Audition Spree 2018
Last year, I lived in New York City. I lived on Manhattan. I lived five blocks from an express metro station.
School of American Ballet was a 20 minute metro ride from where I lived. Manhattan Youth Ballet was even closer. Gibney Dance and ABT were blocks away from my school and Ailey was practically across the street from Broadway Dance Center and they were both on the same line as my apartment. Ballet Academy East was a nice stroll through Central Park. If I wanted to go to an audition, I drank a cup of coffee and went to it.
This year, I live in Santa Barbara, California.
Fun fact: no audition tour stops in Santa Barbara. Absolutely no one.
This means that my audition season is very, very different. By that, I mean that I'm doing absolutely zero live auditions. I have no car, and there are auditions in the same weekend in "Los Angeles" which really means one is in Santa Monica and one is in Irvine.
Surprise! Irvine isn't even in LA County.
While the Thomas Fire raged on the hillside, I filmed my first audition video in over 10 years. My first audition video was filmed in my living room, with me holding onto a dining room chair as a barre and it was also largely improv (which shows in the first exercise at "barre"--plies combined with developpes).
This year was more professional and ten times harder. The new video was filmed on a tripod in the State Street Ballet studios and involved me putting down marker tape for the three different angles at which I filmed barre and writing extensive notes on the combinations my teacher came up with for me. I did barre three times for the angles. I did petite allegro over and over until the exertion and the air quality put me on the floor, wheezing. I cut together multiple versions of the video based on what the guidelines said.
Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes. Full barre. No barre. Only tendus and fondus at barre. Two pirouette exercises and echappes in center. Only a grand allegro and an adagio. Variation at the end of the video. Variation followed by center. Live introduction. Introduction in the video description.
There are six videos uploaded to my YouTube channel that are all almost exactly the same. The links have been copied and pasted and emailed and submitted in forms. I uploaded two versions to Google Drive and shared them with my tech wiz dad and within the week, he'd sent me a flat rate box full of homemade DVDs.
Just because I'm nowhere near SAB this year doesn't mean I'm not going nuts. I applied to 11 programs on Sunday alone. In my PJs. While eating leftovers. Technology is incredible.
This year reminds me a little of applying to colleges--sending out 13 desperate applications, terrified that I would never get in anywhere, only to learn that my hard work really did pay off. Just like I got into some pretty good colleges (and got some pretty tasty scholarships), I got my acceptance to both Royal Danish Ballet Elite and Bolshoi Ballet Moscow the same day I sent in the video. I still have yet to hear from some places but we're off to a pretty darn good start.
School of American Ballet was a 20 minute metro ride from where I lived. Manhattan Youth Ballet was even closer. Gibney Dance and ABT were blocks away from my school and Ailey was practically across the street from Broadway Dance Center and they were both on the same line as my apartment. Ballet Academy East was a nice stroll through Central Park. If I wanted to go to an audition, I drank a cup of coffee and went to it.
This year, I live in Santa Barbara, California.
Fun fact: no audition tour stops in Santa Barbara. Absolutely no one.
This means that my audition season is very, very different. By that, I mean that I'm doing absolutely zero live auditions. I have no car, and there are auditions in the same weekend in "Los Angeles" which really means one is in Santa Monica and one is in Irvine.
Surprise! Irvine isn't even in LA County.
While the Thomas Fire raged on the hillside, I filmed my first audition video in over 10 years. My first audition video was filmed in my living room, with me holding onto a dining room chair as a barre and it was also largely improv (which shows in the first exercise at "barre"--plies combined with developpes).
This year was more professional and ten times harder. The new video was filmed on a tripod in the State Street Ballet studios and involved me putting down marker tape for the three different angles at which I filmed barre and writing extensive notes on the combinations my teacher came up with for me. I did barre three times for the angles. I did petite allegro over and over until the exertion and the air quality put me on the floor, wheezing. I cut together multiple versions of the video based on what the guidelines said.
Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes. Full barre. No barre. Only tendus and fondus at barre. Two pirouette exercises and echappes in center. Only a grand allegro and an adagio. Variation at the end of the video. Variation followed by center. Live introduction. Introduction in the video description.
There are six videos uploaded to my YouTube channel that are all almost exactly the same. The links have been copied and pasted and emailed and submitted in forms. I uploaded two versions to Google Drive and shared them with my tech wiz dad and within the week, he'd sent me a flat rate box full of homemade DVDs.
Just because I'm nowhere near SAB this year doesn't mean I'm not going nuts. I applied to 11 programs on Sunday alone. In my PJs. While eating leftovers. Technology is incredible.
This year reminds me a little of applying to colleges--sending out 13 desperate applications, terrified that I would never get in anywhere, only to learn that my hard work really did pay off. Just like I got into some pretty good colleges (and got some pretty tasty scholarships), I got my acceptance to both Royal Danish Ballet Elite and Bolshoi Ballet Moscow the same day I sent in the video. I still have yet to hear from some places but we're off to a pretty darn good start.
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