School Performance Time!

Good evening!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that you could enjoy the sun as much as I did in here. We reached 28 degrees Celsius here in Mannheim today! It was the perfect weather to celebrate today’s special event.

Today I’m bringing you a short post about the school performance I just did today in the morning in Nationaltheater Mannheim!

So in my school we always have a performance in Mannheim on a Sunday during April that usually happens the same day that Mother’s Day is celebrated. This year we got to do it a bit later so we didn’t had any special occasion to celebrate other than having a perfect Sunday weather and enjoying a good matinee performance!

I woke up quite early and I did my french roll at home (because we need to wear a french roll bun for our first piece: «Don Quixote 2nd Act: The dream»). I then walked to the theater and although it’s a bit of a long walk I really enjoyed it because there was a beautiful early sun warming up the city and showing the river at its prettiest moment. Very inspirational!

Anyway, once I got there I helped some friends with their french rolls, did my make-up and moved quickly to the ballet studio to do our warm up class. I decided to wear my pointe shoes in the barre because it really gets my feet warm and mobile and also, I just needed to break in a new pair and I thought that an easy warm up barre was ideal.

Class done and it was time to go upstairs and get ready to begin our performance. Our first piece was the 2nd Act of Don Quixote were I get to do one of the four dryads.

Friends rehearsing some poses before the curtain went up

I’m not going to say that it’s the most entertaining section of Don Quixote but I get why people might like it because you open the curtain and the first thing you see is a stage plenty of white tutus and sparkles which is every little girl’s dream, basically. It’s not hard technically what the corps de ballet is doing but the hardest is just learning how to stand still and still look flawless. I’m lucky and I get to change my position before every variation but there’s other girls that need to stay still during an interval of around six minutes which is a lot when you’re having your arms high up.

Anyway, I sometimes enjoy it more than others and today it was just a very good one. I felt very connected to my fellow dryads and we have a balance in arabesque in the end that we all killed! Yes, dryads! The variations were also really good and the public seem to enjoy it a lot!

Afterwards our own creations were showed. If you read my choreography experience post you know that my solo creation from last year was chosen for this year’s school performance programme. We also present other solos and student choreographs one of them being «Wir», my next piece that was choreographed by a student that just graduated last year.

«Wir» means «Us» in English and the piece is just about personal connections and relationships. I got the opportunity to dance it during this season and I’ve grown to like it and enjoy it more and more each time. I also feel that every time the group that’s dancing is very well connected and we’re able to move more freely each time we perform it.

My next piece was my solo which I enjoyed quite a lot to be honest. Maybe it wasn’t my very best time but I felt that the second part of my solo was very strong which was unusual for me but I guess it’s always better to build it up than to just keep it the same. My collegues gave me good comments and I was very happy to realize that like my friends who performed their solos as well, we’ve all been improving our performance with each show.

Yes, it's the only picture I got from my solo. Sorry!

We then had the break and I had a lot of time to go into my last piece: a character piece that just the girls dance called «Die Raupe». I always enjoy dancing this piece because it’s fun, it’s all of my girl classmates together just having a great time and the public seems to really enjoy it every time. It wasn’t our best time either but we were having a great time and we collected some fun moments that we were laughing about it afterwards which I feel it’s great as well! I mean, if you don’t appreciate the positive moments of everything, where’s the fun?

And that was it for me! Of course there were other pieces that were beautifully danced and the public really liked as well. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the good energy from the public we had today. Having an enthusiastic public is sometimes really important to keep the energy up during the full show. It’s one of those things you can’t really control but it can give you so many good energies to get through it!

[Down below you'll find each piece's name and choreographer.]

All in all, it was a wonderful show, our director was really happy and I just had so much fun! Afterwards I went out with a friend for a nice outdoors lunch and we also got a scoop of a delicious piña colada vegan ice cream to celebrate. Talking with her we got into the theme of decisions and how when we were younger we could’ve chosen so many different things but we still chose ballet even though it can be so hard and such a big sacrifice for everyone around you. The thing is that I’ve never been as happy as I can be when I’m on stage. That doesn’t mean that every single time I step into a stage I’m always flawless and perfect (because it never is and it can always improve!) but what I mean is that the reward of being able to enjoy so much movement and to maybe reach someone in the public with it... I never thought of a more beautiful art form than using our own bodies to express thoughts, ideas, feelings and so much more.

Days like this just make me realize how much I love this profession and how magnificent is that feeling of just being completely yourself when moving. I’m really looking forward for the upcoming performances and get to enjoy the lasts shows of the season.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Love,

Muriel

Picture credits: Jochen Klenk
Pieces in order of appareance:

"Don Quixote 2nd Act: The dream"
"Wir" by Carolina Martins
"Ell" by Muriel Bermejo
"Die Raupe" by Alexandre Kalibabchuk
"Die Terapie" by Valbona Bushkola
"Luna" by Denise Boccia
"Salamander" by Kaito Takahashi
"Protest" by Sasha Dreyer
"Guajira con Abanico" by Silke Beck
"Pas de Katz" by Raimondo Rebeck
"Ballet Pathétique" by Jorma Uotinen
"Voices of Silence" by Thiago Bordin
"Les Bourgeois" by Ben van Cauwenbergh