at the ballet

 
it was such a special night seeing alessandra ferri in wayne macgregor's woolf works with american ballet theatre at the met!

at the ballet

greg and i took the bus up third avenue to the theatre at st. jean's on 76th and lexington for a dance concert charlotte was performing in. 

international american ballet presents a better planet, a better world.

she did two pieces for the show: the queen of the waters, choreography by marius petipa, music by edouard deldevez and ludwig minkus; and snow maiden excerpt, choreography by the director of the program, analia farfan, with music by tchaikovsky. she danced beautifully in both pieces, as did everyone in the show. it was really lovely with exquisite backdrop settings by alessandra mattanza (photography and paintings). the show itself is an extension of an artistic campaign dedicated to creating awareness of the need to protect the environment (a better planet, a better world).

charlotte taking a bow at the end of the show in her snow maiden costume, with trim designed and sewn by her sister veronika.

it was a fun evening and greg and i really enjoyed the show. brava charlotte!

fiber, brunch and ballet

 somehow i got on the mailing list for announcements of events of independent yarn dyers that visit my local yarn stores. today chelsea yarns of red bank, new jersey, brought her skeins to knitty city on 79th street. i was compelled to go when i read that she dyes merino singles and mohair for the birds of a feather shawl by andrea mowry that i had seen in laine magazine a number of months ago. the pattern calls for a common color for mohair and merino, and i had emailed christina, the owner of chelsea yarns, to see if she would be bringing these to the store today.

 she was and she did . . and many fiber enthusiasts enjoyed browsing the colorful hanks arranged on the table . .

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(meanwhile, chanda and greg were on an airplane, flying home:)

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 korrina chose a skein of sand dune . .

 i chose a colorway named "purple rain,"

and korrina and i even made it onto one of knitty city's instagram posts of the event.

 beautiful braided roving . . 

 korrina has spun lovely yarn on a hand spindle. these large braids cause her to consider a spinning wheel . .

 my purchase which i need to now wind . . 

outside the store . .

 colorful townhouses on the upper west side . . 

 such beautiful sunshine today!

brunch at a place on columbus avenue . .

and then the park at the natural history museum . . 

 it was so wonderful to sit out in the sun and knit.

finally, at around 5 pm we walked downtown and said good-bye at 57th street. she rode the train home and i walked to the ailey studios on 55th street to meet chanda for a ballet performance by km/dm, kelly mccarthy dance music, friends from the patrelle nutcracker. it was an incredibly lovely concert, and the perfect ending to a fun day (though, luckily chanda brought my sweater, gloves and hat to the show, as the weather had turned cold outside when going home).

all saints' day

no man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
and therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

john donne, meditation xvii, from devotions upon emergent occasions together with death's duel



 chanda's jack o'lantern.

 putting the finishing touches on her jack o'lantern . . 

 our neighbor, victoria, came over for lunch today. we talked about yesterday's terrorist incident and how she had been in nice for the attack there on bastille day . . both so frightening.  she felt so sad for the people who were hurt. they were from argentina and belgium and i felt how their stories touched her deeply. we talked for quite awhile about it and then discussed her new photography work and film work that she's beginning. she found some old movies she had made in the '70's that she had transferred to dvd. she gave us one to watch and i look forward to seeing it with greg. they're short pieces, ranging from fifteen to thirty minutes long. she says the subjects are the same as what is being discussed today. when can we move on from it all, and grow more tolerant . . accepting? loving?

eating apple pie and pumpkin pie was part of the day.

the dresden semperoper ballett was at the joyce this evening. it was an amazing show with beautiful choreography and wonderfully strong dancers. our favorite piece was on the nature of daylight, a max richter composition (chanda danced to mercy for her modern dance show in june) with choreography by david dawson . . it was incredibly beautiful. afterwards, the artistic director of the company, aaron watkin, joined the associate director of the joyce, laura diffendorfer, for a discussion with the audience. i was impressed with his experience and the vision he has for his company. he talked about wanting his dancers to be versed in different techniques and to be able to move fluidly from one technique to the next. he also shared about working with william forsyth as a company member at ballet frankfurt and how for the first time his brain would be more tired than his body after hours of rehearsing. he also liked how forsyth saw a unique side to each dancer and how they were all so different which made for a diverse and exciting company. chanda found it interesting that in the classroom with his dancers he liked to work on the in between context of movements, not each movement individually, but how they connected and flowed together. she says that this is what she's currently working on with one of her teachers. (we all hear different parts of the conversation, though i suppose it relates to flowing from one technique to the other.)

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there's a beautiful moon out tonight . . almost full . . but not quite. and it was cold today, so cold that we finally put the heat on.

tuesday night performance

 on the way to a ballet performance!

 alessandra ferri in onegin!

we sat a little further back than we thought. we were in family circle, and thought we had bought tickets in the balcony section. it was good we remembered our opera glasses!

she's the little brown dot on the left. her dancing was exquisite and passionate and i'm so happy i finally saw her dance on a stage, and not on a screen.

 it was a beautiful night with a perfect breeze.

onward to queens in a nor'easter

greg and i had to brave a nor'easter to see chanda's ballet school's recital in queens today. he first drove her out for the dress rehearsal at 8 am this morning and then came back home. the dancers rehearsed and then had a 3:30 pm show. we left the apartment at 4 pm to first check in on minerva, and then to catch the E train to queen's blvd for the 6 pm show. i had wanted to take the 7 train, but you need to transfer from the 1, 2 or 3 to that train, and the 123 line had delays. when we got to queens blvd, we looked on the map to see where we had to walk . . and we ended up having to cross this very long bridge over the long island railroad's rail yards to get to the school! it was so windy and rainy with cars and trucks and buses roaring by! chanda later looked at us askance and said, "you took the E train! but you have to cross the rail yards if you do that!" gee, thanks.

anyway, the above pic is of chanda and hannah with their ballet trainee friend james and a friend of his from the program (joffrey ballet school has an afternoon youth program and a day long trainee program).

we took the 7 train home!

we were all very wet . . 

and i felt very cold.

almost home . . we were so happy to finally get there and i made us all a cup of hot miso broth. since i had cleaned all day (the refrigerator and the bathroom) i hadn't cooked, so a quick cup of hot miso broth was the answer.

 chanda was the red queen and i'm not sure who played the king, but he was very cute and appropriately submissive. greg loved how he quickly did what he was told when chanda pointed and gestured to him. chanda ended up wearing a red camisole leotard underneath the costume that made it much more comfortable to perform. she did a wonderful job of being a demanding red queen and it was fun to hear the audience laugh with her antics and oh and ah over her fouettés and balances.

 these next three pics are from chanda . . her friend hannah is getting last minute coaching from their teacher, miss irene.

 hannah played tall alice and alice's sister.

 the young ladies who danced the pool of tears.

 

 miss irene's picture of her pool of tears ladies . . (they were so beautiful and i loved their costumes!)

 and her two alices . . 

 and the littlest alice, antriana, whose dancing chanda particularly loved. she was very sweet. she's from greece and chanda enjoys hearing her speak with her mother before and after class. she says its a very beautiful sounding language.

 miss irene's pic of the little hedgehogs who chanda had to hustle through all the hoops in the game of croquet. these little ones were very slow and went at their own whim. the poor red queen had quite a time of it!

 the tea cups and roses.

here is miss irene's cast. she was responsible for the mad hatter, the white rabbit, the dormouse, the march hare, the red queen and king, the cheshire cat, the gryphon and tortoise and the pool of tears. that's quite a lot! oh, and the three alices . .

 and last, but not least, a view of the house while warming up for the show.