All is well. After a lot of traveling I’m about at half of my ‘summer break’ from ABT. My shows in Vail, Tokyo and Taipei went very well and 10 out of about 21 flights are done. Currently I’m with my family in Germany to rest and recharge before I’m off to a brief visit back to New York and then Indianapolis, Berlin, Paris and Moscow.
Anyway here is an interview brought to you by Dance Pulp. I kinda sound a bit too egocentric by using I and I and I and I way too much. Besides that I repeat myself about 4 times saying the same thing in the end of the interview, but oh well… enjoy anyway…
I’ll be back with photos from my travels very soon. Stay tuned. Oh… and cheers!
Well, what can I say. I am sitting here at 4am, packing for my various trips and cannot sleep… We are traveling tomorrow with ABT to LA and then I am off to various other places on the globe, but let me first recollect my experiences here in New York.
The season at the Metropolitan Opera, which always lasts 2 months in the year in the summer here in the currently hot and humid New York, is on the one side my favorite time of the year… on the other side I feel like all of us dancers at ABT definitely grow a couple of extra gray hairs in the process.
I feel extremely privileged to perform on such a special stage in front of up to 4000 viewers each night. Every week we perform different ballets, which means we rehearse one ballet and perform another one (or even various roles) in the evening (which differs from the usual European system…) To a certain degree there are times when everyone is on edge, physically and of course mentally. To put it in concrete terms, I performed in 11 different things in the course of this season. In the middle of it I suffered a minor ankle injury (from which I am still slightly recovering). I cried… I laughed… and I felt every and anything in between.
Nevertheless it is a special kind of sensation (and I’m trying now not to be too clichée ) to be finished with the season. When it begins it seems it’s never-ending. When it ends, it seems like the time flew by like nothing.
To be honest I feel I cannot express myself in words well enough. I’m not a words person. I appreciate the written word, but am incapable of creating something worth of what I am trying to say. I better stop and go to sleep. Enjoy the pictures. They hopefully capture a teeny-tiny-little bit of my life.
No more, no less.
Well again I’m sitting at an airport noticing that my last post has been more than a month ago. Hmmm. My plane from Tokyo to Frankfurt is late for three hours, what can I do .
Anyway yesterday I had my show in Tokyo which went really well. After my vacation period in Varna (what? I am on vacation…impossible! hahaha) I got back in shape and went for a week to Japan to perform first in Takamtsu and then in Tokyo and now I’m heading back home.
4 days in Frankfurt to recover from the Jet-lag and get back in shape for class.
(As you might or might not know there are different kinds of ‘being in shape’. To be in shape for rehearsing is different than to be performing. Then again for every performance and for even every Pas de deux you need different shapes, as different muscle groups are needed to perform. Actually it’s logical. Different kinds of jumps, different muscles, different shape.)
Well after that i am going for a week to Vilnius, Lithuania to prepare the role of Solor, which I’ll be doing there in December for the first time. My partner will be again Miki Hamanaka as Nikiya and Natalia Ledovskaya as Gamzatti.
After that I will be in Vienna for a week to visit friends and do some trainings there.
And I guess then I’ll be writing again to update you .
By the way I have good news for my Mexican followers and friends. As it is planned I will be very probably performing in Guadalajara on September 26. Stay tuned for updates and news concerning that show.
I wrote that one post on a flight, most of which is mindless mumbling…anyway someone might like to still read it…:
Another flight. A lot of time to spend as useful as possible.
Well, I am in the plane from Franfurt to Korea and actually I kinda get really used to fly these days lol. Some twenty hours ago I was in St. Petersburg Russia dancing Les Bourgeois in an Openair gala performance. Performance went fine, but for the first time I experienced what the people call the white nights in Russia.
White Nights
First what comes to my mind is of course the infamous hollywood-cold war-anti-soviet-kitchy-love story-movie ‚White Nights‘ with our beloved Mikhail Baryshnikov, which probably saw a lot of people not because of the wonderful story, but because of the actors playing in it.
Anyway here is the probably most famous excerpt of the movie:
When it’s bright in the night the night(-life) itself feels different, more alive (I know this sounds weird). But anyway I think I just got a small ‚touch‘ what the White nights are about.
Anyway of course this night I didn’t sleep due to the fact that I was picked up at 3:30 in the morning which was 1:30am in Frankfurt (where I travelled from the day before.) I flied back to Frankfurt, where I slept and repacked my things. And now I am back in the plane flying to Seoul where I will be performing in two Galas and staying almost for a week.
Somehow flying becomes for me to be something special, something more and more useful. I can feel how I can use my time every time better and better with things I still have to do or want to do. I learn how to keep my efficiency up on a high level and it feels good therefore.
This is one thing I admire flying for and what brings me to talk about dance.
The same thing happens with my dancing. Every time I perform a step, every time I execute an exercise, or I perform a variation or an excerpt, it leads my body to heighten its efficiency. Well of course not every time. I was a little exaggerating. There are days the body cannot improve anything, some days it just has to keep the current status of shape, of control, of efficiency. I don’t think any dancers likes these days, since these days are unproductive.
Anyway I’m gone to watch another episode of House M.D. … anyway I’ll write again soon!
I just returned from my last performance in the Vienna State Opera.
I am sorry again that I was gone from blogging for some time. Last weeks have been nice. I was working on La Spectre with my mother and sorting out a lot in my life besides ballet. One thing is sure now. I am leaving Vienna as my residence and the ballet company as of May.
…
Here is a list of my performances in the months of May and June:
May 04th – Stars of the 21st Century in Toronto, Canada
May 14th – Hommage a Rudolf Nureyev Gala in Malaga, Spain
May 20th – Full Don Quixote in Kasan, Russia
May 23rd & 24th – Gala in honor of Rudolf Nureyev in Kasan, Russia
) to be finished with the season. When it begins it seems it’s never-ending. When it ends, it seems like the time flew by like nothing.
