What a nice interview. I enjoyed the shooting at the Yau Ma Tei fruit market in Hong Kong this summer. It feels surreal to dance in such a very "Hong-Kong" scene: in my hometown! 

I just came back from a wonderful evening at the Palais Garnier as a spectator. In the program: Défilé (the traditional parade of POB), Jewels and Faun by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. First time watching this defile from the audience (since I had always been part of it), it is indeed magical! How moving it is to watch. 

Jewels (Balanchine) was simply stunning. I think it's one of the best Balanchine ballets. As to Faun, it's a new version by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, a very modern version to Debussy's music. And I loved it! Just beautiful. 

It feels very different to watch a ballet than to watch an opera. Ballet has its particular power, at least to me... How I feel proud of being part of this company! 

After dancing over a persistant hip pain for about a week, I did an MRI yesterday and the doctor stopped me from dancing because my psoas muscle is slightly lesioned and inflamed..... Well, it is part of the profession I suppose. Let's face this with positive energy and make this rest period count! I will make the most of it, now that I have a lot of other occupations. 

Tonight I went to see La Veuve Joyeuse (the Merry Widow in English) at the Opera Bastille. Tonight was a special evening, the performance was exclusively reserved for -40 years old. How I enjoyed this show which ended by a real Parisian Cabaret - the famous French Cancan! It was a real success, the audience loved it, I loved it. The choreography was of very high technical level, and the music was captivating from the beginning till the end. The singers were good, too! I had a wonderful evening! 

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I made this video today as a birthday present to myself :D 

I could hardly sleep last night. I don't know if it was the excitement or the pain in my left hip. I just woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep again. But when I got up this morning, I appreciated the warm and welcoming dawn colours, as if I saw the new path that I will embark on. 

When I arrived Grenoble and got out from the train station. This is the first thing I noticed: my business school! (click on the photo to enlarge). Grenoble Ecole de Management, this is the back of the school, the front should look better, I will see tomorrow......

I then had a whole sunny afternoon to visit the city of Grenoble as a tourist before the storm arrives tomorrow.... (I will have school from 9am to 6pm, and then when I will be back in Paris I will have a lot of rehearsals.... my schedule is just fully packed! But I am excited and happy with it) The must-see seemed to be Le Fort de la Bastille. I took "cable-cars" to go up there and...... I captured this picture because I was a bit shocked myself at that moment looking at this ticket: "Etudiant", it's an "Etudiant" ticket! The word means "Student". Oh of course! I am a student again! That's pretty amazing wouldn't you say? I am now a...... dancer, athlete, artist? Hongkonger but.... "fonctionnaire" (employed by the French government), and a student! It would be seriously amusing if the list continues..... 

View from le Fort de la Bastille in Grenoble! While in train, I was reading a book entitled: "The Magic of Thinking Big" a very optimistic and positive book. And I read: "Be an experimental person. Break up fixed routines. Expose yourself to new restaurants, new books, new theatres, new friends.... If your work is in distribution, develop an interest in production, accounting, finance, and the other elements of business. This gives you breadth and prepares you for larger responsibilities." And I just stopped and fixed my eyes on that point, I am doing exactly that! Okay, I should go to bed early, school tomorrow!! 

Life always reserves surprises for us. Originally I was understudying one of my all time favorites of Balanchine: Rubies from Jewels (video below). When the Paris Opera suddenly called me two days ago: "Hi Chun, I am calling you because we are modifying the castings and it concerns you. You will be doing Rite of Spring instead of Rubies from today. So preferably you will go to Rite of Spring's rehearsal in Lifar this afternoon instead of Rubies. Call me back so that I know that you got the message." 

Rite of Spring is a Pina Bausch masterpiece, and of course Stravinsky's as well. It's a difficult ballet but in one's dancing career I think we must do this contemporary ballet at least once! Two very different styles, Balanchine's typical neoclassical to Pina Bausch's nearly madness. 

I hope I will have the chance to perform in this ballet. So I will not be on stage in September for Jewels, (oh excuse, me I will be on stage for the Defile!) but in late October for the Rite of Spring. 

And tomorrow, the time of a new journey comes! I will be departing for Grenoble for a two-days school year opening. Will be meeting new people, my classmates, teachers. Excited and a bit nervous!