LGBT Pride Parade

Since we didn’t have class, today’s big event was San Francisco’s famous gay pride parade.  My group planned to actually wake up and go to the parade, which started at 10:30, but we ended up taking forever to eat and get ready, so we got to the grounds close to 11:30, so we missed the parade.  However, we did get to experience a ton of the festivities.

A few blocks worth of roads were closed for the day and worked as the grounds for all of the booths and stages for the celebration.  There were tons of outlandish costumes (and badly-dressed people) everywhere enjoying the parade’s offerings.  The streets were crammed with people, but somehow the event still felt really safe and I didn’t lose anything (granted, I was clutching my ‘mote’ (an alternate version of a ‘murse’) the entire time).  Also, I must note the insane amount of freebies that were handed out throughout the entirety of the festivities.  My favorites have to be the free bottled drinks and the free snack food.  This meant I didn’t have to pay for lunch which was fine by me.

Afterwards, a group of four of my friends and I watched one of my favorite movies ever: Spice World.  Yet another must-see.

A) Sofi, Becky, Nicky pose at the first booth we saw.

B) You know you’re in San Francisco when you see booths like this.

C) Sofi did psycho eye make-up.

D) Oh my…

E) Look!  It’s legal here.  Why isn’t it like this in Iowa?!

F) An old guy dances about by himself.

G) There supposedly was some sort of roller disco or race nearby…

H) Quinn, Aaron and Nicky pose.

I) Me, Sofi, Becky, and Rylee pose… I’m blinking…

J) I love it.

K) Nicky decided to dress oddly in a weird one-piece safari thingy, fishnets, and boots.

L) Nicky posed with a mermaid only after introducing herself… and shaking his/her hand.

M) Quinn and the aforementioned mermaid.

N) There were stickers involved.

O) Wow…. just wow.

P) Just another way to lower unemployment…

Q) There was a protest outside… and the opposite inside.

R) Quinn, Nicky, Sofi, and Rylee

S) They’re on stilts.  They walked really quickly and I thought they were going to trample me.

T) A drag queen on stage

U) A group picture.  Aaron is picking up Becky in the back behind everyone else.  Orange, Pink, and Teal Sweatshirts and White Shirt weren’t in our ‘group,’ but do dance at SFB.  Otherwise, Sofi, Nicky, Quinn, Rylee, me, and Lyz.

V) Becky and Aaron… the funny thing about this is that although these two are only two years apart, they look more like ten.  And they got oodles of stares from onlookers.  It was great.

W) One portion of the grounds.

X) Gets! (Everything I came back with.)

Y) I got sunburnt.  Yay.  I might actually get tan this summer.

Z) A glass pendant for my mom and a trio of cute pins for Annie.  Yay for gifts.

Ethnic Diversity

Fun day again today.  The only class I had was a 90 minute technique class with Mr. Esquerre.  I felt extremely awkward the entire time.  There was actually a lot of stuff that I don’t do often and thus I felt really uncoordinated.  There was an assortment of tendue exercise that all ‘challenged’ my musicality, which means that I don’ think they were set up with a specific beat in mind.  Also, the combinations were taught quickly and felt weird.  In centre, we put a lot of time on turns from fifth and petit allegro.  One big correction was for everyone to keep their arms in fifth forward so it doesn’t fall backwards.  Another was to get to positions faster.  As previously stated earlier: I hadn’t practiced many of the steps very often.  One such step was a glissade battu.  I don’t know if it is legal, but we did it.  Overall, probably my worst class so far.  We have the same teacher for next week.  I’m guessing I’ll get used to him at some point.

Afterwards, my friend Sofi and I went to Japantown.  It was super exciting.  So much so that I took pictures.  We first bought lunch at a restaurant inside the mall that is Japantown called Sophie’s Crepes.  We both had dessert crepes: mine with whipped cream and chocolate, her’s with added strawberries.  They were really messy, but great.  I recommend them.

We then headed to a gift shop inside the mall.  I bought a postcard and a thank you card.  Sofi bought a bunch of pins, cards, and a wallet.  And here I thought I’d be the only one having fun.  Inside the gift shop, there is a ton of stationary, character goods, cards, and office supplies.  We spent the longest time just looking at some of the cute phone straps and erasers.  Good times.

Next up was Kinokuniya Bookstore.  Among the large selection of books, we looked at CDs and DVDs, calendars, and magazines.  After a long time talking to a salesperson, I was able to do a special order for Morning Musume’s 10th Anniversary PV Collection DVD.  The software the salesperson used was all in Japanese, and I don’t know if she knew how to use it.  I’m supposed to be able to pick this DVD up at the store in a few weeks.  We shopped around the store and I was able to find a few CDs by AKB48, Koda Kumi, and Do As Infinity.  All of which was exciting.  I ended up purchasing my favorite phonebook-style magazine made for pre-teen girls, Ribon (which came with a set of pens).  Sofi again bought more than me: a calendar and a bookmark.

When we were about to leave, we saw a purikura booth!  Purikura is essentially just a photo booth.  The only difference is that purikura is all about decorating.  I posted the awesome idol-like pictures below.  We had to have a clerk explain exactly how to take pictures, and then we were able to decorate them as we liked.  We took the obligatory Japanese idol route and hardcore decorated them with as many hearts, stars, and sweets as possible.  Normally this decorating process is timed to only a few minutes, but since no one was in line, we literally worked on decorating ten of these pictures for an hour.  After our design spree, we printed out six of them (we couldn’t get the machine to do the right thing as it was all in Japanese; we wanted all ten).  They are absolutely awesome.  I also recommend this if you have time and $6-$10 dollars to waist on a 4×6 inch sticker sheet.

We were dead tired from the button-mashing frenzy of the photo booth and went back to the dorms.  There, someone had a birthday party, we left with a chaperone after curfew to get food, and one of the two level 8 guys went to the hospital for unknown reasons.  I thought it was a mildly successful day.

A) Us (Sean and Sofi) before Japantown

B) Crepes!  Sofi’s is on the left; mine’s on the right.

C) Us (Sofi and Sean) after Japantown

D) The Japantown sign

E) Sofi and an organization that helps the Japanese child portion of San Francisco’s population become smart.

F) The bridge at Japantown

G) The Kinokuniya building

H) SPARKLE purikura

I) Marry? purikura

J) MWAH! purikura

K) I love you! purikura

L) KISS purikura

M) snuggle purikura

N) RIBON with its accessories

O) Postcard and letter

Yay.

Fog? In San Francisco?

Today it was actually kind of foggy outside!  That was new and different for me.  I guess it is sort of San Francisco’s trademark, though.  It’s a shame that I heard that it might actually be just smog or stuff from the supposedly nearby wild fires.  Oh well.

The day started with ballet class with Mr. Lyons.  In general it was pretty much the same as the other ones this week.  Many combinations were exactly the same.  I again got the correction of having my upper body too far back, this time just in turns.  He worked on it for a while with me and I actually felt more comfortable turning on my right side than on my left.  It feels really weird, but makes the turning easier.  We even did a short grande allegro in this class.

Afterwards, we had our Forsythe technique class again.  Today we focused exclusively on partner work/contact improvisation.  Much of it was one partner pushing/pulling/manipulating the other who would then react to this movement.  We gradually went from more stunted movement to much more complex movement that was fluid.  We were also instructed to lean on our partner, which in turn would make us focus more on how are bodies actually wanted to move.  The class still feels a bit akward, but it’s getting better.

A two hour break, huge stack of pancakes, and helping of eggs later, I had variations class.  We went through the small portion of the Diamond variation we had already learned and then learned the bluebird one.  Luckily, I had already done a simpler version of the choreography, so I felt prepared for the variation.  The only differences were slight differences in the sissones (legs were to be held together), entrechat six, and a double tour at the end.  It wasn’t terrible.

That’s pretty much all I did.  Exciting, huh?  And I’m sorry if my entries are hard to understand and/or incorrectly spelled.  I am writing these at night for the most part, and I almost never re-read things I write.

Yay for Ballet…

Our first class of the day was pilates.  I heard rumors that our teacher actually learned from Joseph Pilates, but I’m not sure.  Either way, it was supposed to be very true to his classes.  It ended up being much less stressful than I anticipated.  I felt that I was well trained enough from the few pilates classes I’ve taken over the last few summers to easily keep up with the class.  I was even able to get a few ‘excellent!’s in process.  Yay for me.

Ballet class was class as per usual.  We worked on the same or similar combinations at barre and in centre.  More emphasis was again put on such concepts of putting heels down and also upper body and heads.  Today I finally figured out why the mirrors look so weird: they are all on a tilt.  I guess it’s so that if you’re jumping rediculously high closer to the mirror you can still see yourself, but I think it throws just about everyone off in centre since you’re looking slightly lower than usual to see yourself.  It’s weird but I guess it’ll just be a challenge.

After a two hour lunch break, I had variations.  We’re starting out by learning Diamond from The Sleeping Beauty.  It’s to the music that we used for the Gold, Silver, and Saphire (and possibly Diamond) Fairies when we did portions of the ballet.  I’m not sure who’s choreography it is, but its a duet of sorts with one guy doing each side.  I start on stage right, if that matters at all.  I think I like it, but it’s way too soon to make a decision as we’ve only learned a short part of it thus far.

For pas de deux, we are now learning an actual pas.  And not just any pas, but the Bluebird Pas de Deux from The Sleeping Beauty.  Yay.  I guess we’ll learn that, the variations, and the coda.  That sounds like it will take forever.  More girls were in class, so I guess that now I’ll get to have my partner all to myself from now on, which will be nice so I’ll have more practice time.  From what I know so far, we’re doing pretty similar choreography to what we did when I did the piece a few years ago.  My partner, Sami, has also done a modified version of the piece, so in general we’re just plain awesome.  The half that we’ve learned so far includes pirrouettes, finger turns, promanades, and a press in arabesque.  The press is kind of… interesting, but I think we can actually get it.  This may be a first.

After classes finally finished at 4:45, a friend of mine who went to SAB last summer and I took a detour over to a dance store, which included a long walk through a ghetto-esque portion of town.  We survived though, and ended up getting on the same bus as the SFBS students who had to stay till 6:00.

On a completely unrelated note and with knowledge that I’m not posting nearly enough pictures as I should be:  It’s Nakanishi Rina’s 20th birthday today.  I had pudding to celebrate!

Summer of Improv?

Yay.  More classes!  The following post is for Wednesday’s classes.

For technique class we had Mr. Lyons again.  I was again corrected that my upper body was too far back.  It feels really akward to have it more forward, but I’m working on it.  The teacher put tons of emphasis on a few things like not sickling one’s feet and keeping one’s weight off of the heels.  I guess those are common problems in my class.  We did more adagio today, which continues to surprise me.  Also, I’ve noticed a lot of focus on assambles and glissades in class.  I guess everyone’s petit allegro needs some work, too.

We had a class in Forsythe Technique today.  I was under the impression that this was the same guy who did all of those fancy contemporary pieces which may or may not include that one spiffy green tutu.  Now I’m not too sure.  Throughout the class we worked with a ‘cube’ with 27 points.  The idea that you were in a cube with nine points above you, nine points below you, and nine points through your body (like the points on a cube plus the centers of its outside faces and the inside middle of the cube, if that makes sense).  We first learned an order of which point to ‘touch’ (by finger snapping) first.  After learning that, we were able to choose which ones we wanted to touch and when… almost improv.  Then, we were instructed to make our movements more linear and later more fluid as well as to use our torsos more.  Also, ballet was to be incorporated.  Somehow it just began to be straight improv.  The only instruction we were given was to observe, expore, and use the space in the room.  Although we were split into two groups, I didn’t feel that self-conscious.  Gasp.

Last in the day’s line up was men’s class.  We worked on general jumps and less turns than earlier.  Again, lots of petit allegro.  I’m beginning to better understand our teacher, the one who taught pas de deux class on the first day, despite his heavy Cuban accent.  A few corrections which were thrown out were to point the feet in jums and to make sure to coupe or posse the working leg right away in a small jump which requires it.  Exciting.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the program so far.  Yay.

1st Day of Classes

Today was our first day of classes.  It felt long overdue.

I first had an almost-two-hour-long ballet classes with Mr. Lyons.  Since we would have a men’s class later in the day, he decided to go slowly and focus on elements that wouldn’t be present in the next class.  It was actually a good class even though I thought he would be scary when we first started.  I even got a few corrections.  The first was at barre during a balance in posse: my upper body was too far back, which I then fixed and received a ‘good.’  After class ended while thanking the teacher for class, I was also told that I needed to plie more in the petit allegro we had just done.

During class, I noticed that many of the other guys in my level have to work on problems similar to my own; a bunch need to pull in their ribs, some need to stretch their knees, a lot should pull their heels higher in demi pointe, and more need to keep their shoulders down.  The teacher seemed to focus an oddly large amount of attention on arms, saying that they were often overlooked by male dancers.  Another anomoly was that we had an oddly long adagio that we ended doing twice, even after an adagio at barre.  I was thinking that we would very, very rarely have an adagio while I was in San Francisco.

After ballet class, we had a break and then batterie/men’s class with Mr. Maynard.  We spent the first half hour doing turns and the second half hour doing jumps.  We worked on rhythm and speed in our turns for much of the class.  I almost actually felt comfortable doing turns en dedans.  We did a ton of those as well as turns from fifth.  During the jumping portion, we did a few different petit allegros and a grande allegro focusing on speed and height respectively.  Two of the combinations ended with poses involving a character-esque hand-on-hip which I especially liked.  We finished with oodles of entrechat six, which I could somehow do.  Overall, another good class.

In level 7, there are twenty-five guys.  Today we split up into two groups for pas de deux class with Mr. Esquivel.  I was actually the tallest in the shorter class, being 1/4 inch shorter than the shortest in the taller class.  There were actually more boys than girls (a 12:9 un-simplified ratio) which meant that I actually had to share my partner.  She is a year-round student at SFBS and has been to PNB’s intensive a few times.  We did an adagio and also worked on turns.  It wasn’t very memorable, but fun and a good partnering class all the same.

Random/Closing thoughts on the classes: Some of the studios feel a bit thrown together and not well planned.  Personally, I think I might really like the part of the dress code that requires white socks; I think they make my legs look longer as well as somehow make my torso look a tad shorter.

After classes were over, we went to the buses to go back to the dorms.  Since one of the buses was taking forever to get to our stop.  Four of us decided to go to a different bus stop to try our luck there.  Two of which actually went to SAB with me.  We ended up getting lost and asked a very nice stranger (who we think was new to the city) where a bus stop was.  She attempted to tell us and then offered to drive us to USF (cliche much?).  We ended up asking a nearby hair salon worker where it was and she directed us in the proper direction.  Once we found the bus stop, we found a chocolate shop and bought some dark chocolate-covered almonds.  Yum.

For the rest of the night I hung out with the un-chaporoned students four floors up.  Aren’t I cool?

Placement Day

Today was placement day!  I had the majority of the day free, which was used to lay around the dorms.  One ‘major’ event, viewed from a window in a friend’s room, was a protest!  Sadly, it was very peaceful.  Using my context clues, it looked like some of the staff at the dormitory building wanted higher wages because their housing and food expenses were too high compared to their paychecks.  It was short-lived, and after a few minutes, all of them went inside except for a single hopping mad protester.  The others could be seen inside talking with the people they were protesting against and attempting to get the only protester to come in to join them.

Evidently we’ll take MUNI to and from the studio everyday, and now I think I know how to use it.  Hopefully.

After a morning full of hanging out, we had our placement class at the studios.  It was really weird because we had an ‘orientation’ of the studio immediately before class.  This meant that no one was very well warmed-up when class actually started.  (I think this is a motif for SFBS: they open the studios up half an hour before the first class of the day; no earlier.)  During the orientation, not only did we learn about what type of behavior was expected, but I’ve now decided that nowhere in San Francisco does fire drills, as both the school and the dorms outright said that they wouldn’t have fire drills and essentially said that fires meant escape was a free-for-all.

Class was really odd.  I’m hoping that since it was a placement class, they just wanted to fit in as much as possible into its small hour-and-fifteen-minute block of time.  It kind of seemed like there was a checklist and every combination just wanted to cross a few off of the list.  Later, after discussing the class, we realized we didn’t do frappes or grande allegro.  Surprisingly, we didn’t do anything that I couldn’t do.  One theory is that since a boy (supposedly pretty good for his age) in the class before ours hurt himself during the placement class, they didn’t want to push us very hard for the first day.  The combinations were fairly simple and the teacher went over the port des bras multiple times, as some guys didn’t get them very quickly.  He also had to teach the four French (Russian? Italian?) arabesques for a combination.  I felt very well prepared, although I wasn’t at all happy with how the class went.

In the evening, we found out our placements.  I’m in level 7, group 1.  The ‘1′ is just a grouping, possibly on height that determines who we partner with.  ‘1′ is shorter than ‘2.’ Level 6 is ages 14-18, level 7 is ages 16-18, and level 8 is, I believe, 17-22.  I’m really happy about my placement.  Only two guys that I know of in level 8 are living in the dormitory, while the rest are year-round students or 18 years old.  Everyone here seems really good.

Back at the dorms, everyone has already formed specific groups.  In the hallway that I’m in, there’s the ‘group’ that I’m in as well as another completely seperate one.  The girls seem even more exclusive and cliches everywhere have begun to form.  Luckily, I really like my group.  From a social standpoint, the intensive is already going well for me at the very least.

Actual classes start tomorrow.  I think that I’m excited.

Day 1

We had a completely free day on Sunday.  We went to the downtown section of San Francisco to browse and shop.  What’s even more fun is that we literally walked miles since we weren’t alerted on how to use the train system.

I’ve recently found out that San Francisco is really, really hilly.  It takes a ton of energy to just walk a block or too.  Once we finally figured out how to use the bus system, MUNI, live improved greatly.

On a more random note, I met the brother of one of my best friends from Milwaukee Ballet’s Summer Program (Allie.)

Just a picture of the two who I explored with…

My Room and View…

A) My ’side’ of the room

B) My desk

C) The view

D) The view

E) The view

F) My closet

Exciting, yes?

Arrival!

June 21st, 2008

I traveled to San Francisco, today!  I departed from the Des Moines Airport at about 6:00 AM.  It was my first flight by myself… ever.  Luckily, it went really well. Usually by the time the plane lands, my ears won’t pop for another week, but this time, my ears didn’t even need popping.  I was so happy about that, you have no idea.  I first went to the airport in the Twin Cities, and then took a flight to the San Francisco International airport.  That flight (which took forever) went really well, too.  I had no idea that the entire Midwest farmed.  I would say it was scenic, but it really wasn’t.

Once I had arrived at the airport, I grabbed my checked luggage (which we had to pay $50 extra for since I’m extremely good at over-packing), and proceeded to look for a stranger to take me to the dorms.  Technicly, it wasn’t a stranger, but rather a woman who is one of my mom’s co-worker’s cousins and the aformentioned woman’s boyfriend.  The duo was incredibly nice and if you have some sort of an abscure connection with them too, you should fly out to meet them.

Evidently it was much hotter than it was usually.  I guess the temperatures stay within about 60 to 70 degrees, but that day it was at about 80.  I thought it was nice, but most of the San Franciscans (including my ‘drivers’) were dying.

We drove through San Francisco’s not-so-safe traffic in order to leave the airport.  I was under the impression that it was only L.A. that had bad drivers, but I am either wrong, or have incorrectly high expectations. In addition, the roads are rather psycho.

We went to a quaint little Mexican restaurant, who’s name escapes me at the moment, for a quick lunch.  Afterwards, we headed to the dorms that I would be spending the next five weeks in.

We managed to get lost multiple times looking for the correct building in the University of San Francisco campus.  A few other SFBS dancers were also there and we were able to finally find the dormitory.  My address is:

Sean Laughead
San Francisco Ballet School-Phelan Hall
2345 Golden Gate Avenue, Room 378
San Francisco, CA 94118-4313

Throughout the day, there were at least four people that I had guessed were SFB dancers.  Once I had moved in to my room, I noticed I was actually right about them.  I was even right about one that was on my plane from Minnesota.  I’m impressed with myself.

In the afternoon we had a long orientation.  The room was packed, and since this was San Francisco, there was no air conditioning.
Eventually, I got a roommate; Jordan from New York.  We’re getting along thus far and I don’t see problems in our future.

We don’t have any classes until Monday, and even then it’s just a placement class and another orientation.  Yay for free days.

No super-awesome pictures just yet.