Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A Panegyric

This post is dedicated to some of the hardest-working people I know and some of my dearest friends: my fellow dancers.  Yes, we are amateurs, but we are also passionate about ballet, and particularly during rehearsal season it often feels as if we live at the studio.  From the days when you feel light as a feather, to the evenings you can hardly move, to the nights when you've danced so long that your brain starts bouncing around like a drunken circus clown...you spend it all with the same people, and in the end they come to know you in a way few other people can.  There is a bond which grows when you've sweated and laughed and cried and bled side by side with someone.  For me, I always feel that with those people I hold no secrets.  I mean, there may be details about events in my life they don't know about, but of myself, my intrinsic me-ness, there is nothing hidden.  They've seen me at my worst and at my best.  My friend Jocelyn and I used to say that you had to be yourself in class because it is impossible to hide anything under those clothes.  I believe that statement began in a physical sense, in reference to some people's use of padding on certain parts of the anatomy, but it works in the psychological sense as well. :-)


Martha Graham said that "movement never lies" and I've found that to be true.  You can lie to yourself and others, but it is your body that gives you away.  Everybody can feel this, in a blush, in goosebumps, in hands that shake when the mind is gripped by fear.  In a dancer this is magnified.  You cannot sit on your hands to hide the shaking.  You must use your hands, your arms, your legs, every part of you, and in doing so you bare your soul to the audience. If you try to hide it, half your energy will be spent in the hiding and much of the beauty will be lost.


After a time you just love it.  Sometimes you can't remember why, but you don't want to be anywhere else.  And there is always that moment.  The dance is finished, your heart is racing, you've completed the last step, and there is a moment of silence before the audience begins to applaud.  All the best parts of living are contained in that moment.  You've fought, you've sacrificed, and now you've won.


So I would like to raise a glass to some amazing fellow dancers, past and present, and to our incredible (and incredibly demanding) teacher, Ann Marie Benedict.  Here's to another year of striving for an unachievable perfection; another year of blood, sweat, and tears; another year of camaraderie and laughter.  Here's to life, and dance.

A Mishmash of News

I am just home from spending the weekend in Portland.  The daffodils were blooming, and the flowering trees.  Two days of gloriously sunny spring weather, and two days of rainy spring weather.  Balance.  Balance is good.  Yesterday, my first day home, we had a blizzard.


I left my characters in a rather uncomfortable position when I went to Portland, and now I have to jerk myself back out of vacation mode and write them out of it.  I know where I need them to go, but I got out of the right mindset and must work my way back into it with the aid of coffee and solitude.  The poor things need to be rescued.


I made the move recently and joined KDP Select, so Ashford is available now for Amazon Prime members through the Kindle Lending Library, and I will have periodic free promotion days, of which today is the first.  So far today I've given away over five hundred copies for the promotion and Ashford is #7 in free historical fiction.  I'm just pleased that it's getting out to so many people.


We're starting rehearsals next week for our June show, and I've been commissioned to create several costumes for it.  I also have to finish choreographing my solo.  It's the first dance I've choreographed for a show, so I'm rather excited and nervous about that.  Of course, Ann is helping me polish it up.  I wouldn't dream of just throwing it on stage without the sort of polishing only Ann can give.  We'll see how that goes.


I'm planning a summer book promotion to coincide with my ten-year celebration of being cancer-free.  The plan is to donate all proceeds from Kindle sales for a certain time range to the Union for International Cancer Control, http://www.uicc.org/ and then finish it off with a head-shaving party.  I'll post updates on here and on Facebook once I know more details, and I may be asking for help spreading the word, if anyone's interested.


And now...back to the novel!

Dear People Who Follow My Blog,


I must apologize for my long delay.  That last post kind of took all the blogging energy out of me for a little while.  That, and I've been concentrating on the new novel and the dancing and really neglecting everything else.  We have a show coming up next week, so I've been writing in the mornings and then tearing off to rehearse like mad.  The consequent pile of sweat and bandaids and sore muscle rub which is myself does not feel much like blogging.  But rehearsals have turned the corner from the "it's going to be an epic disaster" phase, and are now on to the euphoric "it's all coming together" phase, and that's splendid!


So last night, a little after midnight, after a long, convoluted dream that seemed to go on forever...I got up to make breakfast.  I don't know why.  I remember looking at the clock, but the numbers didn't register.  My brain just said, "make breakfast" so I did...well, started to anyway.  I'd just embarked on the toasting and the slicing when Aaron walked into the kitchen and asked what I was doing.  I paused, knife in hand, said, "making breakfast" like it was the obvious thing, and then looked at the clock.  I was awake enough at that point to understand what the numbers were trying to tell me, and shamefacedly set down the knife and returned to bed.  And now I know what I would be like as a zombie.  I'd be the zombie you find in your kitchen in the middle of the night frying brains in an iron skillet.


Speaking of zombies, I must offer my congratulations to Victoria Dunn, of the awesomely snarky blog Handmade By Mother (the link should be on the right side of my page) who has recently scored a publishing contract with the Canadian publisher The Workhorsery, for her novel, Alice Hearts Welsh Zombies.  I'm not always up for the zombie craze, but this is a book I will be buying.  After all, it takes place in Wales, and involves bog-snorkling!


Cheers!

OZ - The Wonderful Wizard

Had to share this delightfully weird clip, from the Staatsballet Berlin's new production of Oz - The Wonderful Wizard. Hoping this comes out on DVD.

We had a good show last night, with a full house of delightfully noisy people.  It's amazing how much a good audience can help sometimes.  I admit, I'm a sucker for applause.  I swear it makes me jump higher.  All of the girls danced beautifully, and the little ones were adorable.  This is Lexie's last year with us, and she received mountains of flowers from her adoring fans.  All in all a very satisfying day.


And now I feel a bit like Cinderella after the ball.

We had a warm-up show of sorts last night, as guest performers for another group's show.  Performed two of our pieces and had a chance to get used to the stage again.  Today is our actual stage rehearsal, so I'll be spending the entirety of this afternoon and most of this evening at the auditorium.  Day off tomorrow, for which my feet will be most truly grateful, then regular classes and rehearsals Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Dress rehearsal Friday night, day off Saturday (except for my actual job) and the show Sunday.  It's crazy, but I love it.  Also, it's doing a great job of keeping my mind off the fact that they haven't yet announced the winners of the short story contest I entered.


And I love my girls.  Anyone who's ever performed with a group of any sort (music, theatre, dance) knows the feeling of camaraderie that comes of pulling off some sort of artistic feat together.  Over the rehearsal months I practically live with these girls.  They are wonderful people, dedicated artists, and true friends.  They are also some of the toughest people I know.

Cirque du Soleil's Varekai - Acrobatic Pas de Deux

This gives me chills. Such an amazing combination of music and choreography, grace and power.

...with an apology for the longer-than-usual delay.

I did mean to post yesterday.  Then our internet went down for the last half of the day and my plans were foiled.  This weekend was strangely unweekendish, full of things that on their own are rather nice but crammed all together make a big mess, like trying to squeeze leftovers into too small of a container.  So now it's back to the weekly grind, and my brain feels stagnant and overwhelmed at once, full of things I want to do and write but too tired to do more than think of them.


We danced for a fundraiser Saturday night... always a good time.  Rehearsals begin in earnest next week for our show in May.  I'm also doing a fair bit of costuming this year.  Yes, it's piling more on the plate, but dancing rests my mind even while it wearies my body, and sewing for dancing is the best kind.


The weather today has been a mix of snow and sun and rain.  It mirrors my mood and helps to bring me back in tune with life.  It is people who muddle me the most.  Looking down at the world from my imaginary tower I can feel in harmony with all, yet set me down amongst them and it is a different matter.  Down on the ground they confuse and intrigue me, fascinate and disgust me, amuse and frighten me.  I long to hide from their staring eyes.  And yet I know I am one of them.  I cannot escape humanity until I can escape myself.  Therein lies the conundrum.

That Crazy Time of Year

So this is it, the beginning of the mad, fun, grueling, wonderful rehearsal season, when we pretend to be real ballerinas and not just small-time slaves of Terpsichore.  Actually, we've been rehearsing one piece through February for a fundraiser at the end of the month, but the real excitement starts in March, when we begin to learn all the choreography and start working to bring the show together. 


Here I really must say something about my teacher, Ann Marie Benedict, because just the fact that Chewelah possesses such a gem is amazing.  In her youth she danced with a company in Los Angeles under the direction of Eugene Loring.  She never talks much about herself, but the stories she does tell from that time are fascinating.  She's been teaching ballet in Chewelah for over twenty-five years now.  I've been her student for twenty of them.  She is by far the greatest slave-driver I have ever encountered, and we love her for it.  It is easy, in a small town without much competition for quality, to become content with "good enough".  She has never allowed us to relax into a false sense of self-satisfaction, but always urges us to improve on what we did before -- to jump higher, balance longer, turn the double into a triple, express ourselves more.  Most important, she has passed on to us her passion for art in all its forms.


Our show this year will be on May 22nd, in Colville, Colville being the nearest town that actually has an auditorium.  One of the many challenges Ann has faced over the years is a severe lack of facilities.  Our classes and rehearsals are held in a dirty old gymnasium, and even though we have the space reserved months in advance, we are ousted whenever they need somewhere to have a blood drive, or rehearse a play.  However, plans have lately gone into motion for an actual dance studio, which would be the biggest step forward in years.  There is also the ongoing challenge of making ballet accessible to the inhabitants of a small town whose exposure to it often consists solely of multiple viewings of "Barbie in Swan Lake" with their very young daughters.  Chewelah does have a surprisingly strong core community of artists.  But there are certainly plenty of the other.


I like to think that these various obstacles have made us all stronger, more interesting dancers than we would have been otherwise.  In all events, they have certainly made us stubborn, determined, and maybe just a wee bit pugnacious.  

Dancing My Cares Away

It always amazes me how, even on the worst days, a ballet class can always clear the mind.  The world is chaotic and confusing, the house payment is due, another rejection letter arrived, you're tired, anxious, stressed... and then you go to class.  


It starts with the simplest of movements, basic bending, turning, shaping your body in time with the music, reminding your muscles where they belong, giving both the mind and body a set task to perform.  I find I am never more single-minded than when I am dancing.  Even when I write, there are distractions, thoughts that steal in to rob me of motivation, of confidence, of drive.  Dancing is different.  Thoughts come, but they only drift on the surface.  They don't matter.  They don't linger.  They are petty things.  All that matters is the next jump, the next turn.  Yes, I stumble, fall short.  There is physical pain, there is the effort of reaching for a perfection that is never attained.  But there is also the rush of feeling your body working, of achieving something which, though not perfection, is more than you attained before.  There is the exultation you feel at the height of a jump, when, for just a moment, you feel like you can fly.  And, best of all, when you perform, there is that second of silence.  The dance has ended, the music stopped, and there is just a breath of silence before the applause begins.  That is best of all.