Right side, left side.

Photo courtesy of Lilie's.

I'm calling Drake University home this week again. "Ashlyn, there is a Bucksbaum Lecture speaker tonight named Twyla Tharp. Would you want to go?" You serious, Clark? Absofreakinlutely. I studied classical ballet for more than half my life. It's my heart and soul. Lehsgo, y'all.

She's short. And curt. And brilliant. She talked about creativity, and I was enthralled. Espeacially with two quotes:

"Dancers are wonderous creatures. They are silent forces of great beauty.

They hold deep faith with most impossible suggestions.

And at their best, they'll run through walls for you."

(Yes, snaps-in-a-Z-formation, I know I got that quote verbatim. Holla journalism majors. Couldn't be more true to life--I may not stand at the barre six days a week anymore, but do NOT tell me "impossible." Don't say that to a dancer. Relics of dance still haunt me, and that fierce-faith determination will always be with me.)

ANYWAY, then Twyla said this:

"All dancers have a right side or a left side. And I won't let them change my choreography to suit that. For two reasons. First, it's dishonorable to the architecture of the choreography. And secondly, they never learn about themselves."

Um, hello.

God calling.

Do you see that?! We have a right side. Or a left side. Me? I was always a leftie: higher developé, deeper penché, faster fouettés. Hated the right. I'd furiously scowl in the mirror at that right leg, push it deeper, demand more of it. "Stallings. Get OUT of the mirror." Okay, okay, okay. Fine. I really gotta sleep in a right split tonight...

So I'd try to do everything on the left.

But if that wasn't the choreography, I was screwed. But you can't force things. My ballet master would lean back in his chair. "Go. Plie. No, right foot front." "Foye, just lemme triple left once first for fun." (Silence. Foye raises his eyebrows at me. I should add there is zero room for disrespect in ballet.) "Ashlyn? Um, NO. Right foot. Now. Plie."

From Giselle. Ah, the glory days. For the dancers looking at my feet: They're bad. I know. But dangit I could act.

So I'd sigh. Sweat soaked leotard. Me. Mirror. And Foye. Who'd then start phrases like this: "Easy, killa. You can't force it, Stallings. Let your neck go. Left shoulder in faster. Easy. Don't force it. Let it happen."

Let it happen.

Let it happen because it's disrespectful to God's life-dance-choreography to ask to do the left side. Because maybe He wants to show me I can do the right side.

When Twyla spoke those words last night, God smiled and looked at me to see if I'd heard Him. I laughed with tears in my eyes and told Him I did. I'm the girl who kinda forces things. Relationships. Perfection. The job I'm trying to line up for post-ADPi land.

Read this in Jesus Calling last week, and I can't get it outta my head:

"Stop trying to work things out before their times have come. Accept the limitations of living one day at a time. When something comes to your attention, ask Me whether or not it is part of today's agenda. If it isn't, release it into My care and go on about today's duties. When you follow this practice, there will be a beautiful simplicity about your life: a time for everything, and everything in its time."

-  Jesus Calling, Sarah Young

Don't force it, baby girl. Don't force it. Accept one day at a time.

p.s. In other news, I bought her book because I wanted to meet Twyla. And get her autograph. And she wrote my name. :)

Photo courtesy of The Ballerina Project

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not

have a single bit of talent left, and could say,

 "I used everything you gave me".

- Erma Bombeck

I'm so sorry for the lack of updates. Lemme revel being a Montgomerian for a few more hours and I'll deliver. Promisecrossmyheart. :)

NYT Uncovers Tweeting Ballerinas

Photo courtesy of New York Times

It happens to every little dancer, about the time your foot can reach the high barre and you graduate from baby blue to sophisticated black strappy leotards: an obsession with true ballerinas.

For me, it began with a Darci Kistler autographed NYCB Swan Lake poster--a gift from Santa the same year I shredded "Ballerina: My Story" by Darci Kistler. (I also believe I morphed the book into a whopping two book reports in 3rd grade--holla. Mrs. Harrington loved me.) From then on, I was enthralled. Little boys with their sports stats memorized had their female match in me. Subscriptions to Pointe and Dance magazines arrived like clockwork. You knew that the Braves were the first MLB franchise to win the World Series in 3 different series, but I could tell you that Paloma Herrera came to ABT at the age of 15 in 1991. Riveting, I know.

Gone are the days when I could rattle off the principals at NYCB, ABT, SFB, Miami City Ballet, but thanks to Twitter--I can still stalk. This New York Times exposé  is making waves in the arts sphere today. "Poised and graceful in performances that you just know they're all belching, smoking, and cursing like construction workers backstage," says New York Magazine.

“Odette act II was ok today, mild foot cramps though. 

Yuck yuck. Onto odile. Going for evil sexy tonight;).”

Get it, @ashleybouder. You're as fun as @sn00ki and @lilwayne pre-tweet hiatus. Who do you stalk on Twitter?

Happy 101

Thanks, Elizabeth and Grace in Her Step for tagging me! So I think I now list 10 things that make me happy...

Award Rules:

1. List 10 things that make you happy.

2. Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.

3. If you are one of the 10 bloggers awarded, link back to this blog, and pass it along.

1 :: Moments every day when the Lord reminds me that when the world is falling out from underneath me, I'll be found in Him still standing.

2 :: The Pebbles {My 5 besties. How'd we get the name? The Wise Camilla said, "God is my rock, but y'all are my pepples. Aww, shucks.}

3 :: Alpha Delta Pi {Yeahyeahyeah, I know, sappy. But to me, this sorority is more than chanting Pi, Pi, ADPi during rush--they are the net to catch me here at Samford. "We live for each other and for Alpha Delta Pi."}

4 :: Toes in sand, Lilly bathing suit on, waves crashing, and skin warm. Then Bud & Alley's or The Red Bar. Done and done.

5 :: Live music. Correction: DANCING to live music. From Charleston bars to Destin digs, just give me a beat and I'm bouncin'.

6 :: Sundresses + cowgirl boots. Or Jack Rogers.

7 :: Tailgating on the rolling plains of Auburn.

8 :: These ballets - Giselle, Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, Serenade, Western Symphony. {True, I haven't been a company member since '06. But I proudly retain my slightly snobbish "ballet is the basis of all dance" mentaility proudly. Go ahead, try me. I'll even wiggle my scarred 10 toes to prove it.}

9 :: Sweet little Montgomery, Alabama. It's family.

10 :: New York City {First trip: an entire summer studying ballet at Joffrey at age 14. Last trip: showing God's love to the roughest parts of Brooklyn and Spanish Harlem. From the glitz to the grime, I ADORE this city and the people that inhabit it.}

Tags
Buckhead Belle
The Modern Traditionalist
Starfish and Sundresses
All That Inspires
A Day in the Life, My World, & The People in It
Something Beautiful
Let the Tide Pull Your Dreams Ashore
A Trip Down South
Southern Gent
Living the Dream

Note to those tagged: The blog gods will probably throw lighting at me, but I have seen some writers not include the award picture when reposting this. I dunno. It may mess with your aesthetic. Plus, I tagged some guys and that gingham is super June Cleaver.

Out of Chaos Comes Order

It caught my eye every time I passed it. At Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, where the annual festival poster sells as hotly as show tickets, a black-and-white thumb-printed image of a curly-headed young man intrigued all of the interns. We were perplexed as to why the gift shop was still making bank off of a year-old design.

We eventually caught on. The 2007 Spoleto Festival poster used Chuck Close's famed Large Phil Fingerprint/Random (1979), a portrait of composer Philip Glass, as its focus. And as Dr. Flynt popped in a documentary about Close in art history today, I had to remind myself to sit up straight; that leaning forward won't get me into the film.

So who's Chuck? A fan of de Kooning, Close worked to purge his work of de Kooning's style and create on all his own. By breaking photos down into diminutive bites of color, he took the art world by storm. Close's bewildering technique is a fascinating process to watch as he works of a pixelated grid employing brilliant colors. --he reinvented portraits.

I'm obsessed.

Close and Philip Glass were friends. Like any good (ex)ballerina, I've an affinity for Phillip Glass as one of the 20th century's most prolific composers. He gave Twyla Tharp a backdrop for the fabulous In the Upper Room. (Which, might I add, the Boston Ballet performed during the 2008 Spoleto Festival. I think I had an outer body experience.)

Watch the Tharp/Glass collaboration.

Imagine the six degrees games these artistic geniuses could play... And the Nietzsche quote is thanks to Ellen's brilliance.

C'est parfait.

Photo courtesy of Zipporah Films

Perusing the New York Times this morning, my ballet antennae was piqued--fifteen years of classical ballet study makes it hypersensitive. A new documentary, cast in the hallowed halls of the Palais Garnier, is flickering across a Houston Street theater in New York. A. O. Scott's article about "La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet" is fabulous. The films is sure to be a mix of genius, sweat, Aurélie Dupont, beaded tulle costumes, and Nutcrackers.

Proof again that all good things land on Manhattan. And this southern belle can't wait to join in the revelry.