Happy Mother's Day! We were back at work in the studio on Tuesday after the Spotlight 2012 benefit on Monday night. I had spent all day in the theatre so I felt a bit tired, but work needs to be done so I was happy to teach class to the dancers at 10AM! We are now preparing for the COLE! concert in June, and the dancers were happy to be back to work after a two week lay-off.
April 23, 2012The highlight of last week was our performance of "Carnival of the Animals" with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on the stage of the Hilbert Circle Theatre yesterday. It is always a thrill to perform in front of the fantastic ISO, this time conducted by the talented David Glover, and it was also a pleasure to work with Maestro Raymond Leppard who recited his poems about the animals before each section. The costumes, created by Barry Doss and Cheryl Sparks are very elaborate and the dancers spend every available moment that they are not onstage changing into another set of costumes!
March 18, 2012Happy Spring everyone! Our concert is drawing near and preparations are starting to intensify as the performances grow closer. We had to devote some rehearsal time this week to an excerpted Super Soul segment that we performed at Union Station on Thursday.
This was a pretty monumental week for us. On Monday morning right before teaching company class our most senior dancer Shane Patton announced to me that he was leaving the company. It was quite shocking at first, and honestly it took me all of class to work through it. Over the years many dancers have left the company, but Shane has been with us the longest, for over 14 seasons!
March 11, 2012Happy Daylight Savings! I guess Spring is now well on it's way and we are feeling it in many different ways. Norman Walker continued to work on his piece Remembrance of Things Past this week and I was privileged to watch a runthru of the first four sections on Wednesday.
CALLING ALL EX-DK DANCERS!!!!!!!
There will be a 40th Anniversary Celebration for Dance Kaleidoscope on June 10th immediately following the Sunday Matinee of COLE!. All DK dancers from the entire 40 years are being invited back for the celebration.
Most of the week was devoted to Norman Walker, our guest choreographer who is creating a piece based on Shakespeare's sonnets to an original commissioned score by Frank Felice. Mr. Walker has created many works for us in the past including Orchids from the Cave and two movements of The Planets. It's always exciting to have guests in the studio.
March 25, 2012The highlight of the week was definitely Friday's Studio Dress of the upcoming concert All The World's a Stage. Both Norman and I spent the early part of the week putting finishing touches on the pieces. On Friday we got a chance to see both dances in costume for the first time. Cheryl Sparks, our costume designer has done a wonderful job of creating whole worlds for the dancers to inhabit.
February 26, 2012This was a big week for us, culminating in our "Stardust" fundraiser last night at the JW Marriott. The event went off very well, and the dancers looked beautiful and elegant, polished and sophisticated as they performed the "Blue Danube Waltz." Also, it was George Salinas' last performance with the company.
