Julian began his final five days of dance classes today. We started off at Steps on Broadway, where he saw several girls from ABT and a boy from Complexions. As we were leaving, he ran into one of his best friends–a boy from ABT. The dance world is small. I was surprised to see that Julian was not the only kids who had decided not to take a break after the intensive.
He did one less class than expected–first, he forgot his tap shoes and we had to return to the apartment to get them, second, he has a pulled muscle in his abdomen that has been bothering him. So, three classes seemed enough for today. Last year he took 4.5-6 hours of class a day…another week of self-inflicted intensive. He’s gearing up tomorrow, though, and it looks like he’ll be focusing on ballet, theater jazz, tap, and hip hop with a little contemporary thrown in for good measure. A well-rounded program, no? I’d have stayed away from ballet, but he was told to improve his technique, so…And it looks like we’ll be buying a Steps class card after all and not using up all of the Broadway Dance Center card after all.
Teachers Julian plans to take class with at Broadway Dance Center and Steps are: Sue Samuels, Luam, Kelly Peters, Wilhem Burmann, Alexander Tressor, Camille A. Brown, Barbara Duffy, Ray Richard Pierlon, and Ray Hesselink. Check them out! Today he took with ABT Soloist Craig Salstein, Tracie Stanfield, and Cartier Williams (who replaced Michelle Dorrance, one of Julian’s faves from last year…but most of the hoofers are at tap festivals at this time of year).
By the way, Julian tried out his new tap shoes, the Jason Samuels by Bloch, which Jason Samuels Smith designed, and he loves them. Bye bye Miller and Ben’s. We loved supporting our Israeli tappers and tap shoe designer/producers, but Julian says these shoes are comfortable, soft, light, airy, and sound great. He had no blisters after an hour and a half of barefoot tapping the first time out with them tonight.
I hope some of you made it to Central Park for this event tonight. One thousand ballerinas were expected to gather and break a Guinness World Record by simultaneously standing en pointe for one full minute. This was a benefit for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club performing arts program, with 100% of the $10 suggested donation goes to the program. (Sorry I didn’t publicize this earlier; I had no Internet connection most of the day and only found out about it this afternoon.) I would have liked to have seen all those ballet dancers on point for a good cause. We didn’t make it. Julian had a tap class at about that time at Broadway Dance Center. Maybe if we’d been going up to Steps…
That’s it for tonight.
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