I went for a walk.

And I tried to take some pictures of things that I see regularly in MTL.  Here goes….

We crowd around this tiny table for our meals, or use to coffee table in the next room. It’s cozy, and thank god we are all comfortable being up in each others grills all the time.

I walk through this park everyday on the way to class, and pass by the fountain that is so nice to sit by and relax in the evening.  It is know as Square St. Louis.

This is some kind of government building…it reminds me of a lovely palace, and sticks out greatly in my mind.  It’s a hallmark of the look of Montreal to me.

Apartments here are very quaint, and in my opinion, ubes cute.

And here, people put bumper stickers on their cars that support causes I can really get behind, yet not downwind of.

Picture post!!

This is gonna be fun guys, because that means I don’t have to type a lot.  Last night, Rachelle and I went to wander around at

While at the festival, we heard several singers/bands that I had never heard before.

While we were there, Rachelle saw her first Colorguard performance!  She had never seen this before, being from France and all, so when we got to go home I schooled her on winterguard via Youtube.  Michael, you would be proud, I showed her Northern Lights and James Logan.  She got the good stuff!

This city is just too cool.  With festivals like this happening throughout the summer, and so many people out to enjoy it!  Where else does this happen, FOR FREE???

For some reason it seems more organized in my mind to put the other pics in another post, because they are not so related.

Wondering how my shoes have been?

In honor of my newfound skill at posting pictures, and on request of Ali Aguilar (Hi, Ali!!!) I am posting some pics of the Bravas that I had purchased and danced for a little bit in before leaving for Springboard.  If any recent customers of mine are reading, they may or may not have seen them as my demo of my first darning job (which helped immensely, by the way).  I have spent 3 hours a day rehearsing vigorously in them, in addition to a great deal class time in them as well.  For the record, even with great shoes pointe work hurts like hell. Friday was the first day that I did not want to jump out of the window by the second hour.  Also, I have fairly beaten the shit out of these shoes.  I’m proud of myself.

They look (and smell) way dingier in real life.  The boxes are still pretty alive, but there is not much left for the shank or the tips.  However, I am much more comfortable turning in them now, and like I said pointe work is just a bit more bearable than previously this week.  I wish I had a video of the piece to post…maybe one day we can work that out.

Diversion

At the moment I am a little upset and frustrated and I don’t really want to talk about any of it.  Apparently, it is difficult to get a headshot printed in Canada on a holiday weekend.  So in the meantime, I just found out how to get pictures from my phone to my coomputer via Bluetooth, so in order to cheer myself up I am going to leave you with a very flattering photo I took of one of my roommates who spilled milk on herself before class.

Catch up!

So it is time to elaborate on a few things that I have not been able to blog about…

So earlier this week, I had dinner at Edgar Zendejas’s house.  He was throwing a little get-together for his dancers and for Kidd Pivot, because he had several friends in that company who he was not going to see while he was rehearsing his company and then leaving to Domain Forget for residency.  He invited me and two other guys he knew from Springboard, as well as some old BJM dancers he was friends with.  As I had stated before, Crystal Pite was to be there as well.  For those who don’t know, I very briefly met Crystal during a reception for Netherlands Dance Theater at Russian Pointe while they were on a US tour.  It was my first time to see her work live, and see her in person, and I have practically worshipped her since.  I was one of the first people to arrive, so by the time she came I was situated with some food and had met everyone there.  It was such a perfect opportunity to make some new friends in Montreal who were not a part of Springboard.  When Crystal came in, she said hi to everybody, but there was absolutely no hint of her recognizing me or looking familiar in the least.  I thought about going over later and asking her if she remembered how we met, but then a girl who knew her from BJM (Danielle) sat down next to her and dominated her attention for a few minutes.  Naturally, I listened in on their conversation while they filled each other in on what they had been up to since the last time they worked together in a studio.  Then Danielle asked “the questions”…

“So are you having any auditions soon?  Are you looking for anyone?”

I realized something very important in this moment: I am sure that by now Crystal has been driven crazy with these questions from dancers.  Even the ones she knows. Everyone wants to work with her, and it is pretty obvious as to why. However, in this moment, Crystal just wants to be a person, hang out with her friends, and now talk about having a company or making dance or all that other stuff.  She just wants to see her old friends and tell funny stories and make jokes (all of which she is also very good at, by the way). She answered Danielle directly an honestly, that she probably was not going to be looking for anyone for a few years. So, I decided that if I was going to talk to her, it was going to be as casual of conversation as possible. And occasionally I did get a word in with her.  She was relaxed, and super comfortable to be around. She’s just a cool chick who really likes to hang out with people.  I did, however, tell her that I really liked Plot Point, her most recent work for NDT.  She was really surprised that I saw it, and didn’t know that they had put a video on it. Anyway, her response was, “It was stupidly ambitious for the time frame I had to create it, but thanks.” I thought it was pretty funny.  Then the other two Springboard guys sat down next to her to talk about how much they loved the DANCE.  I rolled my eyes. However, I could not help but notice how remarkable well she navigates social situations.  But enough about Crystal, I was having fun with other people, too.  I talked to Edgar about the chances of me getting to work with him if I came to Montreal.  He liked the idea that I was working with Jose Navas, because the two of them often share dancers.  However, Jose would be the one to have enough money to pay for my papers to work in Canada for a bit.  For now, this is the situation I am hoping for.  However, Emily Molnar is in watching classes to invite dancers to her audition.  Let’s hope I get to go to that one tomorrow!

In the meantime, I am fighting with a clogged kitchen drain, and losing pretty miserably.  I might have to get breakfast at the coffee shop, after all.

I am becoming less and less of an early riser…

Finally, a new post!!!

It has been getting hard to wake up early enough in the morning to write, but now we have internet in the apartment so I don’t have to walk all the way to the coffee shop to do this!

Today is a national holiday in Canada, known as “St. John the Baptist Day”.  I do not know why this is celebrated, but apparently the banks and grocery stores and whatever are supposed to be close.  This also shifts around where we have our classes, for for the the changes are very minor. I have class in a studio MUCH closer to our apartment, so I don’t have to rush around like a crazy person this morning.

Normally, I have taken classes this week in the studios of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, which is quite a walk from my place.  But the walk is down a very nice street, and it’s a great warm up for class. I think about what I read from Deborah Vogel, about how the best way to warm up for class is to do something cardio-related that gets your body temperature up, then lightly stretch and roll out muscular tension.  I guess it’s worked well, because I have had decent classes lately.  That reminds me, I need to do more of the Active Isolated Stretching techniques, and talk about how they work for me.

In my rehearsals I am dancing en pointe.  Like, real crazy turning and fast movement and everything en pointe.  Being a pointe shoe fitter for a few years, you would think that I would have had a better grasp on what to expect.  I realize that no matter how great and supportive your shoes may feel, pointe still hurts REALLY BAD during a 3-hour rehearsal.  But as I do it more and more, I just kind of get used to it.  I wonder how I will feel about it by this weekend.

Emily Molnar of Ballet BC will be watching ballet classes today and the next day.  Then a list of dancers will be posted who will be invited to the audition.  I really hope that I at least get invited.

My evening with Crystal Pite was pretty awesome, but I did not talk to her a whole lot.  I will come back later and elaborate on this more.  For now, I gotta get in line for the shower and throw some breakfast together. Off we go pray for my toes!

d

Don’t ever do this….

Don’t ever leave your credit or debit card in an ATM when you are out of the country.  You will find yourself S-O-L in a jiffy.

I decided to allow myself one weekend of fun and nightlife in Montreal, since there were no auditions for me.  I have to say, the gay nightlife in MTL is the same, yet different.  The bars and clubs kind of had the same vibe of what I had seen before in other cities (not surprising) but the village is still very cute.  I just did not like that NONE of the places we went to accepted cash, and go figure the dinky club ATMs have a thing against US debit cards.

So, I decided to get a drink but needed some cash, which required me walking about three blocks to an actual bank to make a withdrawal, and it was one of those ATMs that pulls your card and holds it in the machine while the transaction was being done.  Back at home in Chicago, these ATMS do not exist anymore (at least not with Chase) and in my hurry to backtrack to the club I forgot to take my card out of the machine.  I did not even realize that I didn’t have it until I was almost back at the club.  I got Michael who was waiting for me there, and we ran back to the bank as fast as we could.  To no avail.  My card was gone, most likely eaten by the ATM.  So, we immediately headed home while I bled on myself because somehow, while running out of the club, my thumb got caught in the metal door frame and I ripped my knuckle open a little bit.  I got to the apartment, grabbed my computer, and tried to Skype call my bank to cancel my card and have it replaced.  This is no easy task when you have to go to a 24-hr coffee shop in one of the biggest tourist locations in a city for internet access.  But I got it done, I called the bank again today to confirm, and now I have no access to my money for the rest of my stay in Canada.  Without my debit card, I can’t really do anything.  By the time my replacement card comes in, I will almost be back in Chicago so there will be no point in having it mailed here.  In the meantime, all I can do is get Armando to wire money to be via Western Union so I don’t starve.  But at least I’ll be skinny….

So last night was bad, mmmkay?  I don’t want to go out or drink or anything that resembles partying again.  I just want to go to my classes, have my rehearsals, and get a job up here already.  Clearly, divine intervention is telling me to focus, for realz.

Tonight, I will be attending a get-together that Edgar Zendejas is throwing for his company and….ahem…KIDD PIVOT at his place.  I was invited with a couple of other boys from the program, and this means that I WILL BE SEEING CRYSTAL PITE AGAIN.  She is my hero. If you don’t know who she is, GO LOOK HER UP NOW.

In the meantime, there is still laundry to do.

A Centerstage moment

So the casting is up for what companies we will be working with for the next two weeks.  It was posted just after an in-studio showing of Margie Gillis, who we have dubbed to be the Meryl Streep of modern dance.  At the board, all of the dancers were crowded around to see who they were to work with and if their friends were cast with them.  Yeah it was totally Centerstage…

So for the next two weeks I will be working with Jose Navas/Cie FLAK.  I am sure that I did not make the workshop part with him to sound very exciting, but really I am pleased with this.  I know that I am going to get along very well with him, and I am going to get to be a part of a creation process, which is the kind of experience I was really hoping for.  Here is a sample of what he does:

There is a bit of a bummer: Two auditions are happening soon, and so far I have been invited to neither.  The first one is for Company XIV in NYC, and the other is for Compagnie Marie Chouinard.  I was invited to audition for CMC last September, and I feel like I did moderately well at the audition, considering that it was so avant guard and taught in French.  This time, however, I was not considered and that is how I have to accept it. Later there will be a list of those invited to audition for Ballet British Columbia, and possible for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and La La La Human Steps.  In the meantime, I have plenty of things to focus on.

Today is our first day off in Montreal, so I plan to explore as much as I can without exerting myself too much.  Later I will accompany Rachelle on a pointe shoe fitting, and check out the studios of Les Grands, because I will be taking class there all next week. I downloaded Skype, and made calls to Armando, my mom, and to Russian Pointe.  Tomorrow I’ll try to call my dad and sister.  It was really comforting to hear some familiar voices.

So…I’m hungry.  Haven’t had anything but coffee yet today, and while I love feeling skinny it just doesn’t seem appropriate for the weekend.

The honeymoon stage might be over.

Sorry I slept in a little bit and am posting kind of late.  Today was a particularly tiring one, and it doesn’t come as a surprise.  I have been processing a lot of information, and have been trying to plan and live healthy at the same time.

Today was rehearsal with Jose Navas of Compagnie Flak.  I found the workshop to be a sort of hybrid between learning steps and improvising with them.  It did not hurt my brain too much, thankfully.  He gave us a phrase of movement that was rather fast and somewhat technical, and I enjoyed doing it.  Then we were split up into groups, and each group was divided in half.  Half of our group slowly repeated the phrase, while the other half created movement that was based off of the phrase, but still in contrast to it.  Then, those that were doing the original phrase were taken away, and an entirely new piece of movement was left.  It wasn’t the most groundbreaking creative process I have seen, but I learned to see way more potential in movement and to quickly become aware of amazing opportunities to create.  I really appreciate Jose’s energy and attitude.  He can crack a joke, but not get distracted, and he really enjoys what he is doing.  It put me in a good place for my rehearsal with Julian.  I am enjoying how Julian creates more and more.

Throughout the day I started feeling a little stressed and a little sad, for a number of small reasons, I suppose.  Whenever this is the case, I have to keep reminding myself that I worry about things that are not actually happening, and I need to just be in the moment.  Things like this are always temporary, and sooner than later I will feel just fine.  I had a fleeting moment of this in rehearsal, while watching two of the other dancers improvise for Julian.  I’m not even sure what it was, but in that moment any moment of my life practically disappeared.  I kinda felt like I was floating, because I was exactly where I needed to be and knew it.

After rehearsal I was in need of more grocery shopping, but before heading to the store I just took a walk around the streets by my apartment, trying to get more familiar with the neighborhood.  I have a terrible sense of direction, and have not put any effort into exploring routes outside of how I get to the studio and back.  I walked by apartments, and saw a man attending a small patch of grass and garden between his place and his neighbors.  Could I make one of these places home? Would I really find a place in this country?  Not in a physical sense.  A sense of belonging.  These are the things crossing my mind right now, and I am sure it’s pretty whiny.  Moving on.

Word on the street has it that OMGCRYSTALPITE!!!! is in town rehearsing with her company. It is my new mission to cross paths with her sometime in the next couple of weeks.  I will buy her a drink, tell her that her choreography makes my heart feel like it being set on fire, and then I will hand her my resume.  It’s a pretty simple plan of action, really.

As I sit in the coffee shop, there is a man and woman playing/singing blues.  He is on guitar, and she is quite a singer.  She told me I looked familiar, and asked me if my name was Eric.  I told her no, but asked her if I reminded her of someone who was cute.  She said he was extremely cute.  In that case, I told her, she could call me anything she wants.  Now during her sets, she has directed her verses towards me and given quite a show.  I love this. Maybe the honeymoon stage really isn’t quite over yet.

Hey, don’t I know who that is….?

Ok, Russian Pointe amigos, you need to help me out!  In “The Fire Within,” what is the name of that Russian coach with the beard and glasses?  Please comment and let me know…was it Vladimir?

Anyway, on my way to the Cafe Depot this morning, I PASSED BY HIM WALKING HIS DOG BY MY PLACE! He has a very big dog, too.

So that was really intensely exciting for me.  The other thing really intensely exciting for me was everything that happened yesterday.  We had Ami Shulman for modern, who I enjoy because she uses a lot of inversion and arm strength in her class.  Anyone who knows me knows that I like to be upside down on my hands. Her class is so completely soothing and relaxing, yet not cryptic or hard to follow.  The vocabulary was at least recognizable. I think it worked out perfectly to have a nice relaxing modern class after a pretty intense ballet class the day before.

I just realized that I looked up in the corner of my screen and was surprised to see that it was only Wednesday.  I feel like so much has happened already, and I can’t believe that there are over two more weeks of this.

Now to my favorite part: The workshop with BJM_Danse.  Our group was taught excerpts from Jack in a Box/Les Chambres du Jacques, which originally I thought were the same piece.  Actually, they are kind of different and kind of the same piece, and the only distinction that was explained to be was that the characters in Jack are younger and in school, and the same characters are in Jacques but older.  Anyway, choreography by Aszure Barton, someone who has somewhat more recently come on my radar. All I can say is that I am pretty sure that it will be my favorite workshop, and it is certainly what I am hoping to perform at the end of this (even though I will really not be upset about any casting; all of these companies are just fine, seriously). It was taught by James Gregg (some of you Chicagoans might know of him) and a guy named Andrew who used to be in BJM.  I definitely had a chance to bust out some of my jazz chops, which was more fun that I would normally admit.  I also partnered my fabulous roommate Mindy, who did fantastic work and also shared my sense of humor throughout.  The only truly difficult part was a men’s solo that was taught to the guys.  It spends a LOT of time in grand plie, and had some fairly awkward turns and balances.  Learning it at the end of the workshop while tired was pretty excruciating, but no matter I did what I could.  I only have three weeks of this, I might as well go for it and kill myself, right?

For the E-choreographer part, I have been cast with Julian Barnett.  He is based in NYC and is the artist in residence at Joyce Soho.  He was definitely who I was hoping to get cast with, and is the kind of choreographer that I love to work with.  He movement works on my body, and he involves a lot of improv exercises between the dancers.  It was became frustrating when he was having a difficult time explaining what he wanted to happen in the improvisation, and seemed to change the criteria.  Normally, dancers are very confused and uncomfortable when the instructions are obtuse.  Then I realized something: he was leaving the opportunity wide open for us.  As long as we just tried what we thought was going on, a hint of what was needed would be revealed, and it was up to us to keep investing and exploring and let the work reveal itself.  That’s when things started clicking, and I found a much stronger connection with my partner.  It felt great to hone in on another body in space, and share a deeper connection while moving.  It has been a long time since I have been in that place, and it is excellent to be back.  For all the younger dancers out there who have not had improvisation or contact improvisation, try to find a place to do it!  Look into it and research if there are no teachers for it, and just try it for the experience.  Even holding on to that connection for any kind of other choreographic purpose is very important.

A few of the dancers have seemed to be less that content with the choreographers they have been assigned to, or not as happy with the way the workshops have been going.  I do my best to explain however I can, but it is just like the lesson I learned when I was at Cerqua Rivera Dance Theater.  When I first joined the company, it was really difficult for me to enjoy the work, as it was in a style that I personally did not find relevant. There came this point, however, in which I realized that if I wanted to get a valuable experience for the time I was spending there, I needed to be completely invested in spite of my personal feelings about the work.  With the help of my super friends that I made there (which was the whole company, I’m not kidding),  I found out how to really just get into it and be present and completely working.  Before I knew it, I was having new breakthroughs and learning more about myself that I had not felt previously.  It’s foolproof: when in doubt, just throw yourself into whatever you are doing because there is something to learn there, no matter what.

After that soap box, it is time to get ready for more ballet class, workshop with Rubberbandance, and more rehearsal with Julian.  I am running a little late, so I did not have time to proofread this entry.  Pardon the typos….

D