a bat mitzvah, an orchestra concert, a ballet recital, and a dance concert

 chanda's friend, talia, had her bat mitzvah today. chanda wrapped the gift this morning.

 i knitted a mohair scarf, and chanda knitted leg warmers.

 chanda and i went to the morning service at congregation b'nai jeshurun on west end avenue and 86th street.

 we could only be there for a little while, as she had an orchestra concert at third street to attend. but it was nice to see talia and her mom, marian.

 third street had their three orchestras concert today, at st. luke's on the bowery.

 greg stayed to see the concert (the intermediate orchestra performed schubert's unfinished symphony with the advanced orchestra) after picking us up from the bat mitzvah service (and taking us there!). while chanda was rehearsing, i took him to paradis for coffee, as he had never been before.

 then i left and walked uptown to see morgana's ballet concert at manhattan youth ballet (10th avenue and 60th street). morgana danced with her class to vivaldi's four seasons, spring. afterwards, we headed back downtown for her ellen's concert at dance theatre workshop, aka new york live arts.

 we met chanda there. after her 1 pm orchestra concert she watched ellen's 3 pm show. then she dressed for the bat mitzvah party (held at the harmony club on on east 60th street). she's wearing morgana's birthday shawl with a dress i found at the thrift store just a week ago.

 after the show . . 

at home . . very tired . . all the shows were fabulous today.

ballet observation day

yesterday was a beautiful first day of spring. the sun shone and the birds sang in the morning . . and i spent the day in bed with a low fever, headache and cough. today i'm better, but left with the nasty cough . . the embarrassing and very uncomfortable kind where you have a constant tickle in your throat and you can't stop hacking away once you start. i'm drinking echinacea tea and taking vitamin c, so i'm hoping tomorrow is a lot better. we have an appointment today with a new dentist who is supposed to follow a more holistic path in her practice . . we shall see if she actually does. (we visited a dentist last week who made the same claims, but we didn't find him all that holistic). today is very grey outside, but the birds still sang me a wake-up song. the picture above is morgana in her dance class with marina stevetskaya. it was ballet observation day at manhattan youth ballet, and i sat and watched and tried not to cough for an hour and a half.

morgana has improved so much. her footwork has become more precise and clean.

she has wonderful height in her jumps, which really means nothing when you're a ballerina.

here her teacher complimented her: "nice morgana, pointed toes, straight legs and a plie." receiving a compliment from marina is not easy. morgana cherishes every word of praise.


marina only works with one pianist: a compatriot from russia (who often remembers the students names better than marina! morgana has a story where the pianist corrects marina, "no no, marina, that isn't natalie, that's bridget.") anyway, her compatriot friend plays so beautifully! here she played "matchmaker" from fiddler on the roof and i couldn't stop singing the song all week . . that i finally streamed it from netflix one night with morgana and chanda (who had never seen it before). it's a long movie, we still have an hour and twenty minutes to watch.

her pointework has improved also, though her love for pointework has not increased an iota.

it was fun. i could sit and watch for hours . . if i didn't have such a cough!!! (oh! and the dentist turned out to be very nice. she described everything she was doing to chanda, and her office was peaceful and didn't smell of antiseptic. she had yoga journals on the table along with national geographic and the new yorker, and a bubbling fountain and photographs of a field and trees).

a ballet performance

morgana's ballet school had two shows today. chanda, greg and i attended the 7pm show.

morgana and her ballet teacher, natalia.

morgana and her study group friends.

morning walk and a different myb perspective

 

greg, morgana, chanda and i went for an early morning walk on the high line today. it was grey and cold.

the witch hazel plant!

i'm not sure what plant this one is . .

the first crocuses . .

aromatic juniper . . 

and holly! there were at least six or eight large holly trees. i thought they were amazing.

winter dormant sea grasses.

at our favorite place on the high line . . by the church and schoolyard . .

at myb with chanda . . while morgana rehearsed for her ballet school's spring performance.

chanda is working on a grey sweater and knitting with lamb's pride superwash.

morgana et al on break. .

with her friend tessa . .

chanda and i having a treat at olympic flame diner!

saturday shows

chanda had her dance performance today with her friend tessa. they each did a solo and a group piece called "rainforest." i took a short 1 minute movie of this during their tech rehearsal, but i haven't been able to get the movies to upload onto blogger. i hope to succeed in these next few days! it went really well, and i loved morgana's and chanda's acting teacher's exclamation about it the best: "the destruction of the rainforest was gorgeous! and the rebirth was even more gorgeous!"

chanda and her dancing friend allegra, who fractured her wrist a week before the show. it must have been so hard for her not to dance full out. she did a beautiful piece called "nova vita" and she was dressed all in purple.

 with aunt kathy and uncle warren.

chanda and i went uptown for morgana's ballet school's recital after her show, so we missed our friend samanza's daughter's evening show with ellen. this is aliza and she has a fun dance about time and movement. it's beautiful. we also missed ellen's "graduation" ceremony that she does with her graduating teenagers. she talks a little about each one and snips a lock of their hair. it's very moving as the girls have been with her since they were five, six or seven. our friend deychen went with her mom and dad. deychen is 15, and the older girls have been an inspiration for her ever since she started dancing with ellen. i always find it special how the girls' signature movements find their way into other students' dances. they all learn from one another. deychen and morgana used an older girl's fish movement from a dance she did based on the book swimmy, in a dance they did together called "at the zoo." chanda then used a part of that movement in a dance she called "secret water."

morgana has become a beautiful ballet dancer. we enjoyed her recital at her ballet school. this is her friend charlotte. they are a lot alike and enjoy each other's company. they have also both become such good ballet dancers together! i noticed how much stronger and precise their technique was from the class i observed earlier in the year.

tessa attends morgana's ballet school also, and is in the same level as morgana. here they are posing with their friend sara.

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morgana also attended a chorus recital at third street music school in the afternoon. she was very busy! we missed this concert since chanda was dancing at the same time. she loves her chorus teacher and really enjoyed singing the medley of beatles songs he arranged for them.

palm sunday

we went to bed late last night, but still managed to get up to attend a palm sunday service at st. luke in the fields on hudson street. the service began in front of the church with a distribution of the palms, and then we all walked in together. it's a beautiful church, with old wavy glass windows, but warm! they must have a good heating system! and everyone is very nice. morgana, chanda and i especially enjoy the quiet, the songs, and the peaceful fellowship we feel there. it was a beautiful start to the day. afterwards, we walked to the car, thankfully parked only three blocks away, and drove morgana up to 68th street for her warm-up dance class before her two performances. then chanda and i came home for a bite to eat before driving off again for her rehearsal on the upper east side (12:30 to 5 pm!). it was a long day. i sat and knitted and talked with linda, whose son is performing as a pirate with the girls. it was a nice afternoon, and when we got home korrina and her friend tyler joined us for a pasta dinner. korrina has been working at burger king for the last two weeks. many mornings she is up at 6 am and out the door by 7:15, followed by her classes in the evening.

greg has been reading game of thrones. he has often commented on the brutality and wildness of the time period. i have been questioning the author's references and greg's acceptance of his depiction of events as fact. (what are the author's primary sources!) today he went to strand and came back with rites and religions of the anglo saxons, by gale owen. i was reading a little about funerary rites . . and it was . . pretty wild. but now, of course, i question the translations.

ballet school performance

morgana and tessa had two performances today at their ballet school. they both danced in a piece from midsummer night's dream, and le corsaire (the le jardin part). afterwards, we came home and had tea with apple strudel and whipped cream, bought from andre's hungarian cafe!

tomorrow is palm sunday and we'll go to the sung eucharist at st. luke in the fields at 9:15. then morgana has a call for a warm-up class before her afternoon and evening performances. chanda has a patrelle gilbert and sullivan rehearsal. if it's raining again, i'll just want to stay in bed and read . . but i'll probably get up anyway . .

ballet class observation day

after dropping chanda at her modern dance class with ellen, i walked to manhattan youth ballet to observe morgana's ballet class. natalia was her first teacher for technique, and then deborah taught the pointe class. it was my first time seeing natalia teach. i had observed deborah two years ago (here and here). morgana first met natalia while dancing for mr. patrelle's nutcracker these past two years. she loves having her as a teacher. natalia is firm, yet gentle, and always encourages the girls to do their best while working correctly.

this first movie shows natalia presenting a developé exercise at the bar.

. . a combination across the floor . .

. . and the adagio.

one always ends technique class with an adagio. i think i found it dull when i was 12 (i always needed to be moving . . fast), but now it's my favorite part. no matter how few lessons you've had with ballet, the adagio allows you to reach gracefully out and bow and dream that ballerina dream.

and then it's time for pointe class with deborah . .

and a final pointe combination across the floor: boureés. the beautiful piano playing you've been hearing is from school accompanist mira tsidulko. morgana loves having her play for the class. she inspires the girls to have fun with their dancing.

after class, morgana and i stopped at whole foods to get the remainder of the ingredients we needed for artichoke and pesto pizza with mozzarella and olives, oregano and a little lemon juice.

untitled

i don't know what to title today's post. i just can't find a word to express all the mixed up feelings we have. we're all so sick inside because they cut down the two large mulberry trees on the courtyard side of our apartment. the beautiful ones that danced and waved at us every day when we looked outside. the ones that were home to the blue jays this winter and the chickadees and squirrels in the summer. i was expecting this. i was just hoping they could wait a few more years. but fear stepped in. the trees were very large, and their land area was very small. there were residents who were afraid they would fall down. residents who don't live with them outside their window. residents who have hated these trees for years . . (it's a long story . . but i've heard these people speak vehemently about how these trees needed to GO.) i knew their days were numbered. the really horrible part is how the gardening committee and the managing agent decided to present the removal. they put up a copy of a letter stating that all trees in all apartment sites would be pruned february 12, 13 and 14. nothing was mentioned about cutting the mulberries down. yesterday morning i kept checking on the pruning that was being done to the mulberries. all of a sudden i realized that the pruning had gone too far and i rushed downstairs and yelled at the workers to stop and then ran like a crazy person to the office. the managing agent was out (the one who had co-authored the announcement) and the back-up people only knew that the trees were to be pruned. so they ordered the tree pruners to cease . . and the topic was brought up at the shareholders meeting last night. we didn't have enough time to present contrasting evidence of good tree health (which we had done five years ago). today the trees came down. it's been a painful lesson for the girls about insensitivity, self-centeredness, and what it means to live with small-minded, hurtful people. 

 i couldn't stay home for the removal. we left at 7:45 this morning for brooklyn. yes, we ran away to untidy, still a bit wild, wonderfully disheveled brooklyn. we had breakfast at one of our favorite places: park cafe on 7th avenue. and then we went shopping at the coop. i usually don't go on weekdays. we usually do lessons or instrument practice or work on ellen's end of year dance pieces . . but not today. and then after the shop we dropped morgana off at her guitar lesson . . and waited to take her to her ballet class (she's in the dark blue leotard). 

 chanda is working on a sweater for her harry potter halloween costume. nothing like an early start! she intends to be "lucy potter." it's a character she made up and she will wear a hogwarts robe with a grey sweater and . . hmmm . . maybe a skirt? and tights? it's been a tearful, mournful day.