summer intensive presentation

 chanda finished up with her last summer dance intensive today. greg and i arrived at marymount manhattan college at 4:10 pm (we were last here for a limon intensive that morgana did in 2013 which you can see here).

they performed several class exercises, two dance pieces from the rioult repertoire, and one original work choreographed by mr. rioult on them just this week. it was all wonderful and i think i should be able to eventually link in several pics and videos in the coming weeks. right now you can see excerpts that they put up on their instagram page under rioultdanceny (click here and then click on the latest post, which is presently the one on the top left). the company is opening a new studio in astoria and chanda is hoping to be able to take class with them once they're settled in their new home. i was impressed by how hard they worked (they danced from 10 am to 6:00 with only a half hour break for lunch--but chanda never complained that she felt overextended. since it was modern dance and didn't have any pointe work, her feet didn't suffer as much), the friendliness of everyone in the company, the repertory they learned, and the original choreography. it was fun to see how much the students enjoyed performing at the end.

the streets were quiet on the way home . . a typical august for nyc . . and the evening light was beautiful uptown . .

 and downtown.

 greg cooked the burgers for us (from meat we had picked up in the morning from our amish farmer who makes a delivery every other week to a designated site) . .

and chanda collapsed on the bed and caught up with email and instagram . .

escarole, tomato, cauliflower and cucumber from the vegetable box . . 

buon appetito!

fabrice's intensive

 chanda attended fabrice herrault's ballet intensive these past two weeks. today was the last day of class and family members and friends were invited to attend. 

 practicing . . 

i apologize for this poor quality movie!

 she really enjoyed herself and said it was a great group of people. 

 ballerina sofiane sylve (from the san francisco ballet) taught the variations part of the intensive and chanda enjoyed working on a piece from la bayadere.

 at chobani after the intensive.

and so the ballet portion of the summer comes to a close!

last day of the summer ballet intensive

the ballet intensive is finally winding down. today was the last day and the dancers and their guests all traipsed out to astoria, queens, for the recital.

chanda and her friend did one last picture in the abt studios before leaving.

class photo . .

since she borrowed my phone for the day, she could take pics and movies . . here they are leaving the studios for the trip uptown.

out of the tunnel and into queens . .

at frank sinatra high school in the tony bennet theatre . . a beautiful performing space!

the friends she made at the intensive were from mexico, italy and argentina. a few of them were students of the abt school.

they danced george balanchine's theme and variations, which he created for abt in 1947 and set to tchaikovsky's suite no. 3 for orchestra in g major, opus 55. in this video, i think you can see her friend virginia from the photo above dance the solo part . . i'm not sure where c is in this pic. i think she's front row stage left so you can't see her until she runs out from the side with her partner.


in this video chanda enters first from stage left, crosses to center and then goes back to stage left with her partner (for a few seconds they're a little cut off) .  . . both m and c think i'm being ridiculous trying to pinpoint her in these incredibly blurry movies . .

they danced in simple costume tutus and black leotards . .

with her friends, moises and vicky, from mexico and argentina.

i can't believe that it's been five weeks and that it's over! it's bittersweet . . her friend is flying back to cordoba now and is probably very happy to be going home, but their instagram messages are all a bit melancholy and endearing with heartfelt thank yous and miss yous . .

back home again in the neighborhood.

chanda's dance intensive

it was a busy day. i watched chanda's dance intensive presentation at 2 pm with my friend elsa and with morgana, and then the girls and i saw their modern dance teacher for ice cream in the early evening.

it was difficult seeing the performance and filming it, as the seating was all one level and there were gigantic pillars in the way.

i'm posting this almost a month after, with chanda away in norway. i don't have her here to explain everything to me. basically, they did a ballet piece, a flamenco piece, jazz, horton, and hip hop.


chanda was upset that i didn't get the ending . . i can't remember what she was so pleased about with it. i'll have to ask when she returns.

getting ready for the jazz (theatre dance) piece . . 

so different from the ballet! she and her friend francesca always have so much fun dancing this together. (here they are last year). (i'm finding the ads a little annoying-that never used to happen).

waiting to go on for horton . . a modern dance style which i love. you can read about lester horton and his style of dance here.

the horton jump from practice. she does it in the next video, but it's blocked by the pillar.

ahhh . . . flamenco . .

 and the hip hop . . chanda's least favorite.

it's difficult to leave afterwards. everyone has worked so hard together.

with their teacher, miss irene.

on their way home . . elsa and i lagged behind . . talking about our girls and how time goes by much too fast.

we went to a new place with ellen today . . victory garden, a goat milk ice cream shop on carmine street. it was very good! i had "original" flavor and salted caramel.

at home we had kale soup with meatballs . . which was also very good . .

 (dessert first, dinner second) . .

last met class, last limon class . . and dining out

i followed the class today, to get a picture of them sketching during the talk. today it was about stained glass.

 

the second hour is spent in the art studio . .


there's always the few who are the last to finish . . i saw the same mamas and papas each day . .


working with "stained glass." first they did a sketch . . and then they cut out the gels. of course she's still working on it . . it's sitting next to me on the piano bench as i type, waiting to be finished.

after chanda's met class, we walked from fifth avenue and 81st street, to 71st street between third and second avenue. it was morgana's last day at her limon intensive, and they were presenting their work: excerpts from psalm, a choreographic offering, and mazurkas. you can see chanda to the right of me, alex to her right, and clyde to the right of alex.

 pleased as punch . . but sad to have it all end . . 

 the limon faculty is on the bottom right, pablo (company member and teacher extraordinaire), roxane (associate artistic director), and carla (artistic director).

hayley, morgana, emma and lina (emma and lina also dance with morgana's modern dance/choreograpy teacher ellen robbins . . )

after saying good-bye to everyone we went to have tea at the erik kayser cafe a few blocks away. well, i had . . coffee and a yuzu tarte. they had salad and onion soup.

yuzu: a citris fruit from east asia . . believed to be a hybrid of mandarin and iching papeda (never heard of that one . . ). 

then it was homeward bound to walk the dog and feed the animals . . 

and then we met amelia and joanna who treated us to dinner at bus stop cafe (with dessert at chocolate bar). 

it was a fabulous night and a great way to end an already very full and fun day. tomorrow we drive to connecticut for a week at sturbridge.