Annika 2016
Wow guys 2016 has literally been the busiest year ever!
In January, ballet, orchestra, playing violin downtown, and school of course had to start up again. It's a crazy schedule, but I love all the stuff I do. Sometimes, though, it's a lot to handle.
So the stress of ballet auditions hit me as my parents and I drove down to Boca Raton for two auditions in one weekend in January. On Saturday was Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB). Their program is a different style of dance than I usually do, but they generally accept kids with my body type.
The audition was packed. Which I was very surprised based off the fact that they are all the way in Washington. The next day I auditioned for Ellison Ballet, which is in New York City. Ellison is the style of dance that I generally dance. I thought I had better chances at getting into PNB rather than Ellison. But, it was actually the the other way around!
Ellison Ballet is extremely hard to get into. They only accept about 150 dancers and they audition thousands of kids worldwide. It was truly an honor to be accepted. I decided to cancel all my other auditions because I really wanted to go to New York and dance at Ellison for the summer.
In addition to ballet, I enrolled in my local high school's theater group for the season. We did the play of School House Rock. It was definitely a new experience because I don't know really any public schoolers, however it was a lot of fun because I blended right in with the cast. I even had a solo! I was quite shocked when they gave it to me because I do not think I can sing at all!
At the end of every school year my ballet school does a spring performance. Generally we do one show for the little kids and one for us older kids. But this year we did the classical ballet Coppelia. I was honored to be chosen as the lead, Swanilda. My teacher had me audition in front of a panel of judges against all my friends and classmates. They definitely are tough competitor, but thankfully I got the role. (Here's a lookback at my performance.)
The first act is extremely hard because it is all dancing and I had a pas de deux with a professional dancer from Orlando ballet. That is when a guy and a girl dance together on stage. The second act was literally all acting. I had to play a mechanical doll which was a very fun because I could be sharp and rigid; kind of robot-like.
With all the dancing and crazy rehearsals, I had to miss my last orchestra concert to focus on my ballet training. But I still auditioned for this season's orchestra and I got a better seat in the first violin section for the fall season.
In the middle of June, my mom and I took a flight up to New York City where my summer adventures started at Ellison Ballet. My mom stayed in a different hotel than I did. I stayed in the hotel with the dancers and my mom happened to stay in a different hotel, but with the other half of the dancers from Ellison Ballet. We were on the Upper West Side and it was only a 20 minute commute from the hotel to the studio. I met a ton of incredible dancers and made many, many close friends. I was in New York for six weeks and I learned so much. We had character, ballet, pointe, and variations workshop.
We also had pas de deux classes which were my favorite because I had a fantastic partner whom the teacher adored.
The city itself is fantastic. We went to Coney Island for Fourth of July. We saw multiple ballets and Broadway shows, traveled Central Park many a times, Chinatown, Soho and all the works. I had a wonderful group of friends with such a variety. They've made in the city adventures so much fun, it killed me to leave.
As fall came around it was much different for me because I started the dual-enrollment program at Lake Sumter State College for my first fall semester at a public school, and a college. I took two classes: math and theater appreciation. It was definitely a challenge learning how to play the game of a public school, like with having actual due dates, spacing my time to study, and learning how to take tests. Thankfully I passed both my classes.
As for Thanksgiving and Christmas, those times are busy as ever. With school, ballet, orchestra and playing my violin downtown, every minute is accounted for. These last few months I have been preparing for Nutcracker performances. First I was a featured soloist for our town's Light Up Mount Dora festivities which was so much fun! I played the Nutcracker Suite on my violin. In addition, I was so honored to play the lead role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. She is the queen in the land of sweets. I had a pas with an amazing professional dancer from Columbia classical ballet. He also teaches some of my classes and has performed with us in the past so we know him very well. We did two performances and they were both so much fun. I will be updating my blog soon with a recap on my Nutcracker performance.
I am very honored and glad how the year turned out even though some things didn't go as expected, I liked the adventures I had. I hope you enjoyed reading about my year and I wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Keep up with me during the year at my blog: AnnikaValentine.com.
