Maintaining Your Instrument

How do you maintain your instrument? Do you dust it every once in a while? Do you tune it? Do you replace mallets, old strings? We dancers do all of these things in order to maintain our body (although the less replacing we have to do, the better), and for all of us, maintenance is […]

A Dancer’s Final Pre-Show Weekend

Xuan Cheng and Lucas Threefoot pas de chat in rehearsal for Ekho, one of 4 works on the Body Beautiful program that opens Saturday. Photo by Blaine Truitt Covert. Shows are coming up, and fast. It’s hard for me to believe that we have been rehearsing for five weeks already, but considering how last week […]

Diving into the Details of Second Detail: A Dancer’s Perspective

This picture is of Lucas Threefoot and Xuan Cheng rehearsing for the Body Beautiful program. Photo is by Blaine Truitt Covert. The Second Detail is the kind of ballet that dancers love to dance. It’s a challenging, body-twisting, mind-bending, powerful ballet that requires constant attention to what is going on around us; I can’t think of […]

Layoff: The Expanding Dancer

You thought this was going to be a blog about weight problems didn’t you? Well, too bad, I have no interest in that today; maybe another time. No, today, I want to write about what we dancers do on our summer layoff: Did you know that staying in shape isn’t the only thing we do? […]

Laying it on the Line about Layoff

Imagine something for me: First, you have your dream job and you love it dearly. Second, every year for three months out of the year, you are laid off of your job and if you do not continue to keep up with those skills needed for that job you will lose them. Sound familiar? No? […]

Hello, Everybody!

You would not believe how long I’ve sat here, debating what to start with. Since this is my first ever time writing a blog post, I wanted to start with something challenging and exciting. What’s more interesting than a blog that makes you think? And yet, I can always approach the heady stuff later. Last week, […]