to flow, to glide, to slide, to be soft, to be loose.. And now I have to do these movements that feel so unfamiliar and hard and harsh and ugly.. The first week of rehearsing my back was sore like what!!!!!!
Now that im more comfortable with this way of dancing, I enjoy it a lot! It has its charms to be so staccato.. Its still hard, and I really need to concentrate (and sometimes pretend that I know what Im doing), but I find my way in it.

Wauw I just had a moment of realising what a lucky person I am!!!! To work in such a great company, with so many unique and inspiring movers.. To be in the position that I can be in theaters almost eveyrday.. (sometimes when Im lying on the theatre floor before the balletclass we have before a performence, Im giving a little kiss to the floor and a quiet praise to the Lord because Im so happy that thát theatre floor is the floor I may jump and dance and move on and be wild on in a few hours in front of the eyes of an audience..)

Maybe sometimes I sound like Im used to this way of working, in this kind of company, with these choreographers, but Im not. Im enjoying and very thankfull. Its amazing!!!!!!!!!! really amazing!!!!!!!! Everyday I learn something new..

So this is it for now, Ill write more later.. kisses

maandag 2 november 2009

So sorry

Hello John and other people ;),

How are you doing?
Im good but very busy, which is the reason why Im not posting so often..
Im now working at Scapino Ballet till the end of December. In the beginning of the creating proces of 'Holland' (the new piece created by Ed Wubbe) me and Jeroen (the other stagiere) were learning as much material as possible. So we could replace people if needed.. on the 4th of september a dancer became injured, it was two days before the performence in Rotterdamse schouwburg in Rotterdam and Lucent danstheater in The Hague.. And I could replace her. It was very stressy for me, also because it would be my first performence with the company...and I had just one single rehearselday to learn her part, her timing and place.. Plus it would be two performences that day, one in Rotterdam and another one in The Hague.. But after all all went ok, it was supernice!

The work in general at Scapino is amazing, I really feel that I learn a lot about being in a company, to travel a lot, to perform often in different theaters.. its a whole new thing for me, though I feel more mature in who I am and in what I do.
Its super exciting, but to be honest its also a hard life. Its tuff to travel so much, sometimes you hang in the bus for two and a half hours... I really need to get used to it.. (though Im doubting if you ever get used to that kind of traveling), its also tyring to perform after a long trip by bus.. you really have to reload yourself. Its also crazy to do the same performence so often in a short time frame (in two months we have 21 performences of the same performence Holland)
Another thing thats really a challenge.. ballet.... oh man... I have to work so hard in the morning classes.. the level is high and the classes are different than in school.. I miss Grisha!!!!!!!!!!! So Grisha if you read this, I miss you!!!! Or John can you maybe send this information to him :) hihi
But about the morning classes, its everyday ballet. And I feel a real progress because I do ballet everyday, I can remember the excersices better and now im working on the technique. Its hard, but good for my body. We have a different teacher every week, this is nice because I get to know different ways of using ballet.

So, this is a bit what Im busy with..
More information will follow ;)

Merel