We are back from my mother’s and back at the dancing. Julian and I were disappointed to discover that all of the teachers he was hoping to dance with this week are gone, namely Michelle Dorrance, Jared Grimes and Derrick Grant. What a bummer. It seems that last week of July is not a great week in that sense for dancing in NYC. Many of the tap teachers take off for tap festivals around the country and other teachers are on tour as well.
Julian took a class with Glenn Douglas Packard instead of Jared Grimes. Not too shabby…He has worked with some of the biggest acts in entertainment including Pink, Marc Anthony, Missy Elliot, Nelly Furtado, Whitney Houston, Usher and Liza Minelli. He was even honored with an Emmy nomination for his artistic direction on Michael Jackson’s 30th Anniversary Celebration at Madison Square Garden. It wasn’t Julian’s favorite style of hip hop — more MTV style, as he calls it — but he knows it’s worth learning that, too, especially from someone so well known.
He had a great class with Jim Sutherland, in place of Michelle Dorrance. I don’t know anything about him, though.
Tomorrow we go off for some tours of NYU and information sessions with someone in the dance department there. Maybe knowing exactly what the dance program is like and what it takes to get in will inspire Julian to do better in school this year. A mom can only hope…
Then back to Broadway Dance Center for more classes.
We saw Pilobolus last Saturday night. Great show! Their other dance group, Dog-it, did all the shadow work they are famous for…one very long piece. And then Pilobulos did several other pieces. They do the most phenomenal partnering work. Other than that, I don’t know that I’d call it dancing per se. I think it’s more like gymnastics. I suppose it’s a hybrid maybe of dance and gymnastics. Very interesting to watch, though, and Julian got lots of partnering ideas. We were glad we went.
Julian spends all his time texting his ABT friends. I think he’ll really miss them.
I’m not sure he has a good way to stay in the tip-top shape he’s in right now all year long. With school and all, he just doesn’t have the time to dance six or seven hours a day with the same type of intensity that he did this summer.
Next week I’ll have a blog post from Denise Wall, I hope, and one from Julian’s first male dance teacher!
Leave a Reply