April

It has been a while since I’ve last written and I’m sorry about that. So much has happened – as it always seems to – in the past two weeks, that I don’t even know where to begin. This most recent week held two unfortunate auditions and some very long days. The outcome of this means that I am indeed going to be traveling back to the states on July 1^st and becoming a true New Yorker. The very prospect has left me completely overwhelmed. I must say that I will be very sad to leave this place and it may take me a while to get mentally back into the swing of things. I really love the little bubble that I have been living in these past 2.5 months. I shouldn’t mope too much, though, for I have another 2.5 glorious and full months before I board the plane back to the states (where many great things also await!!).

Two weekends ago, I felt like I took a trip to another planet entirely. I explored an incredibly vast, barren and completely unreal landscape as well as a strikingly still body of aqua water whose beaches were lined with crystallized salt rocks. What I really did was take a trip to the Negev - or the desert - in the south of Israel. The desert looks legitimately like Jupiter. Its dunes extend to what seems like the end of time when in reality, if you drive two hours north, the steep cliffs and gigantic dunes turn into rolling, lush and fertile hills. This country is amazing.

We started our trip with a workshop at the Kamea Dance Company in Beer Sheba. We took ballet and modern technique classes followed by a repertoire workshop and a brief showing.  I really did not enjoy my experience there. The artistic director was a big diva of a man who seemed to be attempting to sell his ‘fabulous’ company to us. In my humble opinion, if a dance company is a good one, its greatness will speak for itself.  It also seemed to me like he was throwing one terrible sales pitch the whole day. It also didn’t help that his sense of humor was poor, his choreography quite juvenile, and his knowledge of the dance world seemingly deprived. Oh well. At least it made me thankful for where I am…

We finished the trip by taking a hike through awesome dunes and cliffs and descending to a fresh-water spring. The hike took 5 hours and was beautiful (I’ll post some pictures on this blog post). After the hike, we took a dip in the man-made part of the Dead Sea. Did you know that scientists believe the Dead Sea is actually the embryo for a huge sea!? Pretty cool if you ask me. I wish I could stick around another few million years to see if that is really the case. The next day, we took a quick hike up and down Massada followed by another dip in the actual Dead Sea. The second day at the Dead Sea, I swam parallel to the shore until I found a load of Dead Sea mud, which I treated myself to. My skin was so soft! Wish you were all there to feel it! My roommate, Elleka, took some mud back in a plastic container, which is now sitting in the bathroom.

Onto this week…Sunday was the second of the auditions for KCDC, which I managed to get cut from. This was obviously a bit on the disappointing side of things, but I also know that this is not the ideal company for me so I wasn’t completely devastated. Tuesday, we had a fabulous workshop with a man from Inbal Pinto Dance Company where we learned two chunks of repertoire from a current and a past show. That same day I made an impromptu decision to travel to Jerusalem that night to dance at the Vertigo Dance Company’s studios. Traveling and finding a hostel was stressful to say the least. Even more nerve-racking was when I stepped into the studios the next morning only to be informed that what I was actually attending was not open class, but a legitimate audition. Due to whatever otherworldly state I was in, I was axed pretty quickly. Not only was that a bit of a bummer, but financially speaking, it made a bit of a hole in my pocket. Then we trekked back up north and spent another 4 hours in the studio on the kibbutz catching up on the bit of the workshop we missed in the morning. Yesterday, we had day 4 of this fabulous workshop in which we learned tons of choreography. (The result of this workshop will be a 30-minute piece that will be performed in June.) My brain is a complete mess and is totally full!

And now, my fine friends, I am going to start making pizza dough for our pizza night. Thank you Susie for the Fillion recipe! Sending my love to all!