Answering 10 Questions at 4Dancers

I hope everyone is enjoying 2010 so far! Though I am quite busy behind the scenes at Dance Advantage, I am technically still on my self-imposed blogcation. I’m breaking my vow of silence for the week, however, to share a recent post over at 4dancers.org – an interview with yours truly.

Catherine’s line of questioning reveals my motivation for blogging, gets into the nitty gritty of my work-at-home routine, and uncovers a few surprises. Most importantly, you will learn how to pronounce my crazy last name!!

So, head over there by clicking on the 4dancers button below….. while I head back into my hole for a few more days!

Sweet Exchange with a Sugar Plum Fairy

Houston Ballet unveiled Ben Stevenson’s production of The Nutcracker over 20 years ago. Since then it has become an audience favorite in Houston and beyond. Scores of ballerinas have made their Act II appearance as the Sugar Plum Fairy. This year, corps de ballet member Elise Judson will have her opportunity to shine in the role.

A native of Sacramento, California, Elise joined Houston Ballet in November of 2007. The 20-year-old has been featured in Stanton Welch’s Falling, the first pas de deux in Antony Tudor’s The Leaves are Fading, and recently performed as a member Twyla Tharp’s “bomb squad,” the red-pointe-shoe clad dancers from In The Upper Room. She took a moment to chat with me about her upcoming performance in The Nutcracker.

Dance Advantage: Elise, you’ve danced the role of Clara with Houston Ballet but this is your first turn as the Sugar Plum Fairy. What do you find most exciting about dancing this role?

Elise Judson: It is every little girl’s dream as a dancer to perform as the Sugar Plum Fairy and I am so excited to take on this role. I love the technical challenge that it poses for me as a dancer. This will also be the first full length, classical pas de deux that I have performed on stage, which is another milestone for me in my career. There are so many new and exciting things to look forward to performing this role. I can’t wait!

DA: Like most ballet dancers, I’m sure your training provided many opportunities to perform The Nutcracker. Do you remember your first time dancing in this holiday staple?

EJ: The Nutcracker is the first ballet that I remember watching as a child, which makes it a meaningful ballet to me. It was also the first production I performed in as a child with a professional company. My first role was one of Mother Ginger’s Children in Act II at age seven with the Sacramento Ballet. Later in my training, I also got the chance to perform the Lead Flower Pas de Deux and the Snow Pas de Deux in my first two summer intensive programs here at Houston Ballet.

DA: Were those experiences influential in your pursuit of dance?

EJ: Performing at such a young age in a huge theater with professional dancers helped to start my love of performing, as well as making me more comfortable on stage early on in my training. Also, it was after participating in those two summer programs in Houston that I realized I wanted to pursue dance professionally.

DA: How does it feel, knowing that your performance could inspire the next generation of dancers?

EJ: Incredible and surreal! I never dreamed that I would get the opportunity to perform the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy so early in my career. I know how much The Nutcracker inspired me to pursue dancing, so to know that I could have the same effect on children in the audience is truly incredible.

DA: The are so many renderings of the holiday classic. Each company puts its own spin on the tale. What is special about this version of the ballet?

EJ: In this production, there is something magical and joyous for every age. Magic tricks, flying cooks, and snow fill the stage with excitement and wonder. There is also the beautiful music played by the Houston Ballet Orchestra, as well as the incredible sets that bring the show to life. Not to mention beautiful dancing in a wide range of styles by the members of the company. It is an incredible show.

DA: Your older sister Carolyn is a dancer with Texas Ballet Theater (the North Texas ballet company helmed by Ben Stevenson). Both companies perform this particular Nutcracker, have you both danced in this production?

EJ: Yes, we’ve actually performed most of the same roles! My sister trained at Houston Ballet’s academy as a teenager and performed in Houston Ballet’s Nutcracker, as well as now performing the same production at Texas Ballet Theater. It would be fun to get to dance in it together!

DA: Houston Ballet is celebrating its 40th birthday this year but you are celebrating an anniversary as well. You joined the company two years ago. Which experiences have inspired the most growth for you personally during this time?

EJ: It is amazing that it has already been two years since I joined the company. I have been very lucky to perform so much already in my career with Houston Ballet. I think I have grown the most when I’ve been involved with the creation of a new work. Being in this company, I am lucky to get to perform in several world premieres each season. Our artistic director Stanton Welch is great about letting the dancers develop our own characters and have input when he is creating new works. I think that it is this creative process that has helped me to know who I am as a dancer as well as push myself to find new styles and personalities in my dancing.

DA: What are you most looking forward to in 2010?

EJ: I am most looking forward to working on and performing Stanton Welch’s new production of La Bayadere. Performing in new works is one of my favorite parts of being a dancer at Houston Ballet. La Bayadere is also a new production for me, in that I have never performed in the full length version of it. It is an extremely challenging production and I can’t wait to work on it.

DA: I’m sure you dreamed of dancing in a professional company long before it happened. If you could offer one piece of advice to young students with visions of Sugar Plum Fairies dancing in their heads, what would it be?

EJ: Love every minute of it. Ballet is a difficult, but very rewarding art form. Years of classes and rehearsals can be tedious and strenuous, but when you get the opportunity to take your bow on stage in front of an audience and hear their applause for you, there is nothing more rewarding. It is all worth it!

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Houston Ballet will give 35 performances of The Nutcracker in the Brown Theater at Wortham Theater Center in downtown Houston. Tickets may be purchased by calling 713-227-2787 or logging on to www.houstonballet.org.

Duncan Cooper Offers Advice at “My Son Can Dance”

Nina at My Son Can Dance has recently published some advice and tips she received in conversation with Duncan Cooper, a master teacher, faculty member at Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, and former Dance Theatre of Harlem dancer. Though, Nina has posed some wonderful questions regarding boys in ballet, the advice Cooper offers is relevant to all dancers. Even those not looking to have a career in dance can benefit from the guidance offered here. If you’d like to grow and improve as a dancer, check out the interview!

Part I in particular stresses the importance of setting goals for your career (which I’ve touched in this post about finding instruction and this post about choosing a college program), researching and learning from other dancers, and more.

Part II is especially relevant for boys, but I think girls/women can gain useful perspective on performance and telling a story through movement.

Featuring… Yours Truly

For those of you that don’t know, bloggers are pretty social creatures. Not only do we tend to communicate and “hang out” with others who blog about our subject, we have ample opportunity to meet (usually in a virtual sense) bloggers covering a wide variety of topics and representing regions all over the world. In fact, bloggers seek out these opportunities through reading and commenting on other blogs and through various social networking sites. We know that encouraging others strengthens this growing community and, in turn, strengthens our own place or role within that community.

A result of relationships formed online is getting the chance to interact with people and investigate subjects that you might not normally. And some bloggers take it upon themselves to facilitate this by occasionally opening their blogging home to others with guest posts, interviews, or features. I’ve recently been fortunate to share the spotlight at two different sites. You won’t find much about dance or dance classes at either blog, but you’ll find some interesting stuff there! Both are more personal in nature than Dance Advantage, filled with stories and reflections on the everyday and extraordinary aspects of life.

Below, you’ll find a little more about each blog and how I’ve come to appear there.

Citystreams

Citystreams is Cindy’s blogging home. After two years of medical school she dropped out and went on to become a high school teacher. She is also mother to a sweet little girl and the wife of a police officer. She writes about all of these things on her blog, which she says is “cheaper than therapy, easier than scrapbooking and helps me remember the millions of moments, that I would surely forget if I didn’t write them down.” I was first drawn to Cindy’s blog because of her obvious dedication to teaching and because her daughter is around the same age as my son. Recently, she invited other “Blogistas” to answer a few questions about themselves as if they were talking to an old friend they hadn’t seen since high school and I took the bait. It was a fun exercise and may give you a peek inside my life outside of Dance Advantage. Click on the image below to be swept downstream to Citystreams.

Middle Zone Musings

Middle Zone Musings is the blogging home of Robert, a fellow Houstonian whose last name is almost as difficult to spell as my own. Robert has an interesting life story with lots of twists and tuns, ups and downs. His posts are usually his own musings and life lessons delivered in a “down-home” writing style. Each month he hosts a group writing project called What I Learned From…, to which others can submit their own life lessons on a particular subject. As a project for the new year, Robert created a variation of What I Learned – a Blogapalooza, or blogging event that gives others a chance to reflect on their growth in the past year. Participants were to select one post from each month of 2008 and express what it is that they learned from each post/month. This year there are over 100 contributors with their very own guest spot on Middle Zone Musings (and there’s still time to participate). Again, I felt this was a fun exercise and a great opportunity to look back at my first year (well, eight months) of blogging. You can join me in the Middle Zone by clicking on the image below. Be sure to check out what others learned from 2008!

Your Turn?

I hope you enjoy these little diversions featuring yours truly. They were fun to do! In fact, even if you don’t have a blog, both of the exercises above offer great writing exercises for your journal or just because. Perhaps you could answer Cindy’s questions yourself or write your own mini-autobiography in a conversational style. Or, look back at 2008 and decide what you learned from each month in dance, or otherwise. It will teach you a lot about how much you’ve grown and changed over the years or over this past year.

I hope you are enjoying 2009! Thanks for spending a bit of here with me at Dance Advantage!

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