From Pointe

By Sara Leshen

You saw her on the cover of the February/March 2008 issue; now read a personal interview with Venezuela-born Tulsa Ballet dancer Karina Gonzalez. Find out how she got her start, what it was like to participate in a ballet competition and more.

How did your ballet career begin?
I danced at the School Foundation Gustavo Franklin, starting when I was 7 years old. After I graduated from the school, I wanted to find a good company where I could get experience. I heard the director of Tulsa Ballet was coming to do an audition in Caracas. I thought, “This could be a great opportunity!” Then the audition came and Marcello Angelini offered me a contract. My family and I were so happy.

What is one of the favorite roles you’ve danced with Tulsa Ballet?
My favorite has been Juliet in Michael Smuin’s Romeo and Juliet, because I always dreamed of dancing the part. The role is incredible. To have the opportunity to perform this ballet was amazing because the ballet allows you the freedom to be yourself. It is a combination of technique and artistry, and you can enjoy every step that you do throughout the entire ballet. I really loved it, and I hope I will be able to perform it again.

What was it like to compete in the New York International Ballet Competition?
To be in NYIBC was a great experience. To compete with so many great dancers from all around the world makes you believe in yourself and push yourself to be better each day that you are there. No one came knowing what they were going to dance and perform, so it’s really difficult, but you learn to become your own coach.

What do you enjoy doing outside of dance?
When I am not dancing, I really enjoy staying home, waking up very late, going to the movies, playing with my cat, Garfi, and calling home to talk with my family. Most of all, I try to relax in the short time I have free.

From Pointe

The Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director Ashley Wheater gives an insider’s perspective on what directors want to see.

What should dancers include in an audition DVD?

Everyone’s at different places in their career and what you include depends on that. If you’re just coming out of school, you need to be able to show some good center work, including adagio, good pirouettes, jumping, batterie and on up. It’s ok to include some barre work, but don’t spend a lot of time on it. With women I really want to see pointe work: how they roll up and down. For the men, I like to see big jumps, including double tours and double assemble; fifty percent should be partnering work, no matter whether you’re at the principal level or in the corps.

I also want to see a good classical variation, and good contemporary dance. Show you understand contemporary movement, whether it’s Taylor, Graham, Horton, etc. Sometimes with audition tapes I see a dancer do a lot of tricks but I don’t know if they can move across the room. I really want to see how you connect movement and how musical you are. Show your personality. Make sure you’re performing enchainements as opposed to just exercises.
Is there anything you’d like to see in more audition DVDs?

It’s really nice when the dancer introduces themselves at the very beginning of the tape. Ballet is so much about who you are, it’s important see a dancer’s personality.
Is there anything you don’t like in an audition DVD?

It’s difficult when DVDs come with a long explanation like, “I’m the second one from the left in the third formation.” Try to be as clear as possible who is auditioning. Also, I want to know what year the footage is from. It has to be current.
What should dancers wear in the DVD?
No black tights. It makes it really hard to see in a video. Women should wear a light colored leotard and pink tights. I like guys in grey tights.
How long should it be?

Around 15 minutes.
Can you tell when dancers are trying to camouflage certain weaknesses?
Yes. The material should be as interesting as you have the ability to perform. Choose a variation that shows you to your best advantage. Don’t change the variation. It just shows you can’t do the hard steps.
From first turning on the DVD, how long does it take for you to make a decision?

I’m pretty attuned to what I like. I can decide fairly quickly whether a dancer appeals to me. Directors are usually quite clear about what they need for their company. Sometimes we’re looking very specifically for a small woman at the soloist level. A lot of kids don’t understand that. Nonetheless, I almost always watch the whole DVD. If someone is really talented but I can’t hire them at that time, I’ll call them to give them advice for finding a great company for them.

Right now it’s a fragile time. The arts are struggling along with everyone else. Looking for a job in ballet is hard work. You have to be ready for it and understand what it is to work in pointe shoes for seven hours, look after yourself, eat well and pick up choreography quickly. Companies don’t have the luxury of having people hanging around and not being used.

Hello Everyone!

What motivates you?

I have many motivating factors.  Whether it be with my kids, my husband, with my daughter’s dance or son’s sports, it’s requires motivation.  It is about completing a job well done.  I always reach for higher expectations than I could go for.  There is no job I take on to do half way.  I think that in life when you give more than you have to, you will almost never regret putting the effort in.  Even if the outcome isn’t what I expected or hoped for at times, it still makes it all worth it.

Of course there are always the wins.  The times where you reach high…almost too high and you surprised yourself.  There is never shame in shooting for the stars, even if you fall short.  There is only shame in not trying hard enough.

So now I ask…what will you reach for next?  How high will you strive to climb with that dream?

Competition season is upon us, and this is such a great experience for dancers, but it can also be very stressful.  I have come up with a list of competition essentials to help dancers get through this crazy time.

#1 – Get plenty of sleep.  If you are not well rested, there are greater chances of injury and forgetting choreography.  Get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before you compete so you can be refreshed and ready to go in the morning!

#2 – Always eat something.  Your body depends on food to give you energy.  If you are performing all day, you are going to need plenty of energy to perform your best.  Make sure to eat plenty of fruits and light carbohydrates.  Stay away from junk food and heavier foods that may make you feel too full.

#3 – Always have an extra pair of tights.  You never know what can happen when dancing on stage, and there is always a chance that you will get a big run in your tights during a performance.  If those are the only tights you have, you will be stuck with them for the rest of the competition.  Another mini tip: Have clear nail polish on hand; if you put this around the run, it prevents the hole from getting bigger.

#4 – Make sure to wear blush and lipstick.  The lights on the stage can make a dancer look very pale.  Wearing lipstick and blush will bring color to your face and not drown you out on stage.

#5 – Warm up and stretch properly.  A dancer should always warm up and stretch before any type of dancing to help prevent injury.  Many dancers forget to do this during competition because they are very busy with costume changes and running their choreography back stage.  Try to arrive at the facility early so you give yourself plenty of time to warm up and stretch.  This will lower the risk of injury during the performance.

#6 – Relax and stay confident.  Try not to panic before you go on stage;  just let all of your hard work and practice show in your performance and you’ll be fine.  The more confident you are in yourself, the better you will be;  for competition and for the rest of your dancing career.

Competing is a great experience for a dancer; it can teach you many things that you can use now and throughout the rest of your life.  But most of all, have fun!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Shelli, and I’m here to answer your dance questions! But,  I guess the best place to start is to give you a little history about myself.

To begin, I wear a LOT of hats in life.  Like most moms, I am completely twisted and pulled in all directions, at all times.  I am a mother of 3 amazing kids (I know we all say that…but they really are).  My kids are very close in age but for the next month I don’t get to look completely insane and tell you that my kids ages are 21, 21, and 19.  Until my baby turns 20 March 2^nd.  Then the head scratching begins when I say my kids are 21, 21, and 20!  So yes, I did have twins (boy & girl) and a 3^rd just 15 months later.  They are a dancer/business owner, a senior at Chapman University (Graduating with top honors), and a sophomore at Idaho State who also plays football for them!

But aside from a mother of 3, I am a wife of 23 years, a business owner for the last 20 years and the matriarch of my entire family. I am also a grantie (yes that’s spelled right) of 5 nieces, mother to my 4 dogs, 3 cats, 3 bothers, 1 sister and sometimes my Husband & my father.  I am also partner in a dance wear business with my daughter, and the PR & Special Projects Manager for Discount Dance Supply.

So what does that have to do with my knowing anything about dance and dancers?  Well, I guess it begins with my daughter.  She’s an amazing young woman who has navigated her way thru the maze of being a student, a competitor, a protégé, a professional, a teacher, a judge and a business owner…all in the world of dance.  So without a conscious effort dance and the dance world have been a very big part of my life for 15 years now.

What I would like to accomplish with blogging is to talk.  About every possible subject in the world of dance I can  speak with relative confidence about.  I know that as a mother of a dancer, there were so many moments that I needed a friend…a confidant…an advisor who knew the road I was on.  Hopefully I can provide some of this to you.  I have been through it all as a mother of a ballerina and now out there watching it all from different angles in the business world of dance and competitions.  So feel free to comment back to me…ask questions…give me your thoughts.

I want to leave you with some questions to begin the conversation….

What’s your goal in dance with your child?  What motivates you?  What motivates them?

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all entering a great 2nd week into February. I’m about to embark on my 4th week of school, and the semester has been so busy already! I mentioned in the last blog some of the projects I’m working on this semester so I thought I’d update you all regarding them.

First, I’m performing in “Showing 4″, which is one out of the 5 “showings” we have featuring work by student choreographers. I’m in a piece choreographed by Mandarin Wu, who is a 2nd year MFA and graduated from UCI for her undergrad. We actually know each other through mutual people including my future sister-in-law, Genevieve, because they worked together in LA this past summer. Anyway, Mandy (short for Mandarin) is choreographing a pointe piece, and I’m very excited and scared to perform it all at the same time. It’s been a long while since I’ve performed pointe on stage so I hope that I don’t fall on my face! We will be performing this piece next week – Feb. 18th and 19th. Wish me luck!

My next project I’m working on is a piece I’m choreographing for the MFA 1 concert. All 1st year MFAs get their own concert to feature choreographic works if they wish. I am choreographing a piece set on 6 women, and it is going to be FIERCE. Here’s a little preview of their costumes (still a work in progress…and was custom made and sewn by my MOM, Monica Chua – my Mom is the best!!! :

Don’t they look so awesome! The piece is also set to music composed by Elias Constantopedos (who also composed my solo from last semester) – the music is a fusion of a Baroque fugue mixed in with electronic sound. I wanted to have this regal and courtship look to the piece, and the music suits the choreography perfectly. You can preview a rehearsal video here – just remember it’s still a work in progress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5voHFwoWU

This piece will be premiering in 2 weeks – Feb. 25, 26, 27th. The show is FREE so if any of you readers are in NYC and would like to come to this performance or the one above then come to 111 2nd Ave, 5th floor. Both shows are FREE! I am so looking forward to this performance because not only are my mother, her boyfriend, and my grandmother coming to see the show, but my fiancé, Chester, will be here too! This will be the first time Chester has come to see me here in NYC so I’m so excited!!!

Lastly, the third project I’m working on is for my Choreographers, Composers and Designers class. I’m working with two other ladies, Julia and Wen-Jen, and we are collaborating with set designers, a costume designer, and music composer to choreograph and produce a work. It’s been such a brain-filled experience so far because everyone has such great creative input and ideas that when I walk away from our meetings my brain hurts! Our concept deals with technology, and how it affects our communication – whether it helps or leads us to miscommunication. We are working within that realm, and if you start thinking about technology and how it is taking over our lives this can become a very broad and deep topic. However, we want to keep this piece light-hearted and somewhat humorous. We will be scaling down and concentrating on specific communication through the use of social networking like Facebook and Myspace and how that can affect relationships between 2 or even 3 people. We have 1 female and 2 males in our cast so we might try to work out some kind of love triangle or something to that extent. We are still in the very beginning stages of this project so I will keep you all updated. Here’s a poem that we found that inspired our concept for this piece (it’s actually really funny):

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/rememberwhen.htm

I will keep you all updated on my many projects coming up this semester. Hope you enjoyed reading and hope you have a great week. Thanks!!!

Sometimes people have a hard time applying their makeup with brushes. The reason for this is because of the amount of pressure they use while holding the brush.

When you choose a makeup  brush, try to use one with a longer handle, and hold it on the far end. This will help you to gain control while applying eyeliner and shadow.

Hello everyone!!!

I’ve had a very fulfilling and busy 2 weeks back home teaching and designing costumes and now I am back to school! Going back home to CA to teach was great because I definitely missed teaching and it’s really nice to know how much the kids have missed me. I have definitely missed them!

I’m done with my first week back to school and I am sore! I didn’t think I would be as sore because at least I was teaching and taking a few classes during my visit, but I guess it wasn’t enough. I have to comment on one my teachers, Jolinda. She’s probably one of the best ballet and pointe teachers I have ever had. Great teachers are very hard to come by, and she’s definitely one of them. I’ve had so many fabulous teachers in CA, but to find one here in NYC and at my school is just amazing. She pushes me, is really articulate about what she wants to see, definitely gives you great corrections and positive feedback when you do something good . I fortunately get to have her for ballet and pointe 3 times a week (I wish I had more!). I just had to say something about her because she’s a great teacher, and I hope to be able to teach and inspire students like her one day, especially in the ballet and pointe field.

It’s back to work with my choreography, and I have a few projects underway. I’m working a solo for my composition class, and every week we are to choreograph about 40 seconds to a minute to experience the choreographic and creative process. My teacher, Phyllis, doesn’t want us to whip out the entire solo right away. She wants us to add on a little bit every week so we can edit, and continue to think about our creative process as we’re doing it.

Another project I’m working on is a choreography piece for the 1st year MFA concert. It’s a concert that is only open to the 1st year MFA’s and we’re able to choreograph a piece if we like. Almost everyone is choreographing with the exception 1 or 2 people. I have 6 female dancers, and have already started rehearsals. I am working with the same composer I worked with last semester so I’m just waiting on the music so I can put the movement vocabulary in and tweak from there.

Lastly, my Composers, Choreographers, and Designers (CC&D) class requires that we choreograph a piece that utilizes a strong relationship with set designers, costume designers, and composers for music. We are allowed to think BIG. So this concert is normally very exciting and creative. I have 2 other partners in this project – Wen-Jen and Julia. We’ve come up with a great idea, but now we have to solidify our concept and think about how we’re going to try and portray that through movement.

Those are the projects I’m working on this semester! I will keep you all updated on the creative process and hopefully it’ll all work out!

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!!!

Hope everyone had a beautiful holiday season and I know it was hard getting back into things, but here we are almost done with January already! How the time flies, it is truly amazing. I have my first ballroom competition coming up on February 12 at the Irvine Marriott called “California Open”. After my Christmas showcase I put on at my ballroom studio, I got a wonderful response from my students, their parents, my friends and family about my performance, it really gave me the boost I needed to just work work work to be the best I could be for this first time out on the floor. My partner has decided for the first few competitions to start me out at a little lower of a level so I will stand out and look polished and clean. After that, I will then change my routine and go into an open division, which allows me to do more steps that relate to ballet/lyrical background. In the american smooth divison, which is what I am competing in…there are only 4 dances in the category (waltz, tango, foxtrot and viennese waltz). I will keep you all updated an post some videos from my christmas show so you can see, but for now here are a couple of pictures.

Hi Danceworld readers!

So sorry I have been MIA for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been traveling all over the place during this holiday season and now I am finally back home in California.

I’ve been teaching almost everyday since I’ve been here and it has been absolutely GREAT. I’ve missed teaching very much and missed seeing my students. It’s so great to see how TALL everyone has gotten. Either that or I’m shrinking . I’ve had such a great holiday and there’s no better way than to finish it up by teaching some great dance classes.

For those of you who are interested here is a picture from my trip to Juneau, Alaska. I never made it to Florida due to the unforeseen circumstances at the Delta terminal, but I was able to spend more time with my fiancé and dogs.

Here is a picture of Chester and Me, Emma and Ernie our 2 samoyed dogs.

I’m here for one more week and am going to teach almost everyday. Here’s the rest of my schedule for those of you who are interested in taking class. I would love to have you there and would love to see you!

Monday, Jan. 11th

Teaching Blocks 4, 5, and 6 at OCHSA

Teaching at South County Dance 8:00-9:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

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Tuesday, Jan. 12th

Teaching at Elevation Studios 8:30-10:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

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Wednesday, Jan. 13th

Teaching at Boogiezone Contemporary classes at Focus Dance Center

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Thursday, Jan. 14th

Teaching at South County Dance 8:30-9:30pm Adv. Lyrical