Skip to main content

Nightingale

Jazz is a new dancing adventure for me, but because of my ballet technique I feel like I handle it pretty well. There are occasional steps that trip me up (i.e. turning with my passé parallel, or axle jumps), but overall I feel like I make it through class with pretty minor embarassment.

It helps that the jazz teacher is super encouraging. He has complimented my technique before, telling me how clean and smooth my movements are. Sometimes I feel like this isn't always a good thing, depending on the music we're dancing to, but he seems to disagree. After class the other evening, he came up to me and told me that I make him laugh, but in the best way--"The music is going 'boom tiss boom tiss' and there's Miss Jackie, all elegant and graceful. You're like a nightingale." When I mentioned that I thought it wasn't a good thing for that particular music, he said, "No, it's great. Everything is so smooth and clean."

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by nightingale aside from the bird (surely not Florence?), but birds are graceful right? I'd been wanting a fun dancing nickname (several other adults at the studio have them), and apparently that might be it.

Nightingales 
by Robert Bridges

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams wherefrom
Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long!.

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
No dying cadence, nor long sigh can sound,
For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
As night is withdrawn
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
Welcome the dawn.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Elevé Dancewear

Last week, Poets & Pirouettes reviewed a custom leotard she ordered from Lone Reed Designs , and sparked my interest in trying an independent designer the next time I want a custom leotard.  We started having a conversation about my experience ordering from Elev é Dancewear , and I realized, "Duh, Jackie! You have a blog now! You should review and talk about those leotards in detail there instead of hijacking the comments section of this post!"  (Sorry m'dear!)  Also, I've determined that P&P and I could be horrible enablers for each other (in the best possible way). (As an aside, you should go follow her blog , she is an amazing writer and fabulous to boot). Now, let's get down to business and talk about Elev é . 

A Week With ArtÉmotion

At the beginning of June, I traveled to Salt Lake City for the  artÉmotion Adult Ballet Summer Intensive , and it was THE BEST THING EVER. The classes were amazing, the teachers were amazing, the other dancers were amazing...I could go on and on. Plus Salt Lake City had some pretty amazing weather (sunny and hot all week, which I love). To sum up (I'll go into greater detail below), I HIGHLY recommend it and would do it again. In a heartbeat. With exclamation points!!  Side note: my ankle did fine, and I wasn't nearly as sore as I expected. More details on the program below for those that are curious.

Getting Older Sucks & Other Updates

I'm sure my fellow adult dancers can commiserate. What's the most frustrating, as someone who grew up dancing, is that I can't do things I used to be able to do. I was always a jumper growing up (especially grand allegro) and now I feel like I can't even get off the floor. Petit allegro is miserable for similar reasons, but also because I cannot get my brain and body to sync. I know the exercise beforehand and can mark it just fine, but once I actually start jumping my body just won't GO. I'm not sure how much of this is still weakness from not being able to dance for awhile and how much is...well...age. Ugh. Weirdly, though, I can do triple pirouettes now and never got those as a teen, so maybe its all in my head. Anyhoodle--updates! Ankle is definitely better--I finally finished PT last month! My flexibility still doesn't quite match on that side, so plies can be a little weird (especially in jumps...hmm). Its happiest when I'm using it-