ellen's picture and dinner

on friday evenings morgana and korrina have a dance/choreography class with ellen robbins (chanda attends on monday). one of ellen's students made this picture for her. ellen has it hanging in the girls' dressing room. it's all very apropos! (if you click on the photo, you can probably see it larger). it says: the six commandments of ellen robbins; thou must drink water while sitting; thou must run when ellen says to do so; thou shalt keep the dressing room neat; remember thou must stretch; thou shalt listen when ellen speaks; less homework, more art!

for dinner tonight i made tandoori chicken from abigail johnson dodge's around the world cookbook. i served it with brown rice and cucumber raiita.

practicing

chanda has been practicing diligently for a music hour this saturday. she'll be playing a bach piece for two violins with her teacher. it's not an easy piece and she has been working on it for months. i think she may be a little nervous, but her friend francesca (who plays the cello) said, "don't worry. jose will cover for you." so, no worries!?

don't blink you might miss the snow

chanda and i had an argument this afternoon. she said it was snowing. i said it was raining. dizzly snow. it really felt like rain to me. at least it was cold outside.

costume shop field trip

we were out of the apartment at 9 am this morning for a 10 o'clock tour of parsons-meares, a costume production shop at 519 eighth avenue and 36th street, just around the corner from the design studio morgana interviewed for meet me at the corner. our friend lori arranged the tour. she went to school in michigan with a friend who has been working for parsons-meares for a number of years now.

this is christian (and ms sally ann parsons is at her work table immediately beneath his hand). he began the tour in their fitting room, by showing us scrap-book samples of designs that they had put into production. they take the designers' drawings and research how the drawing can work for the actor or dancer or singer. they need to take into account how high the dancer will kick, how much they will perspire (several of the costumes required padding, and they needed to make sure the dancers can breathe in the thick material being used), what the cost will be, and where the materials can be found. sally ann parsons began the shop in 1980, and has constructed costumes for many broadway shows (cats, phantom of the opera, guys and dolls, kiss me kate), ballet companies (abt, nycb, ailey, feld), bette midler, tv and film productions, and barnum and bailey's circus. the shop did all the women's dresses for how to succeed in business, and the costumes for the spider men in spiderman. we saw all the pictures of the dresses for how to succeed, beginning with the actresses in street clothes, then the mock-ups for the actual costume, and then the costume itself. the spider costumes had a printed design on the chest and then were sewn together. christian also passed around a costume the rockettes wore for the recent production of their christmas show . . he showed how the costume evolved from it's original design to the costume in our hands.

after the fitting room, we moved into the production room. part of the room was working on costumes for the san francisco ballet company's performance of don quixote. the other half was working on the genie and ursula costume for disney's little mermaid . . to be performed in turkey!

janet and christian observing the layers of fabric on the tutus for don quixote. there is no wire in this tutu. it is comprised of many layers of gathered tulle tacked together. beautiful pink and orange ribbons were woven throughout. they were just lovely.

i believe this woman is discussing how she cut out the appliques and arranged them on the jacket for a don quixote costume. normally, the edging would be done with thread or embroidery floss. however, it frays very easily and since one cannot notice the minute details of the edging on stage, brown marker was used. the green pieces in the foreground are leaves for the lion king. we also saw the grass skirts for the lion king. they were beautifully woven.

who is this???? it's miss gelsey kirkland!!! chanda and i were excited to see her hanging on the wall at someone's work area. they must have made her fairy carabosse costume from her performance with ABT in june of 2007. (she staged the production along with her husband michael chernov and abt's director, kevin mckenzie. oh! how i wish i had seen her in that!)

after the production room, we moved into the dye room. this is a piece of the crab's costume from the little mermaid . . i think . . behind christian's hands you can see the material with the dye samples. it's all very intricate . . and i'll never give costumes on the stage such a cursory look again! i'll know to observe the different color tones, buttons, padding, shapes and sizing . . and how the costumes compare to the ones worn by the other dancers or actors.

for example, this is the different dye samples of the hyenas' costumes for disney's the lion king. they were all different tones of the same basic color. i never realized the differences in the costumes onstage. not knowingly . .

this is the young woman who works in the dye room. she explained how she sometimes makes a mistake with her math . . and the material may keep coming out dark . . until she checks her figures and realizes that 3x the proper amount of dye has been used . . and needs to be corrected. she also mentioned how different materials take dye in different ways and when she has trouble she will occasionally ask others in the shop who have been working there for many years, and have the experience to help her figure what dye is best for that particular material. she also speaks often with the people who make the dye (one of them is aljo, downtown, who we have been to when dyeing costumes for ellen's shows). she also mentioned how she has a new respect for rit dyes! they work well on everything! she used to work at macy's as a designer, but found that she never saw the designs come to fruition for it was outsourced to india. all she did was work on the computer all day. she decided she wanted a more "hands on" job . . and found the opening at parsons-meares. here's the job description i found for her position!

boxes of patterns and material samples . .

walking along an aisle of buttons and ribbon . . and bolts of fabric . .

just a few of their shows . .

yoga

i've been taking yoga classes at integral yoga on 13th street. janet gave me a card with unlimited classes that is good for a month. i have two more days left. i've probably been to about six classes. the card was $30, so that is already a very good deal (normally, it's $17 a class). there's a 7:15 am class on weekdays i thought would be fun to try and get to, but i don't think i'm going to make it! especially since we have a field trip tomorrow morning. today i attended the 2:15 class, and then came home to have taim falafel with greg and chanda. both korrina and morgana were at dance rehearsals. greg then went off to do a coop shop, and i cleaned out the frig. now i'm going to try and get to bed early so i can get rid of this sinus infection i've had for a few weeks.

a new tea cafe and a new kitchen

janet and i visited a new tea cafe on morton street today, called bosie tea parlor. i loved it because they had different earl grey blends. i tried the earl grey crema, with hints of vanilla and cream. janet had an herbal detox and a chocolate pastry. yes, she laughed about that! before the tea cafe, we went to integral for a yoga class.

morgana is staying at deychen's tonight and i dropped some treats off for them. i climbed the six flights of stairs to see marisa's "new" kitchen. she painted it yellow and bright turquoise blue. I think it looks lovely and cheerful! i think she is enjoying working in it.

chanda and i (and jack!) watched the voyage of the dawn treader. i also worked on her friend nora's birthday gift. it's a simple mohair scarf done in rowan kidsilk haze. i'll have to take a picture of it tomorrow. it's a beautiful teal-like blue. i'm feeling a lot better this evening. the yoga class i went to helped tremendously.

ice skating and an afternoon off

morgana, chanda and i went ice skating this morning. we were a little slow getting out of the house, but it was a beautiful day outside. quite cold in the early morning, but sunny and warm by 11 am. the glare off the ice was extremely bright! we skated until they brought out the zamboni, and then we left for home. however, we didn't go straight home. we stopped at the continuum center for health and healing. i had called for an appointment as my throat was very swollen and it was uncomfortable to swallow. the doctor did a strep test, but it came back negative. her opinion was that the sinus infection was affecting the throat . . she gave me an antibiotic in case it continues to get worse. sleep is the best cure . . i have been getting to bed a bit late, so i better go earlier. i've been staying up watching old episodes of downton abbey on pbs. don't ask me how i got interested in watching it . . because i have no idea!

a trip to the continuum center often means we cannot restrain ourselves from visiting eataly! we picked up delicious blood oranges, a few tomatoes, pancetta bread and mozzarella for the girls for lunch at home. i ordered a large chamomile tea with honey to sip along the way. right after walking in the door, chanda declared herself exhausted, and i felt the same. we were supposed to go to ballet, but i called her in sick, since i felt so ill and exhausted myself. we decided to do this since she was going to have a substitute teacher. the teacher is a russian teacher from the kirov ballet, and OH! she was scary. growing up taking ballet classes with andre eglevsky as a little girl, i can understand exactly what she was talking about. actually, this teacher sounded even scarier than mr. eglevsky. i think today was her last day. thank goodness. anyway, it was good for me to sleep, which i did. maybe not so good when i woke and watched the remaining episodes of downton abbey before morgana and korrina came home for dinner! but, oh well. chanda listened to little women and made more valentines. it was a nice afternoon. for dinner we had leftover corn chowder and green beans. good night!

making valentines

we had friends over today, to make valentines with us. i found a knitted heart pattern on poppies and milk, and morgana and deborah both made beautiful ones. i still have to finish mine.





evan made a giant heart with lots of glitter and glue. it was left to dry for a few more days before beginning it's journey home.

after sweeping up and vacuuming up a lot of glitter! and after a lunch of carrot soup and delicious olive bread, our friends ran off to ella's dance class. m and c then did schoolwork before their dance classes, and korrina ran off to playwriting.