The Paris Opera Ballet is now doing La Bayadere in Paris. For the moment, I am replacing in the corps de ballet and so staying on stage in the background during the entire second act. Very impressed by the wonderful performances of L'Idole Dorée (the Golden Idol), I made up my mind to play its music on the piano! I am trying to play more ballet musics than only songs..... In my upcoming videos it would be ballet musics! This is a ballet that i used to watch 3 times per day in DVD...... and each time I find out new details of this beautiful production to admire. How much I dreamed to take part of it! Guess what! Here my dream came true. I danced in La Bayadere for the first time tonight. Even though I only did two cabrioles on stage, I enjoyed every second of it. Then I left the theatre when my part finished, before the end of the ballet. I suddenly thought "Is this real? A ballet that I would die for watching it live! And now I would prefer to go home and rest rather than to stay and watch till the end." At that moment, I realised a bit more that my dream actually came true. Then yesterday, I did my first gala performance in Meaux, a city situated 40 min away from Paris by train. I knew that it would be a great experience because we were performing in a small theatre. The conditions there are surely not as good as in the Paris Opera. We had to learn how to perform in such conditions. And it was true that the theatre was very cold, very difficult to get warmed up. The floor was also quite hard and a bit slippery. The side stages are quite narrow so there was not much space for the dancers to get prepared before going on stage. Apart from the limiting conditions, we also had to rehearse very efficiently in a very little time because we prepared the show at the same time as we prepared La Bayadere in the Paris Opera. Despite all these, the performnace was kind of successful I think. There were several technical problems during the show but we managed to make it less visible to the audience. I learnt a lot indeed! A day to remember. I also had to do the make-up by myself! A difficult one!
What a horrible news in Paris! my condolences to those who lost their loved ones. Those who were killed were completely innocent! Do we really have to sacrifice those innocent spirits due to political conflicts? I thought that everything happens for a reason. What about this? Did all those people who lost their lives deserved to leave this world? God bless them. I hope that those who are still alive will be strong and could face this tragedy. Then remember that even though a very big light just turned off in front of them, there are still plenty of other lights around them. The French have been showing their strong solidarity after the attack. However I don't always agree with how they look at this........ During the attack I was actually only several hundreds of metres away from the Bataclan Theatre! I was at Opera Bastille watching La Bayadere's second last dress rehearsal. It was a beautiful show. I was very amazed, not knowing what was happening just next to us...... The Paris Opera was closed this weekend. It reopened on Monday and we did a Generale (last dress rehearsal, like a real show) open to the public. Before the show started, all the members of the paris opera was on the stage of Opera Bastille. After a brief speech by Stephane Lissner, the director of the company, we sang La Marseillaise (French national anthem) together with the audience. It was a touching moment. Even the Palais Garnier changed the lightings to support its country!
It was 4 years ago, I was accepted by the Paris Opera Ballet School. While I was feeling overjoyed I made this music video to thank my teacher, Ms. Jean M. Wong for bringing me to audition in Paris and for letting me go aboard for professional ballet training.
This video shows more or less my journey in ballet and each person in the photos contributed a lot to my success today. Very touching to me to watch this again today...... Concours de promotion 2015This week, I assisted to the annual Concours de promotion of the company. This is like a competition between each grade of dancers of the company, and depending on the vacancies in each category, those who win could get promoted to the next grade. (For those who don't know the system of a ballet company, dancers are generally separated in different grades, in the Paris Opera Ballet: the lowest grade is "Quadrille", then "Coryphee", "Sujet", "Premier danseur" and the highest grade is "Danseur etoile".) Since it is my first year in the company I only watched this competition and didn't take part in it, probably next year. I was quite nervous watching my colleagues, friends and ex-classmates doing the concours. I also imagine myself doing it next year, must be super stressful. I enjoyed watching it from the audience maybe for the last time, then I will move to the opposite side next time: on the stage!! Stage rehearsal of La Bayadere in BastilleOn Wednesday, we had a stage rehearsal of La Bayadere. It was the first time for me to dance on the stage of this theatre. We discovered the gigantic theatre of Bastille. The backstage and the side stages are HUGE. Very spacious but not necessarily pretty. We also discovered the sets of the La Bayadere production. I didn't know that the sets were so detailed and HUGE! The details of all the sets are remarkable. When I was under the sets I was very thrilled. Pain in tibia bone, and sickness......Finally, I have bad news. I have been feeling a tiny pain on my tibia bone. I was very worried because I was afraid that it could be a stress fracture. For a stress fracture one has to rest for 6 weeks to several months, which would be long enough for me to miss all the performances of La Bayadere. I didn't know if I should go and see a doctor who would stop me immediately, or to take care of it on my own, not going to classes and keep on attending rehearsals. But in this case I couldn't be sure whether it's serious or not. It was such a hard decision to make. I was so frustrated about it that I couldn't sleep for nights. Then before yesterday, I asked Miss Wu for advice. Miss Wu is my VERY FIRST ballet teacher who made me fall in love with ballet during my first trial ballet class. So she's a bit of a mum to me! She cheered me up and encouraged me to be brave. I was very touched after our conversation. Here's a song that I played which would sum up what she was trying to tell me: I tried to add the lyrics for the first time so that we can see the message of the song (since I didn't sing!!) But actually that takes quite a lot of time to fit it exactly on the music.
Then I went to the doctor and did a MRI test. Fortunately, my pain was nothing more serious than tiny muscle lesions and tendinitis which is a very good news. I was much relieved after knowing that. But I still had to rest for 8 days which is not too long. I can finally have some more time for piano, to relax, and to study, and to rest. However, I am sick now, after being nervous and worried for so much time. Anyway! So happy that my tibia is fine! I listened to this song several days ago through a video on the internet and started singing it all the time in my head since then!! Beautiful song, very touching and emotional.
I struggled for a whole afternoon trying to sync the audio and the video as the software that I used to be using was no longer usable. So I had to find a new free software. So finally, here it is! Woohoo! Do let me know what you think of my videos! I would be really glad to have comments! Anyways I love sharing my music here! |
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December 2018
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