Colman

Had another two hour workshop this week, with one of our teacher's occasional substitutes. Only eight dancers this time (two of them more advanced teenagers), but it *is* mid-August.

Peanut68, you need to persuade some others form your class! We had an exam class of 9 adults ranging from 20s to 60s doing grade 1 and 2. Merits for everyone, next year it'll be grades 1, 2 and 3.

I didn't that much of the classical repertoire was made with modern ballet dancer physiques in mind.

I've known people to get back on horseback infeasibly soon after double knee replacements (and start hunting soon after!), and my karate instructor is on his second set, I believe.

Weight bearing legs have to be properly straight, not locked back or overextended - or bent. Copeland is suggesting that a good way of achieving that is making sure the weight is going into the front of the foot rather than down the back of the leg and into the heel, which I can relate to. (I'm beginning to suggest my very tight hamstrings are due in part to four decades of putting weight too far back.)

Congratulations!

Does anyone have any suggestions for finding a suitable expression for dancing/exams? My current default expression veers - it turns out that decades of on-and-off martial arts aren’t a great preparation for dancing in this case - from perplexed and possibly constipated to grumpy old man to homicidal. My wife was concerned I was likely to scare my examiner before the summer! However, any fake smile I plaster on makes me look utterly demented in a movie serial killer sort of way, which seems unlikely to help. Any ideas?

Yes, I could really have done with the pieces he was stealing: I was dancing quite a lot at the time.

Yeah, the 8 year old is bad enough. He started stealing choice morsels from my plate during the run up to shows. I shudder to think what'll happen when he's a teenager, and the idea of feeding him and his dancing brother when they're (say) 12 and 15 is terrifying. Maybe I should encourage them to take up competitive tiddlywinks instead.

It'd be nice if us in foreign parts could pay for a license too.

I doubt that author realises much, if that's what they think it's about. But not a topic to explore here. Why *are* people unable to sit for an hour and a half without stuffing salted cardboard into their faces?

Bereft of classes here too: regular ones ended at end of June, my wife found some others to do for July but there's nothing now: our teacher ran a workshop on short notice one evening last week and a dozen frustrated dancers turned up. I'm down to two martial arts classes a week and a bit of horse riding and it's just plain weird to have all this free time. Nothing on for the two boys either: I have no chauffeuring to do. Very strange. There's some hope that we'll get another workshop before the end of August.

Yeah, can I suggest that this thread terminate before it goes badly wrong?

A quick shot or two of the curtain calls seems inoffensive enough - we often do it - but without disturbing other people. Sit. Clap. Take a couple unobtrusively saying in your own space. Clap some more. No flash - pointless anyway - obviously. Doesn't the note on the programme generally say something like "no pictures during the performance"? I'm fairly uptight about these things but I'm pretty sure "rude" and "ungrateful" are waaaaay over there somewhere.

Might do that: I need their Roberto Bolle shirt too.

Is that the one that's sadly never in stock in my size?

No point studying theatrical dance if you're not entertaining people. :-)

Ha: end of year school show rehearsals started immediately after exams, with the choreography (simplified version of some of the Chalice dance from Swan Lake - there were 17 of us) being finished about four days before the show. I'd joined the boys* - including my 8 year old - to learn a little bit of one of Siegfried's variations and when our teacher decided she needed to fill eight bars in the adult dance the male dancer got a solo to do. ???? ???? ???? My jeté en tournant could have been better, but nobody died. Anyway, grade 2 curriculum is broken down into notes and video clips and loaded onto my phone for daily practice. --- * I have no pride at this stage. If doing a class with 8 and 10 year olds is what it takes to get some different stuff, that's what I'll do. Not a lot of adult male beginner classes, and there's not much time in normal classes to teach me boy's stuff. I'll have to address that in a year or two - I think there's a class in the city I can do when I get a bit more advanced.

Whatever you've got and are willing (and have the time) to share with us!

Exam results yesterday: a merit in Grade 1 Imperial Ballet. I am apparently a reasonably competent 8 year old. The whole class (9 of us) got merits at grade 1 and 2.

Thanks drdance! I'll go hunt those up, though it occurs to me that an *effect* of ballet training would be to train people to think in ways that would tend to give Type A answers on questionnaires.

"I'm guessing the work by Linda Hamilton..." My google-fu on this doesn't seem to be up to scratch: I'm not familiar enough with the area to dig up the reference.

"It is well documented (among dance science research - see work by Linda Hamilton among other) that adults who dance at high level all have the same personality type," "All"? Really? Do you have a reference for that?

As a relative newcomer myself, Fille is a wonderful piece of work. Easy to watch, lots of fun and lovely.

I think this is one of the occasions where tastes diverge rapidly.