Ballet is a completely unnatural, unforgiving art form and dance genre. Its physical demand for perfection are something that most professional dancers struggle with their entire lives. A "perfect" ballet dancer would possess a number of physical traits and capabilities, and no one has them all...
Except for rare birds like Svetlana Zakharova. She's what I like to call an "alien." Born with all of the physical traits necessary to be the perfect ballet dancer. High arches, 180 degree rotation in the hips, insane flexibility...the list goes on. Combine all of that with a youth of hard work, and you get perfection.
I heard this little ditty on Boston College's radio station on my commute home today. Retro Brit girl pop? Yes, please. This is right up my alley.
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In other news work has been absofuckinglutely crazy this week and I managed to work myself right into a nice little exhaustion induced cold. I'll be snuggling and sniffling under my covers extra early this evening...but the weekend is almost here - HURRAH!
Most days, when I open up my web browser and see flashes of celebrity news pop up, I do not pay much mind. I rarely know (or care) who is dating who, who allegedly has gone under the knife and I've never seen a single episode of Jersey Shore. But this past Friday, when I hopped on Facebook and saw that my friend Jamie had posted about Etta James' passing, I felt my heart sink to the bottom of my stomach. I was instantly mournful, and remained a touch sad throughout the day - over someone that I had never even met.
If you follow my blog with any regularity, you would know that in addition to being a dancer, I am also a singer. My high school years were very much like the show Glee - minus all of the sex and the autotuning. I had a wonderful teacher and mentor, Mrs. L, who took me under her wing, and gave me the confidence to rock a mic. Every spare moment that I had between school and ballet class was spent flipping through Mrs. L's CD collection, educating myself by listening to the greats; Ella, Sarah, Aretha, Joni, Carole, Billie and Etta. These women inspired me to become a better singer.
Etta's passing is so significant because she was one of the few great voices left standing from a different era, an era when autotune didn't exist, and a singer became famous for his or her vocal chops, not because of how he or she looked. Video really did kill the radio star.
The documentary Before the Music Died explores just how easy it is to create a pop star in our age of technology...
It makes a music fan wonder - How many Ellas, Sarahs, Arethas, Jonis, Caroles, Billies and Ettas are getting passed over in favor of beautiful women who can't sing? Will the world mourn the eventual death of Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson as the end of a musical era? Will the great voices of this generation ever be heard? One has to wonder.
It is my hope that there will be artists that emerge from this generation who will both find commercial success AND inspire the music students of the future. (All my hopes and dreams are pinned on Adele at the moment). If not, I will take comfort in the fact that Etta leaves behind the legacy of her gorgeous musical catalogue - which I know will continue to inspire me for years to come.
Of course, the song most associated with Etta James is "At Last." I would like to feature a few of my, maybe lesser known but just as great, favorites.
The smoothie challenge is still going strong. Yesterday I was uber lazy and didn't make a smoothie, but took everything that would've gone into said smoothie and ate it out of a bowl...
I mean, it was essentially a yogurt parfait, so I thought, why not?
Today was an exercise in creativity. I have not gone grocery shopping for awhile, and the fridge is rather bare. However, I had 1/2 cup of greek yogurt left, and some berries from picking this summer in the freezer. So I made a berry cardamom smoothie: yogurt, handful of raspberries, blueberries, dash of oatmeal, honey, splash of coconut milk and a generous spoonful of cardamom. Maybe too generous...but boy do I love cardamom!
I just woke up from a dream where I lived in some sort of Fahrenheit 451/1984ish society where local food producers and farmers had been squashed by some mysterious "MAN" (Monsanto???) in favor of government issue meals. (Yes, this is the type of shit I have nightmares about apparently). However, there was an underground network of spies, in said society, whose job it was to pass on and keep alive traditional food preparation methods. I was one of those spies.
This dream involved me running from Big Brother's cohorts (Monsanto cronies???), hiding in the woods, traveling to safe houses and meeting fellow operatives who essentially were walking recipe books.
My job?
Oh, apparently my role in this society was to be keeper of secrets about all the things you can do with WHEY.
After kicking some serious ass Mission Impossible style - I ran into some safe house spouting facts like this:
The view outside my window was so beautiful this morning. The sun rising behind the trees, light dispersing out over the freshly fallen snow...New England just takes my breath away sometimes.
I would love to travel the world over, but at the end of the day my heart belongs to this place - its four seasons, each heralding new beauty, waiting to be discovered. This morning it was sparkle and shine. Tomorrow? Who knows...
For today's Dance-spiration Friday, I would like to get my geek on and share my absolute nerdy reverence for a man named Jacques d’Amboise.
Jacques d’Amboise was a New York City Ballet star that went on to form an organization called National Dance Institute. NDI has introduced dance to thousands of school children since its inception in 1976.
D’Amboise is absolutely a dance education rock star, and a personal hero. He has accomplished so much and does it with panache and humor - as evidenced in the following video featuring NDI students. I mean, really, is their anything cuter than a ballet about making peanut butter?
