Just sharing this from December.
When you think you’re hilarious and EDDIE WATSON LIKES IT.
*swoon*
Asides
Moving
I’ve decided to keep on blogging at Entrechat as I didn’t end up using my blog re-boot at Entrechat Quatre to actually write about a vastly different array of topics! Turns out I do mainly chat about ballet.
So I’m back here!
Apologies if this has messed about with your life in any way.
Got some reviews coming up very soon
and some beautiful ballet art from the archives
and some more chat about doing exams as an adult!
LOVE
xxx
Nutcracker Christmas Advert!
Hands-down the best Christmas ad I’ve seen!
Do you remember seeing it in 2013?
I wish they’d re-run it! The Bailey’s adverts on at the moment are laaaame.
New Linky Links
New links in the sidebar…
Check out my proper boss mate at her blog Oeil Noir for chat about training in Social Work and dancing Ballet (and being proper boss) and the challenges that hypermobility and chronic fatigue bring.
https://oeilnoirblog.wordpress.com
I’ve also linked to dancer Kathryn Morgan on Youtube, I’ve been using her videos quite a lot lately for stretching routines and stage makeup and all sorts!
Dressing Up
Of course I went as a ballerina for Hallowe’en! It involves minimal expense and I was making a tutu skirt anyway!
(It’s a fashion tutu, rather than a true romantic tutu, and I will post about making it soon.)
If you’re disappointed that it’s not scary, just call it the Ghost of Fonteyn. Or Myrtha. Or Giselle when she’s DED.
Pleeeease no placement critique because I had already been drinking by this point, and it was radioactive green, and I very rarely take pictures of myself balletically speaking and as soon as the photo has been taken I criticise myself way more than you could ever hope to attempt to do, so just DON’T OK!? Ok then.
The wonderful diva stage makeup was from a tutorial by Kathryn Morgan, who is a former soloist with NYCB and posts loads of really useful dance videos. Check out her different dance make-up looks, and her stretching routines.
I have no idea why I look so arsey in this photo.
Of course when I had had more of the radioactive green stuff I was teaching people how to do pirouettes and piqué turns. An educational time was had by all.
I am absolutely going to do this makeup.
Misty Copeland Wills What She Wants
A heads-up from beginningballet (hiya!) about this ad which I’d not seen before. Absolutely love the close-up of Copeland taking a rise en pointe, really seeing all the work in the different parts of the foot. Don’t scroll down to the comments on YouTube if you don’t want to be infuriated.
GET UR FREAK ON
Readers in the UK may have seen this advert on telly – it is being broadcast here quite a lot during peak evening time hours. I think it’s brilliant and I love the choice of Missy Elliot’s absolute tune.
The ad is made by a campaign from government called This Girl Can which aims to encourage women in sport. Dance doesn’t feature in the ad as such, but the shots of women in Zumba class come close and the sentiment of the text on screen – playing on the meaning of the word “hot”, and the coupling of “sweating like a pig” with “feeling like a fox” absolutely captures the feeling of powering through a gruelling allegro and giving it a bit of Fonteyn.
A word about Zumba – it’s derided a bit as being somehow uncool, but actually going to Zumba classes did teach me a lot of basic Latin steps. I did, however, want to take it further and learn more complex dance steps, which is part of the reason why I decided to give ballet a go.
I’d love to see dance being considered in the same kind of sphere as sport. I can understand why ballet wouldn’t make it into an advert like this, as it’s considered pink and girly and not in line with the advert’s punchy, fierce aesthetic. But we all know that this isn’t the case, don’t we? Plus, I’m often berated by gym-going friends for not doing “aerobic” exercise, as they see ballet class as just doing some nice stretches for a bit. I’d like to see them do an hour and a half of hard graft in the studio.
Nevertheless as dancers I think we can all celebrate getting our freak on, and encouraging girls into both dance and sport.
This is hilarious.
NEW YEAR NOUVELLE PAS DE CHAT
Oh dear readers, I’ve had one of those breaks from blogging which we all need once in a while. Too much dealing with the written word you know, pass me my smelling salts.
Lots of new things to chat about though…
I saw the Nutcracker at Christmas of the very first time!
I saw Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands for my birthday!
I’ve completed a term at the Royal Academy of Dance in their adult learner’s programme, and am enrolled for a second.
I’ve had a taster class in the RAD’s Intermediate Foundation syllabus class and am looking forward to starting it as a regular class, hopefully preparing for the exam one of these days.
I may even become a total RAD luvvie and get some demi-pointes!!!
And, I really want to start writing about ballet history with a regular post sharing prints and ephemera from the past.
I’d like to know, is this interesting? Would you, the reader, like to see bits from the archive from British Ballet history? I don’t know exactly what I will find, but I know some of it will be pretty, some of it rude, and hopefully a good deal of it will be from periods of history that we don’t normally read a whole lot about. Let me know what you think!
Entrechat. 