LDC in New York!

Today is our last day! We met in the Lobby with all of our luggage to put it in storage so we could go in groups out on the town one last time. We took a couple of cabs full of people and a car to meet at a famous Candy Store… Dylan’s Candy Bar. We were there for a very long time with the sweet sour fruity sugary smells and bubblegum children’s music about Gummy Bears, Lillipops, Rainbows, and Barbie Dolls. It was cute.

It’s been raining all day today, but it’s warmer so…good with the bad. The candy store was fun, but it made many of us very hungry (that and we hadn’t eaten anyway), so we decided to go for pizza in another part of the city because parking is impossible in the part of town where the candy store is and Mark is driving with us today.

I really don’t know the name of the parlor we went to, oh! Wait, its i my phone because I looked up the directions…Pintaile’s Pizza 1573 York Avenue. They had organic wheat, thin crust pizzas of many varieties and they also had the Boylan Sodas so I finally tried the Red Birch Beer Soda I mentioned at BLT Burgers on the first night. Anyway, we bought two cheese pizzas and a few of us got an individual slice or two of something else so everyone could have exactly what they were craving. Again, another nice experience in New York.

So there were seven of us at the parlor. 4 arrived by cab and 3 by car. How do you get seven LDC members and Mark back to the Hotel in one vehicle? (it’s an SUV, by the way, a Porsche). I’d let people take guesses, but it might be best to just tell you. You do what we did last night to get back from the Ailey show when no cabs would stop and it was way too late to walk all the way back again. I’ll tell you that story in more detail when I finish the Ailey performance section of the Blog. So, the driver sits alone with only one other person in the front seat; three people sit on the back seat with Majahlet sitting comfortably between two dancers, yet in front of them, stationary, but not on the seat, and then Mikey lays himself across two of the other people in the seat. Then everyone stays quiet and motionless so that the ride may be as safe as physically possible. We exit the vehicle upon a safe arrival at the hotel thankful that we did not have to walk in the rain, or stand for 30 minutes in the rain trying to catch a cab.

For the record, cab drivers in New York are rude, mean, and unpleasant. I don’t like them at all…

The Program was fantastic, and included the brand new Historically enlightening “Dance Drama,” named Uptown. Everything was memorable, exciting, technically challenging, colorful and fun! Wow! They’re awesome.

There is so much more I could write about the performance, but I’m hoping one of the LDC, Kimberly or Majahlet has something to write…I’m so happy we came!

We were trying all afternoon to get reservations at a nice restaurant for 23, but no one would take us as a group. Then a restaurant very close to our hotel in Hell’s Kitchen called “44 1/2″ gave us an enclosed patio to ourselves…Perfect!

So we have lots of time to eat leisurely in this posh Hell’s Kitchen restaurant before heading to the Ailey show.

Getting to the City Center Theater was kind of a difficult task. We needed five cabs and could barely get one in 20 minutes. We had very little time for Kimberly to get to the theater 30 minutrws before the show to pick-up our tickets. The Seats were fantastic, by the way! Each car load had an incident on the way to the theater.

Kimberly’s cab driver insisted on going the wrong way, then there was an accident. The cabby suggested they get out or they’d never make it on time. So they had to walk up three more avenues, then over four streets. If you’ve ever been to NY, you know the the streets are about 3xs farther apart than the Avenues, so that was far! Kimberly says that Louis Vuitton’s are not meant to walk more than from the door to the car. Well, those shoes put on some miles trying to catch cabs in the cold streets of New York!

A group of our dancers was put out of their cab one block after they got in (for car troubles they were told). I know they walked far because my group was never able to get a cab, and we walked into them so they joined us for the long walk in the cold streets of New York. Did I mention it was cold in the streets of New York last night? At least it was dry.

Free Day! And Alvin Ailey show night!!

Breakfast…

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Friday we spent all day in the beautiful home of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and all of our dancers’ perceptions of what their lives could be evolvedto consider the possibilities…

The possibility of living, going to dance school and working in a place like this. Our tour guide is from Louisiana and spoke of the challenges he faces, but with such excitement and love that it only made it seem that much more desirable.

The possibilities of taking classes with the famous teachers of the famous dancers in this company, or of being one of the dancers on these posters.  Troy Powell presented us with 25 mixed posters from the Ailey Company/School that I will be caring for on the way back home. I imagine the dancers will want to donate them to the new studios at ELAC so we will have beautiful, colorful, and inspirational art on the studio walls.

Troy Powell is such a nice person and always very welcoming with us as if we were his family. I don’t remember the first time I met Troy, but it was in the 90s when he came for his first Master class at ELAC. If we could get him here annually, we would. We would like to have him do a residency and set a piece on the LDC. He’s considered coming for a few weeks during his off time to do this. It’s left to us and the ELAC budget.

The dancers successfully completed their Horton technique class with Troy. While some of them were still in shock, we got a group picture with Troy, and he let as many of them who wanted to take individual photos with him.

There was beautiful dance-related artwork everywhere in the building. Most of it had either been commissioned by the school, Ailey, or Jamison, or donated by private benefactors of the school. There are many. The building is owned by the Ailey Foundation title in hand, so we should have no worry that they will continue to flourish in their permanent home for many more years. There is ample space for growth and no need to leave the building for anything at all.

Our second class was after the tour, so the dancers had a little time to recover from the vigorous Modern class and get excited again about the Hip-Hop class with Robin Dunn, one of the movers and shakers of real Hip-Hop culture, and an individual who was here working with the originators of the dancing style itself. While she never claimed to actually BE one of the originators, I believe the dancers had the closest thing to a first-hand experience with a creator of one of our Contemporary dance styles than they possibly  ever will again.

In BOTH cases , in fact, with Troy and Robin. Both of them worked with the developers, or with people who were directly trained for most of their adult lives and all of their professional careers with people most of us only read about in dance History books. Some of the people, as in Robins case, have not been written about extensively, yet, but they will be. Troy, himself, whether he realizes it or not, will be/has been written about in Dance History books for his work as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in significant ways.

After dinner Thursday…

After BLTs, we took cabs to Times Square to check it out on the way back to the Hotel. While waiting for the others, Majahlet and I walked around a bit, took a few pictures, then wen inside the Huge Toys R Us there on the square. When the others arrived, they joined us in the store.

It was so cold outside, and the wind has been blowing alot, which makes it colder.

Inside Toys R Us, there is a very large Ferris Wheel. It was so interesting seeing it there inside that we decided we needed to ride it. We had a ball and got some good photos, like Miles’ below looking surprised.

Breanne looking (and actually being) sweet and innocent as always….

Miles pretending to be surprised that he’s high up on a Ferris wheel and that I’m taking a picture…Mikey was in the other car with Kimberly and Mark, but I’m sure he had a fun time anyway!

Thursday evening dinner…

We met in the lobby at 6:30 (the little group I’m with), and piled into a couple of cabs to head to a small, trendy, popular and busy burger joint called BLT Burgers. Yes, they had a special House Burger called the BLT Burger, and you can only guess what might be in it.

The menu was very enticing with all if the burger combinations, and one of the most exciting parts for me was the Vadalia Onion Rings. Vadalia Onions are unique, sweet seasonal onions that were introduced to me in Ohio in the 80s. I’ve always looked for them since then. They aren’t common in Cali, but I have inconsistently found them. Anyway, I digress. The appetizers were irresistable, the burgers were perfectly prepared and a manageable size. One of my favorite things about the meal was the sweet potatoe French fries. I wanted to try a Red Birch Beer (akin to Root Beer), but I had reflexively already ordered a Coke before I noticed it on the menu. I Googled Red Birch Beer on my iPhone and found one Entry that described it as having an almost Wintergreen character from the beginning through the aftertaste. I’m not sure if that sounds good with a Bluecheese Burger, sweet potatoe fries, Vadalia Onion rings, and Jalapeño poppers?

We made it back to the Hotel before curfew, and called it a night.

I wish I knew what the other groups of dancers dds, but no one seems to want to Blog?? I set-up the Wordpress program on a couple of their iPhones to make it easier, but nothing, yet. Maybe we’ll have some luck with other perspectives before we get back home?

The hotel is new, cool, contemporary, comfortable. Two rooms were ready, which is great, so we are storing everyone’s luggage in these rooms. Check-in is officially at 3:00pm. Most of the dancers are gone into the City outside already.

Today is listed as a free day. Some sight-seeing, some dance classes, food, and hopefully a nap after we get into our own rooms.

Here are a couple shots from the window in my room:

So I can see Midtown in one direction to the North East and New Jersey to the West over the Hudson River. Great City lights views at night, too!

So we couldn’t get into the rooms in the morning. Luckily, we’re in New York…there’s always something to do. A few dancers joined Kimberly, Majahlet, Mark and I for breakfast and a day on the town! New York, New York, it’s a heck of a town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down!

Of course we went to a Diner and had a terrific aray of typical diner food and coffee.

After breakfast, we walked and walked and walked. We walked to a metro stop to buy a day pass, then we walked through the metro stations underground for another 20 minutes to get to the train we needed to ride for 2 minutes. Then we walked through New York University’s very eclectic City-Building campus until we finally got to the Tisch School of the Arts in search of the department of Dance.

Kimberly and I were surprised about the structure of the dance programs at this school. A nice third year B.F.A. Student, a senior, gave us a tour. She was kind of qwerky but it was very nice that shecwas able to get up and walk us around the several floors of their building. There was really nothing impressive about the building that we saw. Maybe the 300-seat theater on the 5th floor would have been, but there was construction going on so we could not get on that floor. We did see a studio theater already set-up for a show that was already sold out. That was interesting.

The two main things about the program that we also thought were interesting but left us unimpressed seemed to be critical elements. The first shocker was that there is NO dress code! Then London (that was our guide, the senior in her third year), London from Los Angeles said the grades are all pass/fail. What, WHAT!?

Anyway, without dogging the program in front of our dancers, I think they were still unimpressed. Keep in mind that NYU is a highly selective and well-known university. It is a prestigious place to earn a degree. I think on a graduate school application where it asks your G.P.A from undergraduate school (usually a limited requirement), instead of “N/A” you would write “NYU.”

Then we made our way back to the Hotel for our 3:00 check-in. The front desk promised to call when the rooms were ready; they never did, but the rooms were supposed to be ready by this time at the latest. We all gathered in the lobby at the designated meeting time.

there was Hot Chocolate waiting for us with a choice of marshmallows, cranberries or peppermint sticks to put in it. That soothed the additional wait time for them to get us our room keys. It was nice to get into the rooms, sit down and rest for a while before heading back out to dinner. 6:30 was a good meeting time. Again, it was a free day/night so there were different things dancers decided to do. Our little group stuck together….

Incudently, all if the dancers are required tovtravel in no less than threes. Most of the groups are larger and with a Chaperone. Although mist of our students are adults, they are stilln OUR students, so not only were all of the minibars cleaned out in all of our rooms, but also each dancer had to sign a special waiver before departure about behavior, alcoholic beverage consumption and curfew. The group’s curfew is midnight, even for the Chaperones.

The flight was about 4 hours because of tailwinds making the journey faster. Everyone was very quiet and even slept. I really wish I could sleep on planes…oh well!

The baggage all arrived safely and we picked it up very quickly. Majahlet made sure the shuttles were ready for us and that seemed to be happening very efficiently, at first….

The first shuttle loaded nine dancers and a Chaperone, then left. They’re probably in their rooms sleeping now. The second shuttle we noticed was, as the first drove away with smiling dancers waving goodbye, being towed!

It seemed like 30 more minutes before the Port Authority arrived to release the shuttle from the firm tow truck driver.

Kimberly has told our shuttle driver several times since before we loaded the shuttle not to take the Freeway, but he got on the Freeway anyway. It’s completely packed and not moving…

He’s finally agreed to take Atlantic instead. I have no idea where we are, as the drivers expect. They always take you the long way, you know.

Anyway, we’re stuck on the Freeway (or is it called Expessway here). It’s cold, we’re all bundled-up. It’s sunny, the trees are dead.

It’s a gorgeous East Coast Winter day!

As we sit waiting at the gate, the excitement gets more subdued (as I thought it would), but also turns a little slap-happy. Dancers are always such loud people (not only OUR dancers); I hope this helps them to be a little more quiet on the plane.

It’s good that everyone will be more ready to sleep once they get all of this out of their systems. Afterall, we’re flying all night, and the night will be shorter, too.

Slap-happy is when two people simultaneously decide to put Pringles chips between their lips and look at each other making synchronized Duck sounds without having previously discussed it. As demonstrated here by Breanne and Miles:

I felt the need to prove that I really am here, too.

With my trusty travel adidas.

They’re comfortable, but I had to take them off while we’re waiting.