Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
The Classical Girl I have decided to quit my weekly violin lessons, after nine years. This is a daunting prospect, but it feels like it’s time. I’m burnt out; I simply can’t continue to make time for it, keep up on the material, week after week. Years back, I’d assumed that having a child move on from elementary … Read more
It’s time once again for my annual trek to Vajrapani for a three-day silent retreat. Last year, upon my return, I penned an article for Dance Advantage about how my meditation practice paralleled, oddly, my experience in taking ballet classes. Rereading it now, I’m grateful for the wisdom I’d accrued last year and utterly, wholly … Read more
Folks who know The Classical Girl still might not be aware that, sandwiched between my ballet dancer cycles, and long before my writing career commenced, I worked for Hyatt Hotels for close to four years. It was after my stint in Africa with the Peace Corps, when returning to Kansas became quite the letdown after … Read more
All right, readers, opinions, please. Which way do you see the dancer turning? This psychological study fascinates me. My first reaction to seeing this, years back, had me thinking, oh, clockwise. Without question. I felt like surely it was a trick question. And, further, suggestions that I could make it go the other way seemed just as … Read more
Interested in my ballet fiction? Check out the Ballet Theatre Chronicles (Off Balance, Outside the Limelight, Ballet Orphans) and the curiously connected A Dancer’s Guide to Africa. Just click on their titles! I hated Black Swan. Successful film that it was, I hated many things about it, mostly the way it depicted ballet dancers in a way … Read more