I can't remember whether I shared this interview with you or not. Just in case you haven't watched this before :)
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During the preparation of Romeo and Juliet, I had been super excited and nervous at the same time to understudy the second male role of the ballet! Mercutio.
Well finally I didn't get to do this role on stage but I really learnt a lot since the beginning. Thank you for those (or THE one) who believed in me and gave me this opportunity. Even though I didn't get the chance to do it on stage, above a photo posted by Paris Opera Ballet's official Instagram account with MY costume of Mercutio! Made me very pourd! So I am back to Paris from Laval after a successful gala there!! I am happy this time with my performance in Laval. The whole trip was pleasant and I enjoy travelling more and more! Let me show you a few parts of my trip to Laval! So this is the stage where we performed. The theater of Laval doesn't hold a large number of spectators but the stage is rather large: almost 13m x 13m. However, the floor was quite hard..... certainly not a professional dance floor. After the performance our joints were complaining but that's normal for galas. Voila le Theatre de Laval! I just accepted another gala (doing the same ballets) for this Sunday. We will be performing in Morges in Switzerland. How exciting! This would be the first time for me to participate in a gala outside France. I hope that it would be as successful as this one in Laval. Thank you again for your support and for following me. I will try to keep updating this blog. I am also creating a new website in Chinese for Hong Kong. It will be less personal than this one but it will look nicer. I haven't completed it yet, but you can have a preview here: lamchunwinghk.weebly.com
Take care everyone! I look forward to reading your comments, as usual :) I am now in Laval for a gala. We took a train last night from Paris to Laval and we will be performing tonight. We stayed in a small but lovely hotel. My collegues went out yesterday night upon our arrival to have dinner in a restaurant. But since it was a bit late, I chose to enjoy my time at my hotel room and get rested for today's show. So here's my hotel room. Simple but nice isn't it? Before each gala, I find it quite stressful and tough to prepare for it on top of our normal work at the Paris Opera. However, I start to get used to it and it's quite enjoyable travelling around! Each time I learn a lot. Will let you know how it goes!
After a 4-days trip with my sister and cousin Marcus, I am finally back in Paris. This trip was "way too short!!" (It seems that holidays are never long enough for us!). I had a very good time with my family members, I was so happy to seem them again after a few months being alone in Paris. Tonight was the second last performance of Romeo and Juliet. I thought I would keep doing the two roles that I have been dancing in since 2 weeks: Capulet Servant and Musician. Surprise!! The company called me this afternoon and asked me to replace in a role that I have never rehearsed before. In fact, they added me to understudy this role when the performances already started. So I did it tonight! This role is Acrobate. As you can guess the dancing is a bit acrobatic, with some difficult and dangerous moves. I was very nervous before the show..... But it went quite smoothly. I am happy about my replacement! So will I do it again tomorrow? To be honest, I hope not, because I am so tired that I start to feel a little sick now...... Let's see what will happen. I also had the chance to show you Musician's costume. Simple one, missing the instrument! After tomorrow's last performance, I will have a week off. I planned a trip to see my sister and my cousin Marcus. Then I will be dancing in a gala in Laval (a French city) on 24th April.
I am now in the backstage of Romeo and Juliet. Just finished the first act and waiting for act 3. Before tonight's performance started, someone from the company came to me and told me, " Chun Wing, you have to be more aggressive in the Capulets. You have to give your 300% in each performance. I saw you when you were in the school and when you were replacing in La Source, and you were doing much more. So show us what you can do." So, have my previous performances been bad? Have I not been trying my best in each show? Well, I feel like I give my all in each performance........ So what's the problem? It may because I have not much stage fright anymore. Before entering the Company, the image of the side stages (in the photo above) represented huge pressure and nervousness for me. Thats where we get the most nervous, when we are unsure about our performance. Once we get on stage we forget everything. However, this place has become so familiar to me that I dont feel the stage fright anymore. I am no longer afraid of the audience when I am on stage..... at least for the time being, I will surely get super nervous when I do a more important role. May be it is this lack of stage fright that affected my prescence and energy when I dance on stage. Performance may have become a banality to me...... This is me in the backstage. Now I must change my attitude and find back some stage fright that would stimulate me a bit when I am on stage!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been some time since I didn't update this blog. My life has been constant since my last post: Romeo and Juliet performances, Mathematics, day-offs......... So I didn't have many interesting news to share with you here. The next production that the company will be giving is Giselle but unfortunately I am not in the castings, nor in the other one: a new piece of Forsythe. I will have a month with no rehearsals at all after Romeo and Juliet which actually good for my preparation for the A-level Baccalaureat exam in June. I will be able to really concentrate on my final studies! And this is not bad finally. Romeo and Juliet is going smoothly. I am doing the same roles in the same spots almost in every show. And we still have 4 shows to go! One day I went to visit the Chateau Champs-sur-Marne not far 1 hour from Paris by train. It was a Wednesday morning and there was NOBODY. It was a very nice visit. I didn't take any photos of the castle but in the photo above showing the town just next to the castle. It was a nice visit and the weather was lovely. I also went to see the musical "Cats" in Paris on another day off. I seldom watch live musicals and I enjoyed the energetic, exciting and broadway-themed performance so much. It was performed in the Theatre Mogador very near to Opera Garnier. The theatre itself is also very pretty. I also try to go and see other shows by the Paris Opera. The most unforgettable one among those that I have seen recently is undoubtedly Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto in a new stage setting. I loved the music and I still have the feeling that the orchestra plays better for the operas than for the ballets! Maybe I am wrong, but the music just took me to heaven. I start to enjoy operas too. "Art has no limits.", one of my ballet teachers once told me. I start to understand and I feel excited very to having so much to discover.
Hi my dear readers, before talking about my endless baccalaureat exams, I would like to share a video with you: It's a video of the finale of the first ballet of this season at the POB: Theme and variation. For those who followed this blog since September, you may remember that, I replaced in this ballet. I was so surprised to see myself in this video! I am actually the one at the right bottom corner at the beginning of the video. This video is special to me because it marked my first appearance on the stage of Palais Garnier as a professional dancer there. The female soloist that you'll see later in the video is actually my "petite mere", Heloise Bourdon. The video is a bit long. Apart from what I've mentioned it may not be interesting for you to watch till the end. I wanted to put it here as a record anyway. Yesterday I returned to the sport center where I've been for the dance exam last time, for another....... dance exam! Yes, twice. How strange the French baccalaureat is! Once again the conditions were terrible. This time the examiner also challenged me during the oral part of the exam by arguing about my choreography approach.... well in brief it was very unpleasant for me. One of my friends told me however, "If you get a bad mark for dance exam, call the exam center and complain! If a POB dancer gets a low mark, who could get a good mark?" I think she's right. Let's see... Then today, I just did my English oral exam. It was, once again, very strange. The examiner makes me think of one of my English teachers at the Paris Opera Ballet School who was a bit big headed and who spoke English with a slight French accent. It went quite well, but I felt quite uncomfortable during the exam. Next exams would be the big subjects.... Mathematics, philosophy, scientific subjects.....etc. in two weeks' time. And before that, I will have another gala in Marseille in which I will do a new contemporary piece, I will have a meeting with Mr. CY Leung just next to the Opera! So nervous about it! And I joined a Chinese cuisine promotional event where I will see other Hongkongers! All these are exciting, aren't they? I feel like riding on a roller coaster now! |
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