City Ballet Nutcracker 2012

 

Bonjour!

City Ballet's 2012 Nutcracker was a huge success! We were completely sold out of tickets for one show, and almost sold out for the other two! After wishing each other merde a few thousand times (merde is the dancer's version of 'break a leg'--it's French, but I won't provide the exact translation here :) ), everyone did an outstanding job dancing their parts, and I'm so happy I was able to dance with all my amazing fellow dancers!  I can't wait to see everyone in classes next week!!  A special congrats to our beautiful Clara, Sarah Morgan! Also, a huge thanks to the awesome Carolina Ballet dancers*, who gave their time and talent to help make our show a huge success!

I thought I'd post some backstage pics (yes, I managed to get some through the clouds of hairspray!!). I also have a dancer's message area below where I got some of my amazing fellow dancers to leave a note :). If you wanted to leave a note and didn't get a chance to, message me and I'll add it!!  It was tricky getting around backstage with my laptop without tripping and knocking things over (which I'm prone to do even on flat, clutter-free surfaces), so if I didn't get a chance to ask you to leave a note, please don't take it personally.  I'm just a klutz and couldn't get to you easily, so MESSAGE ME if you want to leave one!!

Meet Super Party Girl! 
Not only does she hold up the roof,
but she does pointe!
--say bye bye to Marvel heroes!!

Die Fotos:








Some costumes;  Left to right:  tea, guides, angels, and snow

Maid and Party Girl

Book time!!



Party girl drama :P

Two of our colorful Polichinelles



Mein Kostüm

Nice Uggs :)

Craziness

Party Girl makeup



Arabian swag!!!

 

I'm stuck!!!!! -.-

Gear...

Tea time!!



Studying backstage!  Proof that dancers aren't dumb!

Some of the hairpins it took to keep everything in
place--mostly for the hat, a few for my hair.
Between a brand new pack
(thanks Nola Grace :D), the dozen or so I had
in my bag, and the ones I scrounged around for,
I ended up using about 40 :O



Bonding time :)

 

Feet!!  Someone has serious Arabian ninja swag on the far left...you know who you are ;)

meinen Spitzenschuhe before the first show

meinen Spitzenschuhe after the second show

Sad :'(

RIP!!

Someday someone will write a tragedy about those shoes...

My backups





For the third show:  Shoes with giant holes or shoes with thin tips??
(Why yes, that is my computer open to the beginnings of
this blog post in the background!)

I guess the ones with worn-down tips...



Grrr...





Beautiful Clara and her handsome Prince after the show!



Clara and the Prince have the Rat King cornered !!

Here ends the photo section of this blog post!  I hope you'll find some sort of comfort looking at them while waiting for next year's Nutcracker!!







Messages from the cast:
(thank Stephanie for the idea :))



Stephanie says hey!


HAI!!!!!!!!!!!! Uh, yeah., Idk what else to say. Uh yeah. hahahahahaha. It's tea time!!!! Weeeee. I promise I'm not really that stupid. But I am a spazz. I'm super excited for the show. I can't believe it's the last one this year!!!!! It's been so fun. YyyYYAAAAaaaaaAAAyyyyayayyyYYYYY!!!!! Abby, she think I be drankin.Nah nah nah nah. Dat I ain't tha truth. I'm good. I'm good. I like chocolate milk. ^_^ BYE!!!!!!!!!! ~Christina AKA Tina AKA Beavis k thx bye
    tsk tsk tsk...drinking before the show, eh? haha kidding! :D  must have been the chocolate ;)


Hey! I'm is so excited for the last show!! Except I'm sad because it's the last show...it was so much fun and an awesome way to spend my Saturdays. You can always use more ballet! At least I'll still see everyone in class. Love you guys!
Emily <3


I can't beleive this is the last show!!! It is an amazing show and we're gonna rock it! -Reaghan


We are so amazing and this show is gunna rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Allyson Kohl


The Nutcracker experience has been amazing!!!!!! Can't wait for next year!!! -Aubrey


Abby is a amazing dancer and I am truely honoured to be in the Nutcracker with her this year! YOU GO ABBY!!!!!!! ~Megan
    (aww, thanks, Megan!!  so are you girly!!!! awesome dancing with you--you have EPIC Trepak swag!!! <3)


So guys Ive got Arabian SWAG!!!!!! this year is the best year ever and i absoluty love danceing!!!!!! never give up on what you love!!!! FRENCH BUDDY!!!!
~Sydney Begg <3kki
   FRENCH BUDDIES POUR TOUJOURS!!!!


i measure my year in "days until nutcracker" yall! i love this girl abby and i practically live at the studio. oh by the way ARABIAN SWAG ALSO!!!!! ~Sabrina
   this girl abby loves ya too!! <33


Abby is my special people person and I always enjoy nutcracker with her.  City Ballet's nutcracker rules and I practically live to dance and do this show. It's a great honor to be part of it.  SPECIAL PEOPLE 4EVER!!! <3 ~Brandi Richardson (party grl)
    Brandi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's awesome doing nutcracker with you too!!!!  you. are. an. AMAZING party girl!!!  party girl swag :D  <3333











If you got a chance to come or if you were in the show, hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, well, we'll just have to come after you...wait, no, I mean, there's always the spring recital...and Nutcracker 2013 ;)

See you all in class!!  I'm going to miss all the crazy, awesome, on-stage warmups with Mrs. Sandy waving fluffy red socks in the air to get us to look up at the audience!




*Alicia Fabry performed as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Marcelo Martinez as her Cavalier, and Nik Smirnov as the Prince

Still being me...

Salut!

I decided to start blogging again!  You can thank (or blame, depending on how much you hate this blog ;)) my friend, Ivy, and my epic Omnibus V teacher, Mr. Martin for inspiring me.  They're awesome people.  Thanks.  A bunch.

So, if you're still reading, you're probably wondering if anything awesome has happened since my last post!  The answer is:  yes, yes, and more yes!  Where do I start?

First of all, I started taking German in my spare time (not like 'spare time' really exists for a Veritas victim-er-student, except in theory) on an awesome site called Livemocha.com.  Go there.  Make an account.  Learn whatever language you want to.  You'll thank me, not in English, but in some other language no one has ever heard of!

"Boring," you say?  Ah, but that's not all (not to mention, German is NOT boring)!  This past summer, I was fortunate enough to go on a mission trip with amazing people from Landry academy to an amazing little ville in France called 'Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort.'  If you think that's boring, you should probably unfollow my blog (not to mention see a doctor!), because that was pretty much the most amazing experience of my life.

Our plane (Lufthansa) stopped in Germany on the way there and on the way back.  Silly, yes, but I enjoyed just being in the German airport and on the German plane (except on the return trip!) almost as much as actually being in France!

Every morning in France, we started the day with a worship service led by our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Weiner (amazing, Spirit-filled people!), and then we spent some time getting to know each other and meditating while doing chores.  In the evenings, we went out in groups for walks, cameras in hand.  Being the crazy, weirdo dancer I am, I just HAD to wear my pointe shoes around France, so there I was, walking around a little town in the south of France in a new French dress and my somewhat ratty-looking pointe shoes with some friends who already figured out I was a little on the crazy side (ok, maybe completely on the crazy side) and didn't mind too much.  There were two open air markets while we were there (well, really three, but most of us were sick with a stomach bug on the day of the third one, so a lot of us, moi included, didn't go), with amazing clothes, handmade soaps, earrings, knives, and other awesome French stuff.  I ended up getting a dress, some soap, and earrings, one of which I lost a few days later in France on a walk (in my pointe shoes...of course).  Now I'm left with only one earring and a handful of silver memories *sniff*.

Ok, sorry for the drama.  On the return trip, we were all pretty much either in tears or on motion sickness pills.  When we got back to the Dulles airport, we said our final goodbyes and dished out a record number of hugs.  I miss everyone from that trip so much!  We all need to go back to France together, SOON!

What happened next?  Not that anything can live up to France and three hours of Germany, but after France, I had a three-week dance camp at IBA.  Thanks to that camp, I can finally do pirouettes without everyone thinking I'm drunk (well, most of the time--but if I'm having an off-day, you'd better evacuate the room), have better extensions, and still can't do calypsos or any of the other stuff we did in modern class.  PS--Did I mention I had my first partnering class at that camp?  'twas slightly scary, but we both survived, with minimal bruising.  I'm alive to tell the tale, right?

So, that was the end of my summer, right?  It couldn't possibly have been any better?  Nein, falsch!  After IBA camp, I had a week of another ballet intensive at my regular ballet studio (City Ballet <3) with a slightly crazed but completely awesome teacher.  We learned a variation, I think it was Hungarian, but I can't remember the name of it any more, and if you asked me to dance it again, it would be painful to watch.

After this, I proceeded to take a solo flight around the world, and that concluded my summer...no, kidding--summer ended with the above camp.  Awesome, right? JA!!!

So what am I doing now?  Missing France, spending too much time on Livemocha learning German (a native German person who also speaks French said I have a French accent when speaking German, which, until now, I wasn't even sure was possible...) , eating German chocolate without you ;).  Oh, and school.  Boatloads of it.  I'm seriously about buried by papers and books, and the fact that my two cats literally DO eat my homework (and now my chair...because it's leather and they're crazy cats) doesn't help any!

D'accord, c'est fini!  That wasn't so bad, was it?  I hope you had spare time and didn't just read all of this when you should have been catching up on Omnibus homework ;).  If that's the case, don't blame me-I'm just innocently blogging while I should be studying for an upcoming test.  Whoops.

'A test?!' you say?  Yes, a test.  Pray for me--let's hope Sugar Plum and Mindy don't eat my notes!

Ciao

Spring inspiration :)

© Abby Danfora Photography

Flowers are those little colorful beacons of the sun from which we get sunshine when dark, somber skies blanket our thoughts.  ~Dodinsky

Me, moi-même, et je!

Bonjour mes amis!  I recently discovered that I was the only person on earth who didn't have a blog!  As you can see, that has recently changed :).

Before you start thinking "who is this crazy girl who randomly switches between French and English?" I will explain :).  Simplement dit, I am nuts about France, French culture, the French language, French food (who isn't?), and all other French things.  Before you ask, I've actually never been to France.  I have, however, watched more French movies than anyone I know.  If you care to test my French-movie knowledge, go ahead and try me!!!

My name is Abigail, but you can call me whatever.

When I'm not watching French movies, I'm often hanging out with my two cats, Sugar Plum and Mindy.  I love writing, reading, photography, cooking, running, biking, archery, fencing, decorating random things, and spending time with friends.

Au revoir, pour le présent!