Tag: The Nutcracker

Saying Goodbye to a Ballet

Ballets that come and go throughout a dancers career should leave something behind they can cherish

lwjoefmy

First of all, a Happy New Year to everyone reading and I hope we are all off to a good start in 2018.

As it is a new year I am sure we have all welcomed in new experiences and challenges, as well as said goodbye to and learnt from old ones. This has actually become the topic of this blog post and although sounding like quite a sad one, you know I am forever finding the positive in all my endeavours.

❝Never have I been involved in such a ballet that carried so much meaning and responsibility due to the history and story it told❞

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Happily dancing as the Sylph in La Sylphide (Photo: Pablo Octávio)

Last month Badisches Staatstheatre Karlsruhe sadly said goodbye to two of our ballets for the season 2017/2018. This commonly happens as companies need to make room for new productions each season and in our theatre ballets are often only with us for two-three seasons at a time. An out with the old in with the new kind of thing. Although I wouldn’t like to think of ballets as old, more renewed or revived in the next company who puts them on. Continue reading “Saying Goodbye to a Ballet” →

The Shining Light of the Stage

The spot lights are bright. Be brighter

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As a performer, my main goal in life is to shine. Well, that’s what I’m supposed to do. It is what we are all told or tell ourselves whenever we are about to enter the spotlights of the stage. Isn’t it? Be the brightest star.

But actually, it’s not always that easy.

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Doubting thoughts like to creep up on me causing me to question what I am about to do, question what I have worked on for weeks. And even though I should know I am ready for my shining moment I don’t always feel ready. I question if I have rehearsed enough- did I spend enough time in the studio? Nerves build inside me throughout the day of the performance and I am sure I am not alone in experiencing pre-show anxieties. It is these feelings that can dull our light on stage and prevent that bubbly feeling of dancing. Continue reading “The Shining Light of the Stage” →

A Very Merry Christmas

lwjoefmy

🎄I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas filled with love and happiness.🎄

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Enjoy your festive season hopefully surrounded by loved ones. I will be dancing this evening along with my fellow colleagues spreading the dancing joy of The Nutcracker.

Have a wonderful day where ever you are and remember to be grateful for the most wonderful time of the year.

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

With love,

Harriet

‘Tis the Season to be Dancing

Six years of dancing The Nutcracker and still learning

lwjoefmy10 Comments

How is it already the second week of December? My advent calendar is slowly emptying, snow has already fallen, Christmas markets are buzzing like always, and as the days tick towards the 25th (24th here in Germany), the music of the much-loved ballet ‘The Nutcracker’ is filling theatres all over the world and Karlsruhe is no exception. Tis’ the season to be jolly and what better way to get in the festive mood than dressing up as a snowflake and jumping out of giant presents.

We have been dancing Youri Vámos’s ‘The Nutcracker – A Christmas Story’ since the first year I joined the company. The storyline combines the original Nutcracker with Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’. It was actually the first premier I experienced back in 2010. I had just graduated from the Royal Ballet School, and after performing my last Grand Defile with the school and a night celebrating with fellow classmates for the last time, I flew to Karlsruhe to spend a week with the company while they started learning the ballet.

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The Royal Ballet Grand Defile in 2010, the day my classmates & I graduated from the Upper School (I am in red, 5th from the front)

Continue reading “‘Tis the Season to be Dancing” →