Beppu Ballet Blog, Part III

Boston Ballet dancer Romi Beppu is back with a few more entries in her tour diary as the company heads through Spain. Call this edition comping the cerveza.

For the first Beppu blog, go here.
For the second Beppu blog, go here.

Wednesday, July 25th

Continued from Las Palmas ………….as we weren’t able to properly space and run a dress rehearsal due to rainy weather conditions hampering the crew from being able to test out lights and put up sets. A side note of appreciation to Boston Ballet’s awesome hardworking crew – they have been pulling many overnighters in these cities, putting up and taking down sets, lights, etc. just to make it all happen here in Spain. We see them shuffling into the hotel after their 19th hour of work, bloodshot eyes and all. We love and are thankful for them. – Without them the show could not go on.

Wednesday, July 25th
First performance of La Sylphide in Las Palmas with Yury and Karine dancing James and the Sylph, is warmly welcomed and enthusiastically enjoyed by the folks in Las Palmas. One of the big highlights of Las Palmas was seeing Elizabeth Olds (a former dancer and currently Mikko’s assistant) make her debut as Madge in La Sylphide. The work, thought and quality she put into the character more than paid off onstage. Such a powerful punch from such a little lady – congrats Liz!

Saturday, July 28th
Last day in Las Palmas. Sleep deprivation is catching up with me! With performances starting at 10:00pm and ending at midnight or later, busing to the hotel, eating and showering, bedtime has been generally set at 2:30am or 3:00am. It is the last day and last show here in Las Palmas and although it has been absolutely gorgeous and resort-like, many of us are anticipating our next destination, big city Madrid. We close the four Las Palmas performances with the Balanchine program and all in all, with the exception of a few lighting problems, everyone dances well and Las Palmas seem to agree. After the show, some dancers decide to go out to a salsa club to celebrate but our guys decide not to because bus call the next day is 10:15am and we are tired and hungry. Rie and I find a restaurant near the theatre and befriend the waiter, Jose, who turned out to be the biggest sweetheart, basically comping our entire meal of patatas con mojo, jamon, ensalada and cerveza. He was so thrilled that we were ballet dancers from Boston and wanted to impress us with his hospitality and the little English that he knew. We each gave him dos besos and he turned bright red. Mucho gracias Jose!

Monday July 30th
Madrid – big city shock!
Heat wave central, gigantic buildings, taxis, buses, shops, museums and people galore. After being in resort like conditions where a beach or pool was within at most a 10 minute walk radius, my first impressions of Madrid was “Yikes, we’ve landed in the Spanish version of NYC.” Overwhelming, with so much to see and do but not knowing where to begin or end. Planning ahead and creating some sort of itinerary for the day seemed necessary. Walking around aimlessly through the city during the day in the 100? weather was not going to cut it, especially if you still wanted to be partially alive for the evening’s performances.

Tuesday, July 31st
Call for class and rehearsal in Madrid was 5:45pm every day. Because we were in an outdoor theatre with no studio space available and the daytime temperatures were too hot and dangerous to dance under, our entire daily schedule had to be pushed back. The schedule actually worked out well, because we were all free during the day to sightsee, explore and shop, come back to the hotel for a little siesta, then head to the theatre for class, rehearsal and performance. With the Balanchine program opening the first two shows in Madrid, I wanted to wait on the sightseeing and such until we started La Sylphide. First two days in Madrid were spent walking up Gran Via, shopping in Puerto del Sol and catching up on bills and e-mails at the nearby VIPS (a partial bookstore, restaurant, and internet café) and one of the only places that we would later find out was open past midnight for post performance grub.

Highlight of first day; Raul Casasola’s party at his home, 30 minutes away from hotel, and renting a bus to transport the entire company to and back. We arrive at the home of the Casasola’s; mom, dad, sister and other family members greeted the mob of dancers crowded around the front of the house. They barely spoke a drip of English, but the warm smiles, kisses, abundance of beverages and endless dishes of delicious Spanish treats told us that the Spanish know how to throw a fiesta! The nearby kids in the neighborhood peered in through the patio gate trying to get a glimpse of the pretty company girls and begged for bites of food and drink. They were a little rowdy and persistent for their age I thought, but I guess it was all in good fun and what else do kids do on a Monday night but try to crash a cool Boston Ballet party?

Wednesday, August 1st
Opening night of the Balanchine program in Madrid is fantastic – everyone dances well and the company pulls together as a whole for a wonderful premiere. We adjusted to the obstacles faced the night before during dress rehearsal- lighting issues, spacing and a harder floor. Go Team!

Friday, August 3rd
With class starting at 5:45pm, we decide to take advantage of the partially free day and visit the Prado Museum in Madrid. I was interested in seeing the Goya and El Greco collection. Only downside: all of the captions describing the piece and the historical info applying to it were written solely in Spanish. All I could make out was the artist and dates. Oh well – still very impressive and cool to see the actual pieces that I had seen in my art history text book.

Two photos of Sarah Wroth, by Sabi Varga, during "The Four Temperaments"