Guess the dancer?

Hi everyone! Today I was lucky enough to have a very famous dancer guest-write for me. See if you can guess who they are by the end of their post!

Hello. I have been asked to take a moment of my valuable time to write a guest post on some of today's ballets and ballet dancers. Very expected, as I am a ballet legend, if you will pardon my saying so. That said, I will be talking only about American ballet dancers, as I think that Russian dancers are not very interesting, they are just irrelevant in my view, except for Ratmansky, who is one of the greatest choreographers of this generation of ballet dancers, and I am glad that he got out of Russia.

Ratmansky with dancers. Photo from nytimes.com

I am not interested really in talking about classical ballet anymore. As I became older I did other types of expression, acting, modern dancing, theater, being on television. Still, I will talk a little about it, because I know there will be some people who will benefit from my talking.

Obviously, the young dancers lack a certain air of maturity, but I think that Megan Fairchild is quite good. She is a principal with the New York City Ballet right now, so you know she is familiar with Balanchine style of work, which I am very much a fan of, you know.

Gillian Murphy has a lot of strength and command in her dancing. She is a principal with both the American Ballet Theater and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and she is well known for her performance in Swan Lake. She is a bit tall for a ballerina, but I think in her case it does not matter. Her fiancé Ethan Stiefel is tall as well, so they appear regular on stage together. Ethan is leaving New Zealand, it has only been a few years, so that was quick, but sometimes you just need to leave the country, I know.

Murphy and Stiefel in Don Quixote. Photo from robertaonthearts.com

I already said that the Russian dancers are boring, but I also believe you can tell if someone is going to be a good dancer, is going to be famous, by looking at their face, and Daniil Simkin has the look of a passionate dancer. When I say boring, I am referring to mostly the women. American dancers are sometimes more difficult to dance with because they are heavier; with the Russian women you do not have to worry about that because they will push their bodies more; but the American dancers have more feeling in their bodies, there are things you can do to lose the weight, although I would not recommend any longer some of the things I recommended in my younger days. It is good to preserve your body.

I hear people say that Simkin is the next me, but I do not think so. There is no one that is the best, there is just being better than yourself, so he can not be me. He is young and has long to go. But he is not bad.

Daniil Simkin in Le Corsaire. Photo from cloudandvictory.com

The last thing I will talk about is upcoming performances in the D.C. Metropolitan area, because this is where the peasant person writing on this website lives. The only place worth my talking about is the Kennedy Center. The Bolshoi Ballet's Giselle is almost over, but I do not recommend it anyway. It was reviewed well by the New York Times, but I do not recommend it for obvious reasons.

Ballet Across America by the Boston Ballet will be running for a brief time. There will probably be some good pieces in there. After that, the Pennsylvania Ballet will be doing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Normally this is nothing special, but it is in the style of Balanchine, so perhaps I would check it out. However, if you do not have the luxury as I do, of going to performances whenever whatever because of the money, here is what I will say, do not go to any of these, and save for next year. The ABT has something good in March, and they are a good company, they are good people, even though I left them to work with Balanchine. 

If you have not guessed who I am by now, you should learn to be an intelligent and cultured human being. Anyone under thirty should watch me here so you remember me as a dance great and not just as Aleksandr Petrovsky from Sex and the City.

Me. And Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo from HBO.

Ballet Fashion

Technically I should be writing a paper on Medieval and Renaissance Literature right now, but this just came up on my facebook feed:

Yes, just, yes.

Which obviously necessitated listening and dancing to "It's Gonna be Me" fourteen times.

And now the literary juices just aren't flowing (Thanks Obama.) so I might as well go on my favorite time-wasting, online store ever, Discount Dance Supply, and pine over beautiful dance wear that I put on my wishlist but never buy.

My favorite items to look at are the leotards and the warm up clothes, because if I stare at them long enough I can imagine myself wearing them. Dance clothes are freaking expensive, but discount dance usually has decent prices. Right now I'm obsessed with 3/4 sleeved leos and warm up sweaters.

Like this:

Find it here.

My friend has that one, I really like it. I also think I saw someone wearing it on TV but I can't remember who or what show...
Or this, which I actually bought (yaaaaaaaaay) and LOVE:

It is beautiful.

Even though it sort of forces my shoulders back, which my teacher doesn't like. On the plus side, it makes me remember that she doesn't like shoulders back and I actively think about keeping them forward.
And this:

Overall warmup!

which I would like but is going on the wishlist because I don't really need it right now because I just bought this:

Except in black.

Actually... a lot of the stuff I've been buying recently is black. I think that's the direction my studio is trending right now. Like when I was still in middle school/early high school and my friends and I were obsessed with wearing spandex shorts like this:

Get'em here.

That was an unfortunate phase. Those are cute, don't get me wrong, but they just did not look good on everyone. I have one very petite, small-framed friend who looked bomb in them, but the rest of us not so much. Eventually I realized this and ashamedly switched back to skirts.

A lot of studios require their students to wear black leotards, light pink tights, and no skirts, (some studios have a preferred leotard) but my teacher said whatever is fine as long as the skirts aren't too distracting and all the warmups are off by ronde de jambes so she can see up properly. So "normal" clothing at the studio ranges from a sweatshirt and sweatpants to skirts and leg warmers. My personal preferences for a regular day are:

A pair of full body tights.

That's kind of risque for this blog. Get it here.

They're very comfortable and I like not having to worry about the weird line that regular tights give you when they end and gives you a muffin top even if you don't have one.

A leotard like the one I bought (above). A sweater like the one I bought (above) or like this:

Which I also own in black. 

Black leggings, over the leotard and under a pretty skirt:

I really like the longer in back ones, but lately I've been wearing this dark blue floral one that I couldn't find a picture of.

And a pair of leg warmers:

These are nice and warm, and I like that they have the stirrup.

All those pictures were from the discount dance website, and you can find those specific products in the links in the captions. Sometimes I'll go skirt-less, if I need to focus on my hip alignment.

It can be jarring to go from rehearsing in your own clothes to rehearsing in costumes though. When I was new to dancing the Marzipan Mirlitons, I got a very pretty purple tutu that the previous owner had for some damned reason cut in the crotch so that instead of a regular leotard, it was more like a thong leotard. (I don't know if that's an actual thing but I'd guess assume not.) It was literally the most uncomfortable performance of my life. Actually, there was the time I had to wear a child's size small, mustard yellow unitard. Usually I can work with my costumes, though.

Anyway, now that you have all fallen neatly into the trap of procrastination I have set, and wasted hours of your time making you wish, as I have, that you could buy everything on DiscountDance,  probably listening to 90's pop as well, I should probably let you all go do productive things in life. Have a lovely week!

I wish I could wear a leo and tights all the time.