What we do to ourselves

I thought it would be interesting to show some of you guys who aren't as knowledgable about the dance world what we do to ourselves to achieve the abnormal. So, here we go!

We put a lot of strain on our hips to achieve the perfect 180 degree turnout

We will shove our feet under anything heavy or bolted to the wall to improve our pointe,
in this case it's a heater

We will bend ourselves over anything to make it look like we have no spine

We will use anything to put our leg on to achieve over-splits

We use any flat wall or the floor to achieve the perfect center splits

And yes, guys do all this too. Ballet is thought to be a 'chick thing',
but you ask any guy that does ballet and
he'll tell you it's far from easy and far from just a 'chick thing'

We twist ourselves into acting like a pretzel 

And all of this is to look graceful and pretty, wear pretty shoes and twirl on stage for a show that will last around 2 hours. Once you've gotten the sickness of ballet you can't get rid of it, there's no other rush as great as that moment when you just did something on stage you've been working all your life to do.
Dancers are addicted to the stage like people can be addicted to alcohol...dance is a drug, and it's one of the best drugs to be addicted to  

Me! :)

Took some random pics of me doing dance stuff, haven't done that in a while. Enjoy!

Tondue back, crosse

splits standing up

random contemporary pose

Happy I can finally do this!

I like this one

I kept falling over doing this one, so I cheated and used the wall ;)

Unedited

With effects

Unedited

With effects

It was fun having a mini dance photo shoot! :)

Dancing!!

Right now I'm hard at work getting ready for performing Coppelia in Temecula in May. I'm very excited about it and it's nice to be dancing with the intention of performing something :) I'm also very excited to be dancing with the stage crew at the Temecula Old Town Theater, I've missed all of them soooo much and can't wait to see them again!! So rehearsals are starting to get hot and heavy again but haven't quite gotten there yet. I rehearsed Czardas last night, which is a character dance, for about half an hour and I was sweating like there was no tomorrow. This dance is between Franz, the main guy, and a street girl, me, that he is flirting with ;) Swandila, Franz's fiance, gets all bent out of shape when she sees him flirting with me and runs off stage in a huff. So Franz and I, along with some back up girls, do this lively character/street dance during Act 1. In just my half an hour rehearsal yesterday I was dripping out of control and one of the girls wanted to keep doing it, so after the 3rd run through in a row I said "I'm done, where's the bucket!" because I did literally feel like throwing up :P Tomorrow I have rehearsal for an hour and a half with Stephen, a guy that I'm partnering with for a short piece called Play. It's a short and sweet, fun partner dance that's not too hard so it should be easy. The highlight of my month will be when my friend from Ohio comes out to dance the role of Franz in Coppelia and to take a much needed vacation to see me ;) I met Andrew 2 years ago in Austin, TX when I did Ballet Austin's 3 weeks summer intensive. I was surprised when I was in New York for a day during my intensive at The Rock last year when he came to Lincoln Center to see me. I love that boy and can't wait to send almost 2 weeks with him!!! Hurry up Andrew, I can't wait much longer!!! ;)

Andrew and I when he surprised me at Lincoln Center

He was so sweet! He walked me back to the bus we took to NYC
 and waved goodbye until he couldn't see the bus anymore.
I had so many people ask me who my boyfriend was ;)