Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensive
Jamaica
Yosemite
My feet before pointe class
Golden Gate Bride
Variations Class me Left Lindsay Right
Joffrey Summer Intensive
After my first Solo, Paquita variation, with my teacher Gina whom I had for 10 years.
Berlin Trip 2011
Dance studio in Sweden
Spring Medow Dance
Performance clips from our Paquita Show and another dance
Törnrosa Musikal 2011 Sweden
Before nutcracker like 2008 or something!
MY BALLET STORY!!!!!
I was put into a ballet class when I was about three, and have been dancing since. It has been sixteen amazing years. I thought I would just reflect my ballet story and such since it is a big one.
I started getting serious about ballet when I started dancing at Sonoma Ballet Conservatory when I was about six or seven. My two teachers were Gina Ness and Tamara Statkoun.
I had these Gina for ten years and Tamara for nine of those. They have impacted my dancing so much. And Gina was a big roll model and mentor to me, being a former SFB principal dancer. Tamara, my strict russian teacher (everyone needs one of those) is one of those teachers that you either love or hate! And I loved her, she was harsh but she cared so much about dance and just wanted everyone to be their best! I remember my first class with her and I couldn't understand what she was staying cuz she has her own way of talking, and her accent was so strong. But after a while I began to understand and now her talking is like a second language that I can speak perfectly.
POINTE SHOES!!!!!
I got on pointe when I was around 10 or so. I was so happy when I got on pointe! I remember my teacher calling me and saying that she wanted me to buy pointe shoes and that I had been promoted to pointe! It is such a milestone in a dancers life! I was ecstatic. That summer of being new to pointe I would put my shoes on at home and dance to Alicia Keys CD that my mom always played.
When I was at Sonoma Ballet Conservatory I did mixed show called Invitation To the Dance, and I was in the sleeping beauty waltz. We all got to be a part of The Oakland Ballets Nutcracker, the Gingersnaps! It was such a great experience!We also did Coppelia two years in a row, each year I got a better part. The first year was a little trouble maker dancer. And the second year was the same part and Mazerka.
Then the studio was taken over by a new owner because the old owner Beth Marie was retiring.
So Patty took over and I wasn't used to her style of teaching. She taught strict RAD and we had a dress code and we were supposed to take exams. So I decided it wasn't for me and I started at a new studio where Tamara had started teaching at in Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa Dance Theater. I danced at that studio probably for five years or so ever since it opened. Gina and Tamara both started teaching at that studio so I went there because I had followed them.
At Santa Rosa Dance Theater I grew so much as a dancer, I got stronger on pointe! I had an amazing pointe class with Merylin Murray. And I met some of the most amazing beautiful dancers in my life! I was a part of their Nutcrackers. I got to wear a tutu for the first time when I was in snow! My nutcracker parts over the years got better as well, I was always snow and flowers but I got to dance better parts in the dances over the years, then one year I also got to be Merlitons, and I was in the pas at the end as one of the backup dancers.
At SRDT I took modern and jazz and some other classes and broadened my dance background.
I was in springs shows, there were random dances and recitals. And then.... we did Coppelia! And in that Coppelia I was a friend. I was so happy because the friends have really good parts!
I had been dying to be dance Prayer in Coppelia but unfortunatly I never got that roll, although I was the understudy for the girl that did get prayer. Prayer is pretty much the only dance roll I have ever wanted since I was ten and did my first Coppelia performance. I was a little bitter because the girl who got the part was much younger that me but what can you do about it?
The ballet Coppelia is such a great ballet with a fun story! I have been lucky to do it now so many times that I know like all the parts and all the choreography. =) I was always the one people would ask if they didn't remember when they would come in or what their choreography was! hahaha WIN!
My very last performance with Santa Rosa Dance Theater was their fall Gala show where there were a random bunch of dances and that show was the show where I danced my first real solo! It was a solo from Paquita, with a really hard ending where I do releves on one foot all across the stage and end with a pirouette!
After this show there was a little argument between the owner of the school and my mom and some misunderstandings and hardships... my mom and dad decided I would not go back to Santa Rosa dance theater. There was a lot of drama and politics involved that I am not going into, but I wasn't physically well and it was a hard time for me. This was when I was 17 and about to start senior year. So my senior year I went back and started dancing with Patty as my teacher, at Sonoma Ballet.
It was more convenient because Sonoma Ballet Conservatory is literally just a block away from my house as apposed to the 40 minute drive I had commuted to Santa Rosa for many years. I danced at Sonoma Ballet and started preparing for the RAD exam in Intermediate. I took the exam and passed which was really nice! I also took a little bit of tap, I have taken tap throughout the years at summer camps and then when I was in Cats I danced tap then. I really like it.
Then I went to Sweden, and started dancing there. The first semester I took ballet easy and continuation which was too easy... and I got really out of shape. I also took hip hop and jazz. It was nice to take different styles. The second semester I just took two advanced jazz classes a week. But I am so out of shape now not dancing ballet the whole semester... maybe just like one class I took, though I did get to dance ballet in the musical I was in (Sleeping Beauty) the second to last pic up there!!!
And that is my ballet history story, to the present day. I am going to start taking ballet again! It has been torture not dancing and taking pointe classes and normal ballet classes!
LOVE SIGRID
DANCING singing and dreaming! =) FOREVER <3 <3 <3
I will never stop dancing, I love it too much!
