world ballet day with chanda's ballet teacher

 i always enjoy watching the royal ballet's company class and rehearsals on world ballet day.

 

 this morning we saw marianela nuñez and thiago soares rehearse the kenneth macmillan ballet winter dreams . .

 the one act ballet is based on anton chekov's play the three sisters, and the music is by tchaikovsky.

 and chanda's ballet teacher, charla genn, was in hong kong to set the ballet giselle on the company. the hong kong ballet participated in world ballet day and filmed charla rehearsing the second act pas de deux with principal dancers jin yao and wei wei.

world ballet day

in the pic above you can see how we're trying to get the day going, but we're still continuing to watch the ballet live stream on the computer (on the screen is the national ballet of canada's company class). the royal ballet streamed their class and several rehearsals from 7 am this morning to noontime. i was really looking forward to seeing the san francisco ballet at 2 pm (so that puts this pic with the canadian company around 12:30!)

 on our way out at 4 pm, we passed this beautiful flower which reminded me of many exotic flower sightings when we were in san francisco.

 chanda headed to a ballet class at joffrey, and i continued on downtown to meet some friends whose little ones (who aren't really all that little anymore, at least in regard to their height) take class with chanda's choreography teacher. we stopped and talked for awhile at the local coffee and yogurt store.

tomorrow! world ballet day!

world ballet day

 chanda and i were able to watch a little bit of world ballet day together before she ran off to her ballet classes. 

 she's been making smoothies lately from madeline shaw's book, ready, set glow. one of my favorites is mango, tumeric and ginger with almond milk. this one has almond milk with dates and cocoa powder and peanut butter.

greg, morgana and i had tacos and enchiladas from a local mexican place, oaxaca. it was delicious and it's great to have greg home again. chanda was out at a performance at lincoln center with her friend, addie, who was able to get high five tickets to see the new york city ballet ($5 tickets for teens!).

world ballet day

 madeline's view of world ballet day . . 

 eva air!

 at 10 am morgana and i left chanda glued to the computer watching the royal ballet company while we drove sandra to the airport.

 it was time to fly home . . all week i had heard that she was flying out on "russian airlines" . . well, it took me a little while but i finally figured out that it was aeroflot . . flying out of terminal one. i only made one wrong turn . . i exited the belt parkway one exit early and ended up in the long term parking but we called greg to help extricate us and finally made it to jfk. we felt sad to see her off and while she might have been a bit nervous about flying, i think she was happy to soon be seeing her beloved beautiful alps again. her flight was a very good price: 350 euros! however, she first flew to moscow (i've always wanted to visit moscow!) before flying to zurich. it was a long flight: ten hours to moscow, three hours in moscow and then three hours to zurich.

 what we came home to . . pointe shoe sewing time while watching ballet . . 

the new pointe shoes from gaynor minden (free! because they were a test pair. we are so fortunate to know the woman who places the clothing and shoe orders . . the items are made in china and they always do a test order to make sure the item is correct before ordering bulk).

 they keep dancing away on line . . all day!

 when chanda finally went off to ballet class (she can't miss ballet because of ballet day), korrina helped me make dinner.

 her homemade pico de gallo . . so good!!!!

 dinner with korrina (it's been awhile) . . still missing a person (morgana was at her german lesson, which she ended up enjoying because the lesson was challenging, the students had done their homework and could speak as well as she - though their accents were terrible she says - and the teacher was from berlin and so, of course, spoke beautifully).

delicious dinner: black beans and kidney beans with onions and garlic, peppers and onions, pico de gallo, guacamole (from the local health food store) and taco package seasoned ground beef . . and soft tacos fried in oil.

oh . . so . . i really enjoyed san francisco ballet's class and rehearsals but they haven't put it up yet. you can see the first eleven hours (australian ballet, national ballet of china, new zealand ballet, the bolshoi ballet and the royal ballet) here, and you can see the scottish ballet's swan lake rehearsal with choreographer david dawson here (i highly recommend!!!!)

and here's a pic of chanda and her friend ruoyi taken after class for world ballet day:

blue willow dishes and world ballet day

 when we were in connecticut i found some beautiful blue willow dishes that were only two dollars each. there were also two dishes that were priced at $12.95 each and for the life of me i could not see how they were any better than these two. i actually found their print a little two light and prefered the deeper blue of the two in the picture. there were also several nice cake plates and tea cups and saucers with a blue country scene of a man fishing beside a stream, but my cabinets don't really have room . . (however, i am hoping that they will still be in the shop when i go back in a few weeks!).

 great britain bulldog and blue willow staffordshire . . 

 breakfast was a delicious slice of buttered michaelmas harvest loaf and a soft boiled egg . . 

 and dinner was salad with proscuitto bread, which is why hermione is sitting in her favorite meal spot, hoping for a prosciutto treat . . (in between chanda worked on math and italian and went uptown for an open ballet class while morgana went shopping with her austrian friend at macy's for a ball dress).

at 10 pm world ballet day began (last year we were in annapolis for it) and i stayed up too late watching the australian ballet's company class and the new zealand ballet company's rehearsal of giselle (seen here - their artistic director is francesco ventriglia and i could listen to his italian accented english all night).

world ballet day

chanda has been telling me about world ballet day for a few weeks now, but it didn't really register with me what it was until i was watching it with her. five ballet companies joined together and decided to televise a day at company class and rehearsals. it began at about 10 pm tuesday evening with the australian ballet and then moved around 3 am to the bolshoi in moscow. chanda had her aunt cindy wake her at 6 am wednesday morning for the royal ballet's company class, which was followed by a day at the national ballet of canada in toronto. the san francisco ballet wrapped it up wednesday afternoon and evening. it was actually rather fun and exciting, if you enjoy the ballet! it was also very interesting to feel the dynamics of the different companies and to see what they like to work on. both the royal ballet and the national ballet of canada were doing manon, and the bolshoi was working with french choreographer jean-christophe maillot (rehearsals required an interpreter but it was fun hearing him barking out directions in a mixture of french and english). all classes and rehearsals are up on the royal ballet's youtube website, and we enjoyed listening to an interview with a bolshoi director yesterday, explaining how it all began. it was the royal ballet who began the talks that extended into a collaboration with the youtube people and four other companies. all the meetings were held on skype but was difficult because of the time differences (for australia it was always today but for the others yesterday, or for the others it was today but tomorrow for australia). 

if you have some time, check out a class or a rehearsal here on the royal ballet's youtube page. scroll down to "world ballet day" and click on a company. seeing how hard the dancers work is quite inspiring.

here's chanda practicing coupé jeté, which the men do during the royal ballet's company class. you can also see lauren cuthbertson perform them as princess aurora here (start at 3:04).

a boat ride and world ballet day