ABT Day Eleven

Today was a pretty good day! Amanda was back to her classes after a fun and relaxing weekend. She had Pilates, Technique, Pointe, Choreography, and Rep. As these are all classes with actual dancing (and not dance history, etc.)--it was one of those days with 4 1/2 hours on pointe! Her classes started at 9:00 and got out at 5:00, but she seemed to enjoy her day.

I forgot to mention on the previous Friday Amanda had George de la Pena (who one of Debbie's cats is named after, ha) for acting! For part of the class, they had to convey emotions through dance and also sing a song. Amanda said that her friend from Sweden didn't know any American songs and Mr. de la Pena told her to sing anything, so she sang the happy birthday song. A few of the other girls sang songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and I'm a Little Teapot. Amanda said it was a fun class and that he was nice.

After Amanda's class was over with, she changed for the ballet VERY quickly and we headed over on the subway to go to Lincoln Center. You all would be proud--no maps were needed this time and I wasn't even frantically clutching my iPhone to figure out how to get there like I usually am. I made sandwiches ahead of time which we ate in a little outdoor seating area near Lincoln Center. Then we made our way to the Metropolitan Opera House.

Seeing Sylvia with Gillian Murphy and Maxim Beloserkovsky was incredible! Amanda recognized the male lead as one of the principals in the move Center Stage, and she enjoyed seeing both of them dance in Sylvia so much! We were very close, so we could really appreciate not only the dancing, but also the beautiful costumes and the setting of the ballet. You can't really call it a backdrop, because it is all three-dimensional--there were trees that looked so real and doors that Gillian Murphy went in and out of--it was beautiful! The setting was shaded is such pretty shades of almost sea green and a lot of the costumes had the same color--it was so striking.

We didn't really know the story of Sylvia before--it is a Greek ballet--Gillian Murphy shoots arrows while she is dancing (very multi-talented she is!). The ballet is complete with Greek gods such as Orion, Diana, and Eros. Part of the ballet takes place in a woodland and another part at the temple of Diana. It was very well done--the music was by Leo Delibes and the choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton. It was so nice to see a ballet that we didn't know anything about!

Amanda and I have enjoyed going to these ballets at the Metropolitan Opera House so much! The dancing is just sublime and the setting of the Metropolitan Opera House is so beautiful! We are planning to see the last ballet that will be performed her before ABT goes to LA on tour. Next week we are going to see Romeo and Juliet which Amanda has always wanted to see. The principals will be Paloma Herrera and Marcelo Gomes. We specifically picked this particular cast of Romeo and Juliet because Amanda really wanted to see Paloma Herrera again, and this time from a little closer up.

We hope you are all having a good start to your week!

Beth and Amanda