Happy new year!

2010 was an awesome year. Here's to more dance and more dance writing for 2011!

Cheers,

Joelle Jacinto

the Christmas rush

I just wrote my last email for the day (by day, I meant yesterday, as it is now 1am and it is a new day, after all) and I set up my very efficient Out of Office Assistant so that I can concentrate on my school's recital tomorrow. My school is the near-30-year old TEAM Dance Studio, and we'll be doing the full-length Nutcracker and some new works by my dad, Eli Jacinto. This is why I haven't blogged much, or updated Runthru much -- at this point, let me apologize to those who have features upcoming, I'll get to them very soon. For the rest of you, do check http://www.runthru.com.ph for new stuff by next week (at the latest).

Admittedly, I'm always busy when there's a show; the work-life balance (wherein "life" translates to "dance," as it does to all who dance) is very challenging when you need to take time out of your 9-to-5 to rehearse and perform. But with our school's recitals, performing and rehearsing is the last on my mind. And then, we always have the annual recital three days before Christmas. You can see how things can get quite crazy.

At this point, I think I'll take the liberty of not promising that this, the inability to update Runthru Online, won't happen next year. This is so going to happen again next year. No apologies. Many people have Christmas family traditions, like completing Simbang Gabi together, or decorating the Christmas tree, or going up to Baguio to roast marshmallows in a fireplace. My family's is putting up a recital every year.

I used to feel bad that I couldn't watch others' shows during this season - either I'm too busy, or I got sick I'm so busy - but when I think of it, I owe a lot to TEAM Dance Studio, and there shouldn't be anything to feel bad for at all. This is where I started dancing, but at the same time, my dad started TEAM Dance Studio because of me. As it approaches its 30th anniversary as a school, I realize that I myself have been dancing for 30 years (well, I'm counting from my first ballet class at the age of 6). In a way, TEAM Dance Studio's history is my history, and of the many kids who've studied dance under me, the many kids I've restaged recitals for. It survives because I chose it as my priority. This makes me proud and, sincerely, quite moved.

If you're around the Alabang area, TEAM Dance Studio will be presenting The Nutcracker at the Insular Life Theater tomorrow evening (December 22, 2010) at 7:30 pm. You'll find me onstage with this big, proud grin on my face.

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Would also like to mark the milestone that is The Nutcracker becoming a part of Filipino culture, what with the manic number of Nutcrackers put on this month (which has always been an American phenomenon, never a Filipino one), the use of the Overture and the Waltz of the Flowers as pipe-in music at coffee shops and restaurants and the army of Nutcracker Soldiers strewn all across the Ayala malls. Thank you Ayala, for the free advertising.

Earlier today, on our way to the theatre and worrying about breaking our Nutcracker -- the doll is supposed to break in the first act, and neither of us were keen on breaking a particularly good Nutcracker even for a show -- my brother stopped the car in front of his neighbor's house and said to me, "Quick, go get the Nutcracker on his gate! We'll return it naman..." Some of the other neighbors had the Santa lights with the racing reindeer up front of their house. This family had two Nutcrackers guarding the entrance. It just fills me up with glee.

Of course, there will be those who just looove to say that even if it's becoming a "Filipino" tradition, isn't that still an elitist tradition? Well, gee, isn't Christmas at its capitalist best? Don't rain on my parade, Ebenezer.

Okay, gotta get my old, decrepit body ready for tomorrow's craziness. Good night, everyone! Happy holidays!

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Photo from our last Nutcracker back in 2005, taken by either Francis Reyes or Nina Sandejas. That's me as King Rat, one of my favorite roles, ever.

shift in priorities

This is sort of an update to this blog entry, where I discuss how I have to prioritize my dancing over dance writing and how I was planning to blog more to make sure my writing doesn't get rusty. I realized that if my time was dedicated to only dancing, I was effectively not seeing the dancing of other people, and therefore I'm limited to quite narcissistic topics, aren't I? Hence, the almost non-existence of blog entries posted up after. I mean, there's only one entry and it's about my niece/godchild.

Also, I am in the process of reconfiguring my life to move my priorities around a bit. I believe this is more exciting than it has been in the last few months. Hopefully, it will continue to be exciting and I'll have more blog posts up here soon.

Thanks for reading, and staying. Cheers!

The Day of Berry

For those who don't know yet, Berry is my goddaughter, my baby brother Lucas' first (and so far only) child. She loves Minute Maid orange juice, spaghetti noodles and ensaymada. She also loves to dance. The first time she danced, she was inside her mommy's tummy while mommy was watching me, my siblings and my family's ballet school perform Don Quixote at the Insular Life Auditorium. Seriously, as the entrada started, Erica's tummy started pounding as if there was a furious basketball inside.

She spent the day with us today, she arrived at our ballet school as I started class for our second level kids; she was wearing her tights, ballet shoes and a ballet skirt made of tulle. When I started rehearsals for this year's recital, she walked over to me and held my hand. So when my students started rehearsing, she was dancing with them also, sorta. Mostly she walked around as the students carefully danced around her, sometimes holding my hand, sometimes on her own. She would also stand in the midst of the girls doing skips and ballet runs, sometimes shaking her hips and shoulders. Since we're doing The Nutcracker this year, she would run about with her own wrapped gift (for the Christmas party scene) or holding a clump of fake flowers (for Waltz of the Flowers). At one point, while my students were swaying and galoping side to side, she would sway her head and shoulders along with them.

This is how I always envisioned how it would be when I have my own child, while I'm teaching or rehearsing, she or he would be hanging out in the studio with me; kinda like Twyla Tharp and her son, except not as cool. Of course, there already is the constant harassment to actually have my own kid and not play pretend with my brother's, and no, I don't mean my mom as she doesn't really mean to pressure me, she just likes the idea of having grandkids (and she won't admit it). The constant harassment is my own biological clock tick-tick-ticking away, at odds with the pact I made to keep dancing for as long as I can. I truly feel that when I do get pregnant, I will not be able to recover from it and dance the way I am dancing now. I'm giving myself a couple more years. The thing that frightens me though is what if after giving myself a few more years to dance, I find that my childbearing years have passed? I have recently been convincing myself that I'm not too old to have children and won't be too old to have children. After all, Jenna Elfman had her second baby at the age of 38 and she was producing and starring in a tv show the entire time she was pregnant. A couple more years is just about right. I hope.

There are days when I have this idea in my head that I can live the rest of my life childless. That it's okay to be selfish in this way in this day and age, that I'm just programmed for a different life, that I don't want to eventually deal with a sullen teenager (especially if it turns out that they take after me), that we all die alone anyway as I won't force my kids to take care of me in my old age. And then there are days like today.

priorities

I haven't been updating this blog, nor Runthru online as of late, and neither have I actually been going to watch other people's shows because of 2 things. First of all, at the day job where I'm working full time (that I've been doing for over a year), I was assigned to a new boss and there has been a turnover from simple website publishing to full blown strategic editorial concerns which has not been easy. It's a total paradigm shift, and not just a matter of getting used to the demands and quirks of the new boss.

I was hoping that this won't last forever, that this is just a really extensive turnover phase, but realistically, it does seem that this is going to be how life is going to be like for me, given the new demands of the job. And so I am forced to decide what to do with the little free time I have left, as there's not much room for so many things. Although I will try my darnedest to get some writing done, and will continue to post up events and news on Runthru Online, it is no longer a priority. The priority, of course, is dancing.

Yes, dancing is the second reason why I haven't been actively writing. I find that there's just not enough time in the day for both dancing and writing. At this point in my life, it's kind of obvious why I would pick one over the other. If you'd like, if you can convince me otherwise (or at least present a strong, almost compelling case for writing over dancing), I'll give you tickets to the next PBT show. (Yes, my day job has trained me to push interactivity with the audience haha).

In the interest of keeping my writing from getting rusty, I've promised myself that priority or no, I have to keep updating this blog - at the very least. It's not a big commitment - blogging is not the same as writing a review of a performance which deserves deliberated construction. It's just bits and pieces of thoughts on what's going on in dance. Sure, there's going to be more reflections on my own dancing, but I do promise not to post whining about how old I am and how difficult it is to rond de jambe my left leg higher than 90 degrees. I still have a lot of drama left in me, but I think I'm not that puerile anymore.

Will write more tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have time to publish what I write some time between meetings, supervising my team and stretching my hamstrings.

In the meantime, I've recently put up Donna Miranda's performance notes of Agnes Locsin's Sayaw, Sabel and a profile on ballerina Carlos Garcia on www.runthru.com.ph. Baby steps, yeah?