WELCOME BACK, you're officially approved to read my blog whenever you want!

Dear Readers,

Today I have made my blog private. You are one of the lucky few who have been given permission to view this blog, as I am going to now begin to share my true feelings about everything... OK well maybe I'll spare you from my thoughts on gas prices or which types of dogs I think are more attractive than others, but I'd like to share my thoughts and opinions on how this whole "being in a dance company" thing is going without the fear that my artistic director or fellow company members will read and decide to form an alliance against me, or just decide to hate me because they disagree... anyway, here are my thoughts:

1. The whole "Vampire & Werewolves" show idea freaks me out. No, I am not scared of vampires and/or werewolves (although the werewolves in Harry Potter are definitely scary looking), I really dislike the idea of dancing a tweaked version of the story of Twilight. I have spent the last few years NOT reading the Twilight books and definitely NOT watching the movies because they are ridiculous stories written for 8 year old girls that have turned in to a worldwide trend in which women (and men) of all ages indulge in and lust after teenage vampire men, which has then sparked society's obsession with vampires (which, according to the History Channel video that Matthew owns, is a real cult of people that no longer drink blood because it is unsafe, but drink synthetic blood-like substances, worship odd things, believe they are "undead" and live underground in hiding because they believe they are a threat to society... WHY IN THE WORLD IS THAT ENTICING?). ANYWAY, that was quite the rant just then but those are some of my thoughts on why I am not excited about this whole show idea, however Traves gave us quite the lowdown into the feel of the production and although it sounds like Twilight (which, like you have just learned, I don't like), IF he puts a TON of work and money and thought in to the way we produce this show, we may be able to pull it off. If it doesn't turn out, none of you will be invited and I will deny ever being a part of it... ;)

2. I am beginning to become frustrated with the way we are running our rehearsals. We are STILL working on "Pulse", which is the piece we have been working on since we began rehearsing in FEBRUARY. This piece is between 5 and 6 minutes in length and we have been learning from a video (I would understand something like this taking this long if he were choreographing from scratch, but it's already been done before, we're learning from a video of a performance from years and years ago). Traves organized the piece so that 4 of our dancers were in it and Katie and I are understudies, which is completely understandable, things happen, that's a safe choice, however when it takes 5 months to re-set a piece that's been done  before, it's really frustrating to still not be in a piece... It is also very frustrating when girls continue to flake on rehearsal. Once again, I understand, things happen, sometimes we need to miss rehearsal, especially when it's smack dab in the middle of the weekend, but really, 3 weekends in a row?! I have missed ONE rehearsal since February, Katie has missed none, the other 4 girls are the girls that continue to flake which is another reason this piece is taking so long, half the time Traves just cancels rehearsal because the main girls won't be there which makes rehearsing pointless. But when that happens the girls forget the choreography because they don't review it during the week and then we spend the entire rehearsal going over everything they've already learned and that's what our rehearsal ends up becoming, a big ol' review session. I honestly don't know how he's expecting us to put together an entire show in the next couple of months, I'm up for the challenge, excited to move onward!

3. To piggy-back off of the last rant, you may no longer have to "Save the Date" for our September show. As of now Traves is only planning to put "Pulse" and a girls solo in to the show. Apparently there will be 2 other companies in the show as well that will perform. It just seems odd to me that Traves is putting together this ENTIRE show and he only wants to put 2 of his pieces in it... Also, if he only decides to put those 2 of our pieces in this show, Katie and I won't be in it at all. You would think if someone was putting together a show on their own they'd mostly feature their own company...

3. On a more positive note: We have been asked to perform in an industry showcase in August (20-21)!! Hopefully (I'll be praying for this), Traves won't just decide to do "Pulse". He mentioned that he wants to do something "Lady GaGa"-esque that is more appropriate for an industry showcase, rather than something that is more suitable for a company performance where all the pieces fit together (if you've danced before you may have more of an idea of what I'm talking about, if not, don't worry about it, I like Lady GaGa). This will hopefully be a good time to get to know our company members better and spend time together outside of rehearsal, it will also be nice to put together a more technical and fun piece to perform, and a GREAT chance and motivation to MOVE ON and be done with "Pulse"... haha can you tell I'm tired of it?

I think that's the end of my rant. I'm not usually this negative, I just haven't been able to voice my opinions and frustrations about the bad since the blog was open to anyone that wanted to see it. So to close I will say: Welcome to my new blog, heightened security, new URL and all, I am excited to be brutally honest with you from now on... ;)

I will leave you with one last thing. I am currently watching "So You Think You Can Dance" which just hosted a company called Axis (< click that link!), a company collaborating dancers with and without disabilities. Watch the video. I'm not sure how I feel about it, cool idea, weird that the person in a wheelchair becomes a type of moving prop for the dancer on foot... let me know what you think!

Also, I got sunburnt at the beach today, REALLY sunburnt... pray for me...