Winter Cold and Weekend Competitions

On the train after my dance classes in Tawa.

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all keeping warm. Sooo cold at the moment!!!!!
Winter is well on it's way over here.
It has been very cold coming home late at night from my classes in Tawa.
I have to walk home from the railway station with all the frost setting in.
It's really nice when it's not windy or raining.

It's been a full on week or so for me, lots of practicing and of course all my classes.
Last week I had a photo shoot for a woman's magazine.
Phew, it takes a lot of time and we had to do re-take after re-take of jetes, pirouettes etc for a good action shot.  It took a few hours.

Last weekend I went to the Boy's Master Class with the Royal New Zealand Ballet which was taught by Massimo Murru from La Scala Ballet in Italy.
He is in New Zealand as guest Ballet Master for the RNZB.
It was such a great class and I really enjoyed it.
There was quite a lot of boys taking the class this time.

It's the Queen's Birthday Comps in Lower Hutt this weekend and I will be dancing all four days dancing thirteen of my dances.
I'm even entered in the song and dance class which is going to be funny as my voice is really croaky at the moment.
I will be doing Robin Hood for this.  It has become my musical theatre dance now as I have Miss Hannigan now for my demi-character.
I can't wait to do Miss Hannigan again.

Ameno

Mum's made me some new costumes and added a few more details to my Ameno costume which meant I had to lie down on the floor with the heater on (coz it's so cold here), with my costume on while Mum painted it. Then she had to dry the paint with the hair dryer before I could take it off without paint going everywhere.
She also had to make me a new tunic for Robin Hood as I have grown out of my old one.

Looking forward to comps tonight, it's the variations tonight.  I'm in the Senior Championship.
This comp will be the last one that I will be doing at the Little theatre this year.
We can't afford to do any more than three competitions this year, so I'm making the most of them.
I'm doing thirteen dances this weekend, and none of them are repeats.

Next comps are the Kapiti Comps in July, the last for the year, and I will be dancing 16 times.
I'm going to be very tired but at least they are very close to home.
No Travelling!!!!!!

I'll be heading off to Lower Hutt soon, to go to the Little Theatre.
Wish me luck
                   
                      Salem  :-)

Krakowiak Costume Arrives and Today's Jazz Exam

Krakowiak Costume

On Wednesday evening we had a lovely surprise waiting for us.....
the long awaited Krakowiak costume from Poland.

We had been watching it's progress through tracking with the postal service and it seemed to have stayed in Sydney, Australia for over a week.

Looks great at the back too.

But it was finally here and we were so pleased, it was really well made and of very high quality.
The kaftan and hat were made from a very nice wool fabric so it will stand up to a lot of dancing.

It was well worth getting the costume from Poland.
Take a look at their website:  www.perfekt.krakow.pl

Salem is thrilled with his new costume.

Needless to say, Salem tried it on straight away and looked so good in it.

For the competitions on Labour Weekend (25th - 28th October) we will have to borrow a proper pair of character boots.  I will get him his own pair made next year after the summer holidays as his feet usually grow a bit then and of course no more comps this year after these ones.

We added the feathers to his hat.

I had ordered the hat without the peacock feathers, which they usually come with, as I didn't want any hassles with it getting into the country.  So we added our own ones.

Now he has to practice his dance with all his costume on so he can get used to it before the comps.

Warming up before his exam.

Today Salem had his Grade 5 NZAMD Jazz exam.
He was very pleased with how he had danced and said that the examiner was very nice.

After that, we had some lunch and then it was off to the gym for some dance practice.
Mainly concentrating on his contemporary syllabus stuff as he has his contemporary exam tomorrow morning.

Very pleased with himself afterwards.

So it is up early tomorrow to get ready for his contemporary exam and his jazz medal test and contemporary medal test.

Then later he has his Lyrical/Jazz/Acrobatics class at Waikanae Dance School.
He is a busy boy ...... but he loves it!!!!!

Dancing On Shaky Ground and Costume Making

At the Botanic Gardens oblivious to the
 earthquakes

Yesterday, Friday, we decided to catch the train into Wellington to have a bit of a break from dance practice and to by some fabric and look for some patterns to make some more costumes for all the new dances that Salem is choreographing.

First we went to the St James for lunch and a pot of tea.  Then it was off on the bus to Spotlight to look at all the fabrics.  We couldn't find what we wanted there, well there was some nice stretchy fabric but I was not going to spend $40 a metre for what we wanted.  Spotlight is supposed to be reasonably, if not cheaply priced.  But the cheaper stuff (not by much) was see-through when stretched.  So we didn't buy any fabric there, but we did by two Burda patterns there that were half price.  Not exactly what I wanted but I can adjust the patterns.

It is really hard to find patterns to make dance costumes for boys, especially a very skinny boy.  I find that I can lengthen patterns if buying children's ones, but with men's I have to shorten and take in them.  Also the designs are not exactly what I want so I have to alter the designs.  for jackets, the arm hole length has to come up higher under the arm so that it doesn't pull when the dancer lifts up their arms.  I bought a men's Butterick pattern very cheaply on-line as well this week.

So after leaving Spotlight very disappointed, we caught another bus back into the city and went to Arthur Toyes Fabrics in the Grand Arcade and had much better luck fabric-wise and bought some red and some purple stretch fabric.  I'm going to make some leggings (tights), leotards and body suits (long legged unitards).  The fabrics were on sale, I love sales!!!!!!!!

The patterns and material we bought

So happy with our purchases, we caught the very crowded bus up to the Botanic Gardens to chill out a bit and breathe some fresh air.  Salem ran about and went exploring while I found myself a nice spot to sit near the fountain in the shade.  It was so lovely after the bustle of the city.

While sitting enjoying the gardens I felt the earth move a bit under me and thought "ha, a small earthquake" and shouted out to Salem that I thought I had felt a small earthquake, he said he didn't feel anything, but he was running around.  I then forgot about it.

Soon after lots of people started walking through the gardens and I noticed that the traffic had got very heavy and I just dismissed it as people heading home for the weekend.  Not long after we notice fire-engine sirens and the engines coming past, but still thought nothing of it.

Then it was time to head off on our walk back into the city to get to the railway station to go home.  So off we went via a dairy (convenience store) and bought ourselves some ice creams to eat on our walk.  So much traffic and more fire engines going by, we thought there must have been a fire in the city.

As we walked we couldn't believe how much traffic there was and there were so may people waiting for buses and walking home.  It shows you how long it has been since we have lived in the city, we just thought it was normal.  When we got to the subway to get to the station, it was quite deserted even though on street level it was hard to move because of people everywhere.  Then we saw that the doors to the station were closed. which I have never seen before, and were cordoned off with emergency tape.  We went up to the security guards and asked why the station was shut.  They said the trains were not going.  We asked why.  They said because of the earthquakes.  http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9052471/Strong-quakes-hit-Wellington.  We must have been the only two people in the city oblivious to what had happened.

Salem was upset as there were not going to be any trains at all and there were no replacement buses and that he was going to miss his dance class in Waikanae.  Well, we had nowhere to stay overnight in Wellington, no transport so there was only one thing for it.....get to the main road and hitch-hike.  So off we went through hundreds of people, there were hundreds at the side of the road waiting for people to pick them up and we stuck our thumbs out and had a ride in a couple of minutes.  http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9053603/Commuters-rely-on-the-kindness-of-others  A lovely lady was going out to Waikanae said jump in and we did along with a man who was going to Paraparaumu.  Fantastic!!!!

It was a long ride as the traffic was grid-locked at times but once out of the city and up the gorge, the traffic was quite steady.  I had phoned home to see if the grumpy teenager was okay and he said that the earthquake had really rocked the house but nothing was damaged.  The electricity had been off for a while but was back on again.  I felt better knowing that he was alright and he said the cats didn't even bothre moving when it had happened.  Typical.

When we had stopped in traffic between Paraparaumu and Waikanae, we felt an earthquake, the car was rocking.  Then this lovely lady took us all the way up to Salem's dance class which he was ten minutes early for.  He had a great class and got to show off one of his own new dances "Ameno" which everyone though was really good.  Next week he gets to show off another.  While I was waiting I felt a few of the aftershocks.

Afterwards were lucky to have the bus driver take us all the way back to Paraparaumu, as there were no trains, he was going back to the depot as he had finished his shift and then he gave us a ride home in his car. People are so great in an emergency!!!!!!!

Well, that was our exciting day out.  We are still experiencing a lot of aftershocks, some quite big.  Check out this site at http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt and http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/statistics to see how many are happening, there's been hundreds!!!!

Costume Check

Peasant Pas - Giselle costume

Today we thought it would be a good idea to check that Salem's old costumes still fit him.

And to try out what he was going to wear for the Peasant Pas and for Proud Mary.

I was pleased with the waistcoat I had made for Peasant Pas.
We were influenced by the costumes from the Royal New Zealand Ballet's recent production of Giselle.
So that is why he is wearing a shirt with rolled up sleeves.
I think it looks very smart.

Du Hast contemporary costume

His Du Hast costume still fits and so does his classical outfit which I think we will have the black leotard under the waistcoat like the photo we have used for the blog title above.  Last year Salem wore his red leotard but I think the black looks more grown up.  I'm pleased I don't have to make any alterations.

Our first idea for the Proud Mary costume

We had a few ideas for Salem's Proud Mary costume so had Salem dance in them.
Our first idea looked good but Salem does like to wear tighter fitting costumes when he has to do a lot of more dynamic dance moves.

This is now the Proud Mary costume

So we came up with this costume which he can move very easily in.
Not very jazzy but he loves it and he can wear his Elvis frilled shirt which is now too short in the sleeves so he can't wear it for his Bond on Bond costume.

I will make him a black pin striped waistcoat to wear as well but if it's too much, I'm sure he will be able to wear it for something else.

I'll make a few different waistcoats for him, they don't take too long to make.

Then I have to start making some patterns up to make him a Polish character costume because as soon as the Alana Haines Awards are over then he will be working on a Polish character dance for the next lot of competitions.

I've found some great photos for design ideas.

I'm lucky I can sew!!!!!!!!

Practicing for Star Search

Practicing at Coastlands

We were back up to Coastlands to practice on the tiny stage.
Salem is now very confident dancing on the slippery surface and we have sorted out where he is going to throw off his jacket so that it doesn't get lost in the audience.

Putting on a show for the shoppers

He put on another show for the shoppers and it was a lot busier today.
He had a lot of people stopping to watch him.
Quite a few young teenage girls watched him and then wanted to talk to him.
They told Salem that he was a really good dancer and some said that they will come along to watch him tomorrow.
How cute!!!!!

Just call me Bond...

The it was off to the gym for some practice of his other dances and then to work on hi "Bond on Bond" dance.

James Bond!!!!

It was a good opportunity to try out his costume and to make sure everything stayed in place when he is dancing.

And we also wanted to see which colour waistcoat looked better as we have a black one and a white one.

We stuck with the black waistcoat as the white waistcoat made him look like a waiter which is not very James Bond-ish.

We thought that the white waistcoat would look good for his "Sh-Boom" contemporary dance, along with his black leggings and white shirt that he is wearing, and either a red or blue bow-tie.
What we would love is to get a "boater" hat and that would give us the total look that we want.
We will have to keep an eye out in the op-shops.

Salem looks so suave and grown up in a suit.
He really loves wearing them too.
So after a successful practice session it was off home.

Roll on tomorrow!!!!!

Kapiti Dance Centre Concert 2012

Jabberwocky, the Carpenter, Doormouse, Cheshire Cat and Dodo Bird

Kapiti Dance Centre Presents......

Alice  -  Grease  -  La Bayadere
Southward Theatre 25th August 2012
Two shows on Saturday at 2pm and 7pm

Salem's dance school had their concert on the weekend.  A lot of hard work and effort went into it.
I watched the evening show and it went really well.  Everyone enjoyed it.  The kids were brilliant.

At rehearsals

This term everyone was practising their dances during class time but over the last two weeks it was full on rehearsals for hours at a time, it was practically every day.  Then there were the rehearsals at the theatre every afternoon/evening. It was very tiring.  I made sure I had made dinner to take with us as when we did get home it was time for Salem to go to bed.

At the side stage door

Salem was the only boy in the whole concert so he had a dressing room to himself.  Apparently there are a couple of boys in the junior hip hop class but they weren't in the concert.  It's a shame more boys aren't involved.

Waiting to go on stage

But the girls in Salem's ballet class were next door so he was able to chat to them.  And they made sure that he now when it was time to get ready to go on stage which was nice.

The Jabberwocky

Salem's ballet class were characters from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and had to create/design their own costumes.  They came up with some really good ideas.

The back of Salem's costume, see his tail.

We used his old unitard from a previous concert (3 years ago) and made the wings from sequined fabric so he was very sparkly.  I painted the elastic and a pair of his ballet shoes green to match his unitard.   I made him a tail and had sewn triangles of the sequined fabric to match the wings.  I found a blue glittery mask in one of the "el cheapo" shops for $2 which was perfect.  I just had to trim it up a bit as it covered up too much of his face.

The Jabberwocky and the Walrus

Now a Jabberwocky has to have scaley skin so we used patterned fishnet tights for his legs and arms which worked very well and when we bought the two pairs they were half priced so this costume was very economical.

The Jabberwocky

The Jabberywocky costume looked very good from in the audience, he really stood out.  All the girls' costumes looked great too.  They did brilliantly in the concert and played their characters well.
The littlies that were on for Alice were so cute and all the costumes were lovely and bright.  Lots of beautiful flowers and butterflies etc...

Hanging around in the dressing room in his La Bayadere costume

La Bayadere was done by the senior classes and the grade fours.  All the girls were in tutus and Salem in his classical competition costume with a black leotard.  He was surrounded on stage by heaps of girls in tutus but he stood out again as his waistcoat was very sparkley with the red glittery pattern in the fabric.  It looked great from the audience.  Again, everyone danced very well and was well received by the audience.

Ready to go on stage

Salem was a very happy but tired and sleepy boy when we got home and had a good sleep in on Sunday.
Monday, it was back to getting some dance practice in at the gym and then half a private lesson and two classes in the  afternoon and evening.
Contemporary exams are coming up very soon and then it's his RAD ballet exam at the end of November.

My Last Cinderella Performance

Salem with Brendon Bradshaw

I'm finally getting to type this out.  We have been so busy with rehearsals for my dance school's (Kapiti Dance Centre) show.  The last two rehearsals have been up at Southwards Theatre.  It is a full dress rehearsal this afternoon and evening.  Then it is two shows tomorrow, one at 2pm and the second at 7pm.
It has been very tiring, especially when you have to wait around a lot.  Should be fun tomorrow though!!!

Ballet Diaries - Cinderella
by Salem
My Last Cinderella Performance  11th August 2012
It was quite sad waking up today thinking that this is the last time that I will be performing in Cinderella.
But I was excited as well as today I will be actually watching the whole show in the audience before my performance.

Bronte Kelly and Abigail Boyle

It was very interesting watching the other casts' page boys at the matinee.  I could see how I would look to the audience, but I smile more :-)
I thought the show was really good, Bronte Kelly was Cinderella this time and she looked lovely and the Prince was Brendon Bradshaw, he was a great Prince.
It was great to see everything come together after just seeing bits in rehearsals and from the side of the stage.

Lucy Green in Cinderella's lovely tutu

Some of my favourite bits were watching Cinderella in here beautiful tutu, it really did twinkle like thousands of fairy lights, seeing Jonte play the Royal Shoemaker with all the other shoemakers working hard to make a copy of Cinderella's shoe, the Silly Sister and her very silly dance, she showed her knickers and was very funny.  And to top it all off was when all the rose petals fell down on Cinderella and the Prince at the end.  There were so many bits that I liked!!!!!

At the Wellington Botanic Gardens

After the show, we had a bit of time on our hands so we went for a walk through the Wellington Botanic Gardens.  It was nice to have some fresh air and look at the flowers.  We also walked through the old graveyard, it was full of beautiful and very perfumed spring flowers.

In the loading bay looking into the moving trucks

It was back to the theatre and the big trucks were there to load all the ballet sets, props, costumes etc in after the show.  I wondered if I could stow away in the back of one of the trucks so I could go on tour.

Next to the huge moving truck

Wow, my last performance, I felt a bit sad again that it will be all over for me after this performance.  I bumped into Joseph and Helio when I was in the dressing room so I had my photo taken with them.  They were about to change costumes.  They are in my dressing room too, but on the other side of the partition wall.

With  Joseph Skelton and Helio Lima

I had to play around with Daniel's make-up again.  I got rid of some streaks in his foundation.  We played cards again to occupy ourselves, then we went downstairs to backstage.  Me and Jonte sat together again.
Then it was my last time on stage.  It all went well as usual.  I didn't really want to go off stage.
It was back up to the dressing room, I took off my costume and put everything in to the washing basket and put away my hat and shoes tidily.

Saying good-bye to Lindsay

We had a chat with Lindsay on the way out and had a big hug.  Then it was off to the railway station, caught the train home and flopped into bed.  I was tired, happy and a little sad.  Until the next time.............

The Fun is Nearly Over

Ballet Diaries - Cinderella
By Salem
The Fun is Nearly Over   10th August 2012

Me and Jacob Chown

I'm feeling a little sad as this was my second to last performance.  I would love to be able go on tour with the Royal New Zealand Ballet and do Cinderella or any future ballet with them and tour around New Zealand.  That is one of my dreams.
Mum did my make-up as usual tonight and when I had got all my costume on I had my photo taken with Jake (Jacob Chown).  He is one of my favourite dancers.  He has been really nice to me over the last few years, I even remember when his brother was with the RNZB.

Young Cinderella, her step-sisters, Matthew Slattery and me

We caught Matthew coming up for a costume change and Young Cinders and Co came up at the same time so I had my photo taken with them.  The girls are Olivia Gordon (short sister), Emily Nicholson (Cinderella) and Heidi Craig (tall sister).
It was also a good chance to have a photo with Sam.  He is new to the company and he is really nice.

Me with Sam Shapiro

Daniel was having to put on his make-up by himself and I saw that he was having some trouble putting his eye-liner on so I asked him if he needed help and he said yes.  I remembered how Mum puts it on me so I did the same to Daniel.  I got him to look up so I could put the eye-liner under his eye.  He didn't have an eye pencil, just some gloopy soft black stuff which I put on with a weird solid brush.
I had to fix up what Daniel had done so I just put some foundation over his mistakes.  I did it properly but he wanted it done even heavier.  He said I did a good job.

Helping Daniel with his make-up

After that he tried to do his mascara but did a big blob under his eye.  So I had to fix that up for him.  Then I did his blusher, he wanted that on far too heavy as well.  He had lots of little black spots from his mascara etc falling down on his foundation so I fixed that up too.

I quite like putting on his make-up and want to experiment on my own face sometime.  I've got my dance school's concert coming up very soon so I will put on my own make-up for that and give Mum a break.

We played cards again tonight, playing Last Card and Daniel taught me how to play Black Jack.

Young Cinderella and Step-sisters

We went backstage when we thought it was about time to.  I was a bit nervous about going backstage because Daniel said that when he was filling in for Nicholas yesterday, as he was sick, he was told off for going down to early.  But we were fine.  I didn't see Jonte backstage this time.

Our performance went well, it is so much fun.  Then back up to the dressing room.  Mum met us up there and I quickly got dressed as we had to go and see some friends, who were watching the show, at the second interval.  They gave me a lovely bunch of yellow roses.  We couldn't chat for long as we had to get a bus to the railway station to catch a train home.  

I was very tired when we got home so it was straight to bed as usual.

Cinderella Costume Fitting

Royal New Zealand Ballet Cinderella 2012

On Tuesday we went into Wellington for Salem's costume fitting for Cinderella.  All four boys (two for each cast) were there to get measured and try on costumes.  Salem said the costumes are "SOOOO COOL!!!!"  I which I got to see them but I will have to wait for the dress rehearsals.

Byron, Daniel and Salem
The Nutcracker 2010

The three other boys are Byron, Daniel and Nicholas.  Both Byron and Daniel were in The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty as well.  Nicholas was in The Nutcracker but was in B cast so Salem really doesn't know him at all.  The boys will be page boys in this production.  Byron and Salem are in A cast together.
It was a good chance to catch up with what everyone is up to.

Byron and Salem Sleeping Beauty 2011

Salem has kept a diary of his involvement in each ballet so I will start tonight with what he wrote about the costume fitting.  I will also write up his diaries of  being in The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty over the next few weeks.

Ballet Diaries - Cinderella     
by Salem
Costume Fitting   Tuesday 17th July 2012
"Yay, I've been chosen to be in Cinderella and I didn't even have to audition.  I'm also in A Cast.
I arrived up at the RNZB office 10 minutes early but we had to wait a bit longer because Daniel was late.
The Shoe Elf told me and Byron to get into some yellow tights.  Then he put on a light pink top with gold buttons on both of us.  It also had gold decorations all over it.  Then he also put a hat on us.  We had to then take off the hat and black top.  Byron had a little trouble with the sleeves.  We then got changed and had a chat before leaving."