The Trials of a Ballerina

November 26th
Hello my french project blog followers.
Today, is a very sad day.
As it is almost the end of classes it is also the end of so many things I love. Like ballet classes at the Ian Stewart.
I know I'll be able to continue on with them next semester but for the next 3 weeks as I wait for my exams to end in Victoria I will have no one to practice pointing and flexing my toes with. No one to show me how to do proper grand jettes and no one to catch me when I get too dizzy because I still can't spot my pique turns to save my life.
Yes, for the next 3 weeks I will have to do ballet alone.

Now you're wondering why I am posting about this here because true dance history majors know that ballet started in the Italian Renaissance but ballet to me is something inherently French. And there are different styles of ballet, the most commonly taught being French.
I think we can send out a big thank you to King Louis the 14th of France for this. He was a huge lover of ballet and it was because of him that Jean-Baptiste Lully became such a famous, and for a long time, the only, composer of music in the court.
Louis himself spent at least an hour every morning in a ballet lesson and the members of his court as well as the rest of France quickly made it part of their daily lives as well.
Though the ballet in Louis time may not have been as extreme and rigid as it it today it was still very difficult.
I mean if you ever have the chance to go look up the feet of a ballerina, DON'T! It's disgusting! Broken toes, ingrown toe nails, bleeding/blistered/bruised! SO GROSS!
This intensive ballet spun off into several other forms of dance. Contemporary and lyrical for example use many of the characteristics and fundamentals of ballet but are rooted more in natural and flowing movements, often impersonating trees or leaves in the wind.

On a side note if you ever have to go to a dance competition and have to sit through the lyrical section, be prepared for a lot of really emotional dance pieces set to the sappiest hit song at the time dance teachers can find.
This isn't even a song, it's just strange! (link)

My ballet class was not so intense of course. Most of us were new comers to the ballet scene so walking on point shoes and great graceful leaps will have to wait a few years. That of course does not mean it wasn't hard!
For my ballet class we learned a combination from the Beauty and the Beast ballet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znJQiVzN6E4
It's called the Bluebird (the first girl to dance in the video)
It was very hard! Especially since I have very poor balance on a regular basis! Doing all the kicks and turns had me resembling a goose flying in the wind. Not very graceful, hardly any control but some how I made it through and I had fun doing it.
(Our teacher assures us that next semesters variation for the Vikes presentation day will be easier.....I can hope!)

Cecilly<3

Mademoiselle Saigon?

November 12th
Did you know that once upon a time Vietnam was a French colony?
I didn't! No idea in fact! So I write to you this post in the hopes that I may impart some knowledge of the history of French involvement in Vietnam as well as how I came across this knowledge.
So from the 17th century to the 19th century France was in Vietnam trying to convert the people to Christianity and helping them to see the light of God. Under the pretext of protecting the work of Catholic missionaries in the 19th century France was able to form the French Indochina which was part of the French colonial empire in South Asia and France ruled Vietnam until they lost the French Indochina war in 1954...
Some of you may be sitting there, scratching your head and thinking to yourself "France had an empire?" Well it would appear so and it would appear that our teachers have been holding back on our learning of other countries.
But why is this relevant to me?

Well I was researching for my Commercial Theater essay that's due in December and I have to do a lot of research on Miss Saigon, a megamusical set during and after the Vietnam war with America that began in 1965. That's 11 years after Vietnam became it's own country suddenly the American's are descending upon them. But in this musical there is a character named the Engineer and he's a half-French half-Asian character.
His race alone caused enough trouble in American media but the funny thing about this man is his tendency to throw in little french mannerisms and sayings here and there in his songs. I couldn't for the life of me think why or why his french mother would happen to be in Vietnam in the first place to get pregnant with a Vietnamese man....it's all been explained now.
It is also very important I think to mention since this blog is for a french class that the writer and composer of  Miss Saigon were both Frenchmen. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. These were also the creators of Les Miserables, another megamusical based on the Victor Hugo novel. An important fact is that these men are french, when they write their musicals they write them in french and then work with a translator to translate them to English and fix all the rhyming and then set it to the music. It is a very long process.
But anyways, just a fun fact about Vietnamese history portrayed through a musical for you readers.
Peace <3
Cecilly