Bournonville

Last summer, Freestone participated in a one-week ballet intensive called Bournonville, Ballet With the Masters, at Imagine Ballet Theater in Ogden. Bournonville is the Danish style of ballet, taken from the French tradition in the 1800's and incorporating lots of fast footwork, turns and jumps, jumps, jumps. This year, he was invited to do Bournonville again, and we pretty much looked forward to it all year. The teacher above, Henning, is Danish and lives in Toronto. He told the dancers last year to "Eat a banana every day, even if you don't like them. It's good for you." I can't tell you how many bananas Freestone consumed this year, each one prefaced by that statement in Henning's voice. "Eat a banana every day..."

On Thursday of Bournonville week, Carol Browning hosted a fancy reception at her beautiful estate. We love being part of it. We had three or four extra boys staying at our house all week, depending on the day. We took them all to the reception with us, all dressed up.

Elliott, Carol Browning and Rhys Hudson, our dancer from Houston who will dance as a trainee in Boston with our friend Henry Winn next year. He was in Boston Ballet's professional training division this past year.

Rhys, Elliott, Freestone and Mac

After the final Saturday night performance at the Egyptian Theater in Ogden. Elliott, Henry, Henry's dad, Jhaelyn, Val (Henry's mom), Carol Browning, Rhys, Freestone and Fernando, a BW trainee.

Friday night we had a bunch of dancers at the house painting their shoes in the Bournonville style with the white triangle and sewing on white elastic, while discussing philosophy and "spilling tea" about their ballet colleagues. I love being in the midst of all of this.

Lucky slice after the final performance.

Each morning after dropping off Freestone, Mac, Elliott and Rhys at Grounds for Coffee, I picked up Ethan at Frontrunner and took him to the studio, until the other boys convinced him to stay at our house for the rest of the week.

Every night, there was ukulele accompanied by Ruby's Ghanaian drum and singing. These kids are the absolute best. Rhys, Mac in a onesie :), Elliott, Amelia and Freestone

At the Browning reception: Elliott, Rhys, Elijah from BW, Freestone, Amelia and front and center, Ethan. The kid has stage presence even when he's not on stage. And when he is, watch out! I saw him wink at his mom during the performance. Ha ha

Mind you, this was concurrent with Clytie's recital week, so at the time of the reception, Golda, Araceli, Ptolemy and Tziporah were at their Clytie performance. Scott and I had gone to it the night before, but the second night was Araceli's last performance, since she isn't doing ballet next year, and Scott wanted to see it. He stopped in at the reception briefly, then went to see Araceli and the other kids dance. Golda had taken over a modern class when the teacher had a baby, so she was there as a teacher. Anyway, Xanthe was only in Cast B and wasn't in that performance, so I took her to the reception as my "Plus One."

Ethan, Mac and Elliott with Carter in the background trying to find vegan food in our kitchen on burger night. Oops!

Elliott and Carter discussing Plato's cave. :) I love these boys so much.

Golda got in on the action

The performance was SO FUN! The first half was the different chosen dancers doing variations from the ballet Konservatoriet and other Bournonville ballets. Freestone and Mac were chosen to do one of the variations, and Freestone looked so good!!! Mac did too, of course, but I had to keep my eyes of Freestone the whole time. He has improved exponentially since last year's Bournonville. Grandma and Grandpa and Coco and Bill were probably bored during the first half, but the second half was Konservatoriet, the Bournonville ballet, which hasn't been performed in its entirety ever before in North America. It's a shame it's become so obscure, too, because IT IS FUNNY! Jeff Rogers was the main character, an old widower/ballet master looking for a beautiful or rich new wife. Jeff stole the show. He was hilarious. Tziporah and I were laughing our heads off the whole time. I was laughing at Tziporah too, because she thought it was so funny. Freestone was one of the corps, and played a waiter for part of it. At one point, Jeff threw a goblet in the air for Mac, the other waiter, to catch. I could see what was coming. He was going to throw the next goblet to Freestone. Scott and I exchanged a glance. Nobody said there would be sports! har har. I could see Freestone gear up with a look of concentration n his face. Jeff tossed the goblet, we held our breath, and he caught it! It was so funny.  The ballet is terribly athletic and incorporates a ton of mime and character. It must be exhausting, and they pulled it off in ONE week. Unbelievable.

Some ballet moms, Teri Mumm and Kathy Needham. We talk a lot. They're my support system and information hub.

Someone was introducing everyone and saying, This is Kathy, Mac's mom, this is Teri, Elliott's mom, this is Circe...everyone's mom. I'm sure I beamed. Can I tell you how much I love that? I love that.

Margrete, Rhys, Mac, Elliott, Freestone, and Elijah

and Amelia, Freestone's crush from Imagine

and her adorable little brother

Jhae and Henry giving Carol Browning a little master class in port de bras. And that wrapped up the best week ever. We loved having all the ballet boys at our house. It was so interesting to have a glimpse of Freestone's ballet life; the boys' work ethic, their personalities, how much they can eat, the humor. Oh, the humor! The boys are so funny.  It was also informative for me to talk to Rhys about the ballet world, him being already a trainee and having gone through what Freestone is beginning to go through moving up through the ranks. I'm sad the week is over, but there are plenty more guests and experiences coming at us faster than we can take in. Onward!