Sorry for the lapse in blog posts. I’ve been sick on and off for about two weeks now. My husband had a cough. Then Julian got stuffed up. Then I came down with a fever and a rash and about five days later a full blown cold. Now my daughter has it, too. Anyway, the new year at our house started out with a bunch of germs rather than a bang.
It also, however, started out with another performance opportunity for Julian. He’s been asked by the director of Los Gatos Ballet, who also directed the San Jose Dance Theater Nutcracker performance in which he performed, to be in a production of Copellia. I guess Marcie Ryken liked his performance enough to want him in her next production. Julian is happy to go back and dance with the lovely girls at LGB.
Not only that, he’s going to be taking class from, Maximo Califano, a principal dancer with Ballet San Jose. It seems Marcie has asked him to teach a pas de deux class on Monday nights, and she has asked Julian to come take this class — free of charge. Well, she does need someone to partner with the girls, after all. I’ve been told Maximo can be quite charming as a teacher — at least to the women, but Julian has found him less than charming to work with in productions. We’ll see how he behaves to Julian in class.
Now, Julian being in this production of Copellia is dependent upon Teen Dance Company saying it is okay for him to have a technical rehearsal and a performance on the Thursday and Friday just before the technical rehearsal week of their big end of the year production. We are still waiting for their decision… I hate not being able to make decisions for ourselves.
Then there are the summer activity decisions. Julian insists he wants to go back to his Jewish summer camp one last time, especially since last year his illness caused him to miss half the session. That’s a whole month of the summer gone — no dancing. Well, actually, the session he will be attending is an arts session, and he could dance if he wanted to. While we really don’t have the money this year for camp (although we are going to find some way to pay for it, I guess.) let alone a dance intensive, we took him this past weekend to San Francisco to audition for the American Ballet Theatre summer intensive, which is held in a variety of cities. Attending is totally dependant upon him getting a scholarship. Also, if he by some chance was chosen to go to New York, which is doubtful since it’s their premier program, he couldn’t go to his camp. If he was selected to go to Southern California, he’ll miss the summer intensive at Teen Dance Company and its auditions, not to mention the first audition for a piece of choreography.
Oh, the choices these young kids have to make…or worry about making before they even know if the choices are viable.
Julian is also going to audition for Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet and San Francisco Conservatory of Dance summer intensive programs, although, again, we attending may be totally dependent upon being offered a scholarship. We figure the audition process is worth going through, and it will be interesting to simply see if he makes it into any of the programs, where he is placed if he does get chosen, and if he does qualify for a merit scholarship. Then, he can choose…or not.
I hate the fact that kids have to make so many choices, and that so many things seem to overlap. I always seem to have something going on at the same time that that one or both of my kids have some big event happening. It’s amazing really, how often that happens. It’s like some Ultimate schedule coordinator just likes to see me get frustrated about the things I can’t do and the choices I have to make. And If I get frustrated, imagine our kids making similar decisions and choices when faced with the same types of schedule conflicts.
He did enjoy the audition, though. There were 86 girls and 5 boys. He said he had fun. He wasn’t stressed at all. He knew several of the girls and made friends with one of the boys — the one he said seemed like the most serious dancer. It was fun to see him there looking so much in his element with the other dancers. I think he never feels that comfortable or that much like himself anywhere other than at a dance studio filled with other dancers. It makes me wish he’d gone to a performing arts school, although the closest one is in San Francisco, almost an hour and a half away.
We had to get two letters of recommendation for the audition and show up with a head shot and a photo of him in a particular ballet position. We also brought a resume of his experience, even though they didn’t ask for it. They’ll let us know in a week if he made it into a program.
On another note, we are on a major search for ballet tights that fit. The ones Julian has been wearing for a year, which we order from Discount Dance Wear’s catalogue, no longer fit him correctly. So…we have to find some other ones somewhere. We’ve already had these other ones shipped to us in two different sizes, and no I have to start from scratch. He’s down to just one pair of tights at the moment.
If anyone has leads on good boys ballet tights (the kind that go over the foot), please send along the information! Post your comments after this blog so everyone else can see the links and information as well. It’s so hard to find dance wear for boys, as we all know.
On that note, if you haven’t noticed, I have not upped the price on my daughter’s T-shirts for boys yet. So, take advantage of the fact that they are still being offered at a reduced cost.
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