Turning as Kitri in Paris!

I found a studio!

An awesome studio with an awesome ballet teacher who also teaches awesomeness at the Paris Opera Ballet. She's brilliant, funny, clever and a really beautiful dancer. I feel really, really lucky, nice reader. And dancing again feels great. I missed it so much!

And the school is this one: http://www.institut-stanlowa.com

It looks really good. The teachers are all from the Paris Opera Ballet; there are even some étoiles teaching. Also, they take teaching adults seriously! And there is live piano music! So I can't be happier right now.

I leave you with something that happened yesterday in pointe class.

*Piano plays Don Quixote coda music*
Teacher: Okay! Don Quixote music? Well then, we're gonna do the 32 turns!
Class: HAHAHAHAHA!
Teacher: I'm serious!
Class: OH, OKAY.
And then we turned. Or something!

To be honest, we weren't doing fouettés, nor pirouettes. Just normal turns in fifth position. But some REALLY FAST TURNS! By the end of them I was so dizzy I couldn't see properly. MUST.WORK.ON.SPOTTING.

Love this pic of Polina Semionova and Cory Stearns from ABT rehearsing Don Quixote in Barcelona. Photo by Renata Pavam.

Keep dancing!

Nerea.

New Year's Resolutions

Hi everybody!

How's this new year going? For me, quite well, even though I spent the first week really stressed due to bureaucracy. I hatehatehatehate it! But some hours ago I sent the last envelope to the correct address and now I'm happy to say I am free!! I am back in Salamanca and I'm allowed to do nothing but dance, read and write, because I already did my exams in December. Big YAY until February 13th!

So I have never, ever, written a list of new year's resolutions. We don't do that in Spain, nice reader. But some things just came across my mind and then I thought: "hey! I could do those during 2012! They are perfectly achievable in a year!". So this is my super short list:

• Learn Catalan. I know: nobody can learn a language in a year (unless you're the most intelligent person on Earth). But the thing is, I already know Catalan. I know I do! I can perfectly understand it, both reading and listening. But I never dare saying it's one of my working languages, because I always struggle when it comes to "producing" the language. Catalan is kind of similar to French and I can't help but mix them in my head. If I start speaking Catalan, I always end up saying things in French and so on. So yeah, by the end of this year I'll be speaking and writing Catalan fluently, you'll see!

• Become a translator and a teacher. Just six months to go and it'll be done. I just need to pass three more subjects and write a long Bachelor's Degree Thesis (on dance, nice reader! I got to mix translation and dance for the last essay of my degree!) and I'll become an official translator. Obviously, I still have lots of things to learn, but for now I'll be happy with my Degree thingy. The teacher will come later, because I'm probably going to work in France as a Spanish Language Assistant in October. Pretty nice, huh?

• Pirouette. I just need to be able to do some clean singles before I even think of doubles. I am getting better, yes. I can pirouette, but I just want to be comfortable and get to measure the amount of impulse that I need, both en pointe and in soft slippers. The round fouettés will come when I am fully aware where my weight is and where it should be.

• Always dance like nobody is watching. This may be cliché, but I have realised that I dance way better when I forget about everything and everybody. I must get to find this feeling every single time I practice.

• Work hard... in every aspect of my life.

Also, can I haz Lucía Lacarra's arabesque? Plz!? *_*
 Photo: Stanislav Belyaevsky

And that's pretty much all.
Be happy, y'all!

Just like Tamara Rojo

So the other day my mum was with her friends, showing this picture of myself dancing at the dance school recital in June:

I was also there, listening to their conversation, and you know how it is when mums start talking about how amazing their children are… yeah, so not fun times.

And then, suddenly, one of my mum’s friends said: wow, look at her! We have a Tamara Rojo in here!

And I was like WTF!, because you can obviously tell that the woman doesn’t know anything about dance, since Tamara is not a flamenco dancer, and even if she was, I could never be as good as her…

But if she wanted to make a compliment (which, I am sure, was her purpose), she couldn’t have chosen a better one, because for me, Tamara is the bestest ballerina ever.

So I couldn’t help but think:

Awwww! Take that, I am like Tamara Rojo! Do you hear that, evil single pirouettes? I have now pwned you! You are now pwned, because I can do 32 freaking fouettés in a row!!!

And then I went home and tried to pirouette… and failed miserably as always.

[…]

Maybe in a few months… (?)

Nerea Rojo.