a little obsessed

Since the age of about 11 or so, I've probably created/staged/choreographed hundreds of dances in my head. Countless songs have inspired me, from Mozart to Elvis to movie soundtracks. I have completely re-staged Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker at least twice. In my head. Choreography is my passion.

You would think that since I'm a ballet teacher I would get to choreograph all the time. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Of the 22 classes I regularly teach in a week, only one has an average age exceeding 7 years old. Two have an average age of 6, two have an average age of 2.5 and the rest are 3,4, and 5. Not particularly great for flexing my choreographic muscles.

Back in Oct/Nnov, I got a mailer form Ballet Pacifica. WHat caught my eye was the words, "Choreographic Competition." They are having a competition to stage a 20-25 min children's ballet, to be danced by their senior students. The winner get's $500. I thought it sounded awesome, but I have two major problems: 1) you have to submit two samples of work. I have nothing that I could submit, everything I have choregraphed in the last three years has been for recital for babies. 2) it's Ballet Pacifica. They are the too-big-for-this-small-pond company out here, we've had several students leave us to go there. There's bad blood there and I don't know how my boss would feel about it.

So, I set it aside and figured it would be nice, but not going to happen.

Well, I can't get it out of my head. Entries are due by the end of this month. If I could work up the guts to talk it over with my boss so I could choreograph something on our company members I could just have enough time to get something in by the deadline. But this is where my being a big chicken hurts me.

For the last week, I've constantly been listening to a track from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack, I can't stop. I can see so many visions of a piece when I listen to it, the visions in my head are so beautiful they make me want to cry. Which makes me feel a little bit crazy but what's new? There's no telling if I could make what is in my head work in real life but I'm dying to try.

I don't know if this is going to go anywhere or not but for now I'm obsessing over the music and planning an entry. If nothing happens, it'll just get added to the others collecting dust in the corners of my brain.