Romi Beppu, Ballet Blogging

Neck braces, rats, and club-hopping... the inside dope on Boston Ballet's ongoing tour from principal dancer Romi Beppu.

Tuesday July 17th
Finally after a long plane ride and swollen feet we have arrived. Tenerife! It is about 1pm Spanish time / 8am Boston time. And we have been flying through the night. All of us are quite exhausted with the exception of maybe Carlos Molina who was smart enough to wear a neck brace that allowed him to sleep on the flight without getting a neck spasm. He was a funny sight at the moment, but in reality, the smart one!

All I want to do at this moment is SLEEP! I fight the temptation knowing that an innocent “rest period” could result in a death nap and screw up my evening sleep – thus prolonging the jet lag that I feel.

Rie, Karine and I decide to get some food, walk around a bit and head back to the hotel for an early nights sleep.

2:30pm
Starving!
We go to La Radio restaurant across from the hotel. It would be our first experience into discovering that service in Spanish restaurants requires patience! Lunch is not an hour event, rather a 2 ½ hour sit down extravaganza. After the first hour and a half, Karine is just about falling asleep into her huge plate of tortilla (Spanish omelet). Raul spots a huge rat hanging out on the floor near us. Great. He then makes an announcement to all of us in the restaurant about the presence of our new friend, and we call him Ratatouille. Trinidad, at another table, jumps up on her chair. Are we having fun yet?

Thursday July 19th
Class and dress rehearsal for La Sylphide. Theatre is gorgeous from outside. Looks like a modern art sculpture, half of it surrounded by water. First thing I notice are couples making out everywhere. This must be the place to “get romantic”. I can definitely see why. Class is in the studio downstairs – it is a maze to get there, but we finally find it. Yikes! Floors are HARD! This seems to be the general consensus all around. We manage though and after class, we do a run of the Balanchine program in the studios. Hard floor but all of us agree, it better to move to get our bodies over the jet lag and tired muscles.

Friday, July 20th

1st show kicking off the Spanish tour is sold out! Good performance – everyone danced well and you could feel the love from the crowd. We must have taken 5 or 6 full company bows. A great feeling!

Saturday, July 21st
10:30am Company is downstairs at the buffet breakfast in the hotel. We all look tired, perhaps a bit grumpy. Café con leche seems to be the popular beverage at the moment.

“No eggs again” Rie utters – “Hmm, I guess we’re too late again”. Little does she know that the smart people sit near the tray of eggs and down them as soon as they arrive. We are learning, slowly.

4pm
Back at theater for Balanchine program rehearsal. First up, Serenade. Yikes. This stage is a little small for this ballet it seems. The girls are having a few spacing problems so we adjust to accommodate the stage. The corps girls are a little on edge knowing that the tight fit is affecting lines and formations. Next up, “Who Cares?” rehearsal. No problem with spacing, as there are only 4 dancers in this piece. We mark though it for spacing and music mainly. Tony is calm, telling us to do what we need for tonight’s show. Last ballet to rehearse - 4 T’s. Same situation as Serenade, tight squeeze on the stage, but we manage to rework the spacing issues.

Break time! I’m starving! We decide to eat in the theater’s canteen, being too tired and lazy to venture out to a restaurant. John has already announced that jamon con queso sandwiches are only 1 Euro! He hoards 3 or 4 sandwiches and carries them outside of the theatre where James and other dancers are laying out in the sun near the water trying to get in some last minute tanning time before the sun goes down. We chow down and head into the wig and makeup room (a.k.a. the internet café) where we all congregate with laptops to check emails, catch up on bills, and find out the latest You Tube video. Sabi meanwhile, who has been declared the official photographer of Boston Ballet’s tour, is all business, checking out his latest shots of the La Sylphide performance. We all ooh and aah over the photos – he seems pleased with the results.
Basta! Rest time before the show.

9pm show. First performance of Balanchine program was fantastic! Everyone pulled it together and the team spirit and energy of the company could be felt in all three ballets. Even though the house was not as filled as the previous evening, the people of Tenerife who came seemed very warm and excited with the Balanchine extravaganza. Good start to the tour, and this calls for a salsa club celebration!! After heading back to the hotel and getting a bite to eat some of us decide to head out to El Son, a Salsa club recommended by Lorna and Nelson. We follow, ready and in the mood to party after a long week. We arrive at around 3am – the club is hopping. Totally different scene here than in the U.S. The music is fantastic, and the energy is contagious. Karine, Rie and I start dancing amidst a crowd of grade A Spanish salsa dancers. We have no idea how to salsa, but we don’t seem to care and neither do they. Oh my god! It is so in hot in here. “Muy calor y muy caliente” in both ways. Where is Larissa? She came in with us, but is no where to be found. Finally we spot her near the back of the club dancing with a random Spanish guy. She is all smiles, and is loving every moment of it. Wish I had my camera. An hour later, the rest of the Boston Ballet dancers arrive at the club – now the party has really begun! We basically took over the entire middle area of the club, everyone clearly a little tipsy, ready to party and have some fun. Lorna and Nelson the Queen and King of Salsa, dance like uncaged animals, we all cheer them on.

5:30am... back to the hotel. We are sweaty, tired and have swollen feet from the cute stilettos that we just had to wear! I need to sleep!

Sunday, July 22nd
Travel day to Las Palmas
Let’s call this day “the ferry ride of sickness” Getting from Tenerife to Las Palmas requires an innocent 2 hour ferry ride. No big deal, right? Oh, were we wrong. We board the massive ferry and are happily surprised with what we find inside. Comfy seats, a snack bar area, plenty of walking around space and decent bathrooms. I think, Good - I’ll take a nap, as I am still a little sleepy from the salsa night. We take off, heading for Las Palmas. Karine immediately sits up, a little concerned at how rocky and wavy the boat feels on the water. She is becoming a little tense and the jokes are now over. Lorin comes over and directs us to where the restrooms are in case of emergency, acting as if he were an employee on this ferry. (He has been one of the favored comedians on this tour so far) about a minute after he leaves, I start feeling extremely queasy, uneasy and nauseous. I tell Rie that I’ll be in the bathroom. She follows me in. I know from the look on her face that we are both on the same page as far as how our stomachs feel. After that, without going into too much detail, let’s just say that many of us in the company spent the majority of the ferry ride in the bathroom. Stomachs churning, pale faces, and an overwhelming feeling of “get me off of this boat now!”

Tempe Ostergren, company member, sewing pointe shoes poolside in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. That's Kirsten Hwang, Boston Ballet's Company Manager, next to her. (Photo by Elizabeth Olds.)