Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Erin Polanshek, Dancer

(Journal Entry May 10)

We arrived in Nanajing, a welcomed change. It is hilly and green, and seems to be a lot cleaner than Shanghai. The water smells and tastes better. We arrived after a long day of traveling and then had 45 minutes to clean up for dinner. Our hosts welcomed us and the dinning room was beautiful. The food is up and down for me. It is all hot which is hard to eat when its 85 degrees outside. It seems like you have the same stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner... but I'm hanging in there.

(Journal Entry May 11)

We just got back from checking out the theater. I think it will be perfect. The floor is the only thing we worry about because it is so sticky. The space is great! We are soon off to watch and then take class. We are all excited to get moving. The sitting and waiting are getting to all of us and we are ready to do what we came here for!

(Journal Entry May 11)

The first day of the residency! It was an easy day today. Meeting, checking out the theater, lunch, and then observed, took class and rehearsed. It's very interesting to have translators and to really just not be able to communicate with someone. The professors hardly know any English but the students are pretty fluent. They surprised us at first with how well they knew English.

At 2 PM they performed different types of folk dances from different areas. One from a district close to Russia, one from Korea, one from southeastern China, and ...? They were all so beautiful. Graceful unison that seemed simple until you tried to learn it... new isolations are hard to learn and this was no exception. A lot of the movement was so small that when they actually did a level or formation change it was really exciting and surprising. Everything was so specific and detailed. I wonder what they thought of our rehearsal? Our pieces must look so chaotic and crazy in comparison. They students are extremely sweet and helpful. You can just tell they are so excited to have us here. I'm really looking forward to getting to interact with them more tomorrow and take class with them. Victor is teaching tomorrow and they will be learning part of "Gospel". We watched their Chinese classical dance class today, which is very similar to ballet. They were great. Good movers and pretty strong technically. I think they will really be able to keep up.

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