Returning to Relevé

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.

I'm putting this behind a cut because it will be nice and long, and for those that are just cruising through, you won't have to read a mountain of text!

So, obviously I haven't had as much free time as I had hoped!  I'll have to do a big comprehensive post when I get back home. Right now, this is happening: Nothing major, no one panic.  Just my stupid tendons acting up again (only doing the heel tonight, though the past two nights I did my whole foot and half way up my calf).   Other things I'll expand upon later: got a lovely new pair of pointe shoes, my entire lower half is beyond sore (especially the calves), I've gotten a chance to try the Esmeralda variation (but currently prefer a variation from Les Sylphides), and I hate super sticky floors. Stay tuned!  I apologize if this post is wacky, I'm trying the blogger app.

I leave tomorrow for my vacation/summer intensive adventure, and am being a total slacker with regards to my packing:   This is an enormous mess. I never did a summer intensive when I was young.  I took time off from dance during the summer, usually because my family would have some sort of vacation planned. I had no plans to be a professional dancer, so it wasn't a "necessity." Ballet was something I loved, but I was too shy and non-competitive to really want to be a pro. Subsequently, I will now be attending my first SI at the ripe old age of 32.  Better late than never, right? First problem: I have no idea what to pack.  Or really, how MUCH to pack.   I'm staying with a friend, so I'll have access to laundry and a kitchen, but...should I pack all my leotards, just in case?  How many pairs of tights? My regular foam roller, or rumble roller? (or both?) Should I bring my dance bag as my carry on, or pack it into my suitcase? My cat ...

We had our show last night, and things went pretty well for me.  We had some hiccups with staging/timing on a couple of numbers due to not having had a full dress rehearsal, but overall it went well!  There's always a little something that doesn't pan out quite like you want, but they're always minor things that I'm sure the audience doesn't even notice, so I try not to dwell. Two of my coworkers came to the show, much to my surprise!  Neither of them had said anything about coming, so when I spotted one of them in the audience I couldn't help but give her a big grin (luckily, it was appropriate to the character I was portraying). I had spent most of the day being anxious and nervous, but by the time we started dancing I was as calm as can be.  I was glad, because during our Christmas show I'd been super nervous (for reasons I can't explain).  In the past (when I was younger and doing Nutcracker every year), I'd get nervous right before going on,...