I am so excited! Let me explain further.
My whole dancing life, I have been cast as the "safe" character. In ballet, this usually means the princess type, or at the very least, the nice ones. In The Nutcracker, I often got cast as a pretty Shepherdess (the reed flute variation) and of course, a flower or snowflake. I still have never been cast as the "saucy" Spanish girl in Nutcracker. Ok, ok, so I'm really white, but that's just discrimination, right???
A little background: My training is in the Royal Academy of Dance method, which in ballet terms, means the teaching syllabus used in England and many other places all over the world. In layman's terms, it's extremely classical ballet-ish. So it's not surprising that my roles reflected that.
It was not until a few years ago that choreographers began giving me the chance to be a little out of the box, dance wise. I got a chance to do a kick-butt piece to Nine Inch Nails a few years ago, which was very contemporary in style. I have recently been privileged to dance the Arabian variation at Ballet Ariel. And (getting to my point) I was recently given the chance to be the "not nice" girl as a Stepsister.
I got to be a douchebag! Yeah!
I do love the classical roles, wearing a tiara and tutu or pretty flowy dress, smiling pretty and being nice to people. I look forward to doing more of these roles in the future, don't get me wrong. But getting to romp around stage being mean to someone, even being ugly, is one of the greatest things I've ever experienced onstage. Drawing on my acting and musical theater experience to portray Doris in a full length ballet (Cinderella) brought my two great loves together.
No comments:
Post a Comment