Got my ghilles!

Well, actually I got them two weeks ago, just after that week's Irish class.  I mean to make a post soon after dancing a full class in them, but it got lost in the shuffle.  So, this will be about my experience dancing two classes plus practice.  Better late than never.

These are Fay's platinum, size 3 (tiny feet!).  They're not quite as flattering as the half-soled shoes I tried on at the feis, but they feel like they make up for it with comfort and support.  It's a huge step up from wearing old leather ballet shoes, because these have some nice, squishy padding in the insole--great for support and for cushioning landing from a big jump!

I like these shoes a lot, but I have issues with the fit!  The above picture is from a few days ago, two week old shoes that already look stretched out.  At the feis, I also tried on some a half size down, and I couldn't even get my foot in them.  I don't mean that they were super tight, I mean the shoe vendor didn't want to cram my foot into it for fear I would damage the merchandise.  Guess I'm between half sizes, or maybe my feet were just swollen!

Feis ATL post-mortem

Today, I was at the Marriott Marquis.  I have a lot of great memories there, as it's been my home base for many Dragon*Cons.  However, this time was different, and a little weird at first.  This may have been the first time I was in the Marriott wearing jeans, sober, and could see the floor.  It was still comforting to see a number of overly styled wigs and outrageous outfits, but this, dear reader, was no sci-fi con.  This was a feis.

You may be asking yourself, "What the hell is a feis?  Is that even a real word?" A fees, dear reader, is an Irish dance competition.  Lots of dancing (duh), lots of expensive dresses, big curly hair, and a number of vendors to satisfy your every dance related impulse buying need.  Because, you know, an event without something you don't need screaming "BUY ME!" is an event incomplete.

My ID teacher and a bunch of new beginners met up in our school t-shirts so we could go see what this feis thing was about without the stress of being thrown into this bizarre new environment and expected to dance and somehow know what the hell is going on.

Within a few minutes of arriving, I saw a number of fluffy curly wigs and elaborately decorated dresses waiting in line at the Starbucks, and my reaction was basically "FDSNJKFERNOA I NEED TO MAKE ONE!"  I have seen photos of these dresses, but it did not prepare me for how they look in person.  I mean, loads of rhinestones and sequins in a photo are pretty, but in person it's like blinding twinkling madness.  I couldn't pay attention to anything, sparkles kept walking past and distracting me.

The main thing we did was watch the dancing, and let me just say after I got over my initial reaction of feeling so insecure and newbly, let me tell you, it gave me a lot of motivation to practice.  In fact, after I finish writing this I'll probably get off of my butt and practice my slip jig.

After watching some dancing, we travelled en masse to the shoe vendor.  Most dancers at my school already have soft shoes and will be starting hardshoe in January.  I still didn't have ghillies (I've been wearing leather ballet slippers), so that's what I was shopping for.  Tried on some hardshoes as well so I'll know what I need when the time comes.

I was so excited to get my shoes, but then I couldn't.  The vendor only had my size in split soles, and my teacher insisted upon full soles, so I had to order them based on how the split soled shoes fit.  A bit of a shame, as the shoes I tried on were very attractive on my feet.  I can only hope the full soles look good too!

The rest of the day was more watching dancing and feeling awe stricken, staring at dresses, and browsing the pretty things for sale.  That's about it.  Now I need to practice my butt off.

Work vs Dance...and Jean Butler

Thursdays are usually full of dance.  I have 2.5 hours of ballet (one hour of which is all en pointe) and 1 hour of Irish.  Well, this afternoon I got a call from work telling me that there was a mandatory meeting tonight to discuss the upcoming Christmas Retail Madness.  I was bummed that I had to miss my Irish class, but there was free food, I got paid just to show up and listen, and I got to pick up my paycheck.  Luckily, I did get in some Irish practice between ballet and meeting in the form of...

Jean Butler's masterclass!

I got this DVD from Netfliix at the end of October, but I didn't get the chance to go through the whole thing until today.  Meh, it's been a combination of either forgetting about it, trying to go easy on my dodgy ankle, or being tired when I meant to get to it.  Today, I had no excuses!

There are still some special features I haven't gone through, but the "body" of the class goes: warm up, balance and foot strength drills (which I half assed because I was less than an hour out of pointe class and was all "no"), leg drills, soft shoe exercises, hard shoe exercises, core work, and cool down.  Obviously, I just sat and watched through the hard shoe parts, though for some of the super simple things that looked like they'd help foot strength and dexterity, I tried to keep up.  Of course, it was only later when I found out that there are special sequences of each sections, so you could choose a soft shoe only program, or hard shoe, if that's what you want, or you could put together your own mix.

Onto my opinions!

The good: A balanced program, each segment starts with a simpler exercise and then progresses so newbies like me can stick to the simple stuff and still keep up, the "glossary" feature breaks down movements slowly and with detailed description (again, good for newbies like me), the options for different programs or to put together your own.  And, also, I love Jean Butler!

The bad: It moves quickly from one thing to the next with little explanation of each new movement, so sometimes it was hard to keep up.  The glossary may make up for this, but I haven't looked through much of this.  Also, the dancers all wear wide-legged jazz pants which makes it tough to see alignment of the legs and feet.

The Verdict:  Would I buy it?  Maybe, but since getting a Netflix account a few years ago, DVDs really aren't something I'm interested in buying, so only if I had some extra cash.  If someone gave it to me, though, I would definitely use it!  I would recommend it to a beginner to intermediate dancer who wants drills to improve strength and technique, or maybe an advanced dancer who would like more motivation to practice basic drills.  I would not recommend it to someone with zero Irish dance experience, as even the best DVD is no substitute for a teacher who can answer questions and give corrections.  For those who have no Irish dance experience and just want it as an exercise option, I still wouldn't recommend it, as there's little a non-dancer could really keep up with.

I'd like to end with some personal praise of Jean Butler's dancing.  I was first introduced to her (and to ID) many years ago.  It was the 90s, I was a young child, and while my parents were out on a romantic trip my babysitter brought some educational and cultural PBS videos.  Small Gann just wanted to watch  the original Riverdance on a constant loop.  Fast forward a year, Small Gann's mother took her to see Riverdance when the touring show came to Atlanta; I don't think Jean was in that show, but I loved it, and it is still somewhat of an important point(e) to make.

Fast forward to October 2012, just after I took my first Irish class.  I was bored, my feet hurt, so I made myself a cocktail and found the original Riverdance show on YouTube.  There were two things I noticed.  One: Michael Flatley had the ugliest Billy Ray Cyrus mullet.  Two:  Jean Butler danced beautifully, really balletic and graceful even in hard shoes.

Jean Butler gets a closer look at The Mullet.

I don't mean "balletic" in the same way I used it to describe my Irish dance.  When I'm talking about myself, I'm meaning to say that my ballet technique and habits gets mushed in and screws me up.  Jean Butler is balletic in that she's light on her feet, and is conscious of using her body to make a long, expressive, beautiful line.  This wasn't really apparent during the drills that made up the body of the DVD, but for the special solo piece she put together, well, you could tell that it was all "her."  The piece was a very slow reel, and she really indulged in the chance to take long, strong, slow motions.  She moved with the precision and power of an Irish dancer, but the grace and line of a ballerina.  I was just thinking, "God, this is how I want to dance!"

Well, that's all for now.  Next time I'll be talking about my experience at Feis ATL.  As a spectator, that is.  I am FAR from being competition ready!

Farewell dead pointes, hello new cosplay shoes

A few weeks ago, I started to feel like a REAL dancer because I killed my first pair of points.  Tried to eek out a few minutes of life, but the "It's dead, Jim" moment still came.  One problem that dancers often face is what the hell to do with dead shoes.  While I got about 2.5 months out of these, some dancers murder shoes like it's their job.  So, what to do with all those scuffed up, mushy, undanceable shoes?  Make stuff out of them!

I'm working on a human version of Fluttershy's gala dress, and when my pointes were declared dead I knew they'd be perfect with a little modification.  Here's what I did:

Step 1: I started by ripping out the shank, which I found surprisingly easy.  I just had to rip out the suede lining piece, work the back end of the shank until I could get the back end of a hammer in there and started prying the thing out.  There are little nails holding it together, but that's what the hammer was for.

Step 2: Making 'em green!  Again, nothing too hard.  I mixed up some Rit dye, sponged it on, and then sponged off the excess with clean water.  Nothing hard, but it made me NERVOUS because the still drying dye looked NASTY.  Like a dark bluish-grayish-blackish mess.  I was relieved to see it looked much better dry.  Still way dark, but I tried to make it look intentional.

Step 3: Embelishing.  Ok, I'll admit, the embroidery is on the sloppy side, but this was the hardest part. Though the box is all soft and mushy, it's still quite hard and a real pain to stitch through.  Look cute if you stand back.  I guess if anyone gets close enough to critsize I could just kick 'em in the face.  Ha.

Step 4: Finishing touches.  I replaced the drawstring casing with some of my dress fabric (this was to make the darker green look more intentional, as I mentioned) and glued the suede piece back in.

And, that's about it.  Yay.

An Entire Slip Jig!

Well, my reason for this delay is that for a bit I actually thought of abandoning this blog after only one post. However, after a bit of thinking, I decided I do actually have enough to say about dance each week to fill up a whole blog. After that, I still kind of wanted to abandon it because I think I came up with the title while drunk, and now I'm wondering why I have a dance blog named after a Bruce Springsteen song that has nothing to do with literal dancing. But then I realized my stupid drunk title isn't s bad. On a general note, I can really relate with that song, but that has nothing to do with dance, so I'll keep the t to myself.

 Now, dear reader, I'm sure you're wondering about this slip jig. For those who don't know, a slip jig is a genre of both traditional Irish music and Irish dance. The music is slower than your garden variety jig, and also has more "flow" (which makes finding the beat a pain), and the slip jig dance is more balletic, has a lot of across the stage movement, and is quite athletic. I've read that it's a more advanced dance than other Irish soft shoe dances, such as reel and light jig.

 Anyway, aside from drills, this is what I've been working on for my three Irish classes so far, and now I know the whole thing. Don't think for a moment that O'm giving myself too much credit. Notice how I say I "know" it and not that I have "learned" it. I can mark the whole thing (both steps!), I can slowly dance the whole thing, but to music it kind of falls apart. Ha.

 And technique things? I'm getting better about my usual corrections about being too balletic, but I still screw up leaps. They're something between an Irish leap and a grand jete. It was a big deal yesterday when I did two correct leaps in a row after a few across the floor drills. Still working toward three in a row, heh. But that will come with practice because....I know a WHOLE slip jig!

Another year, another blog

Yeah. Some of you know that I have a bad track record with blogs. I had a livejournal, but then LJ went down the drain, and I stopped caring. I had a food blog, but soon realized that while I consider myself a foodie, I really only have so much to say. I also had a project blog for when I made some Skyrim costumes for a friend and I, but I'm not so good at documenting progress. So, here I am, trying to start with a clean slate. This will mostly be a dance blog, I do ballet and just started Irish, and also a making things blog. Here you will see the joy I feel when mastering a challenging step, the pain I feel after pushing myself too far, and the frustration of figuring out pointe shoes. Oh, and there will also be fancy things. Yay.