LDC in New York City 2011!

Kimberly was kind enough to work incessantly to get everyone per diem for the trip for a little food and some snacks each day. We decided to use today’s money to go to a nice dinner downtown in the Meatpacking District. It’s really very unique down there, trendy, and cosmopolitan. Some of the most expensive clothing designer’s shops I’ve ever looked at are own there. So we walked around and dreamed a little, got hungry and decided to eat dessert before dinner at this little Cupcake shop. Aside from the usual Pushy New yorker in line drama that transpired, it was a perfect before dinner dessert/appetizer.

We all started fairly early, leaving the building in various small groups of three to get coffee/breakfast on our own before the long morning of classes at Ailey. The was our first real immersion in with the New Yorkers. EVERYONE IS IN SUCH A DARN HURRY. It was an eye-opener just trying to order. It seems that everything we do is too slow for everyone around us, and all of the yelling around us is nerve-racking! A Man grabbed my Cafe Mocha because he was in such a hurry. I just watched, didn’t say anything at all. That is, until the woman behind the counter looked at me and asked, “Wheh’s yoah Mohchah?!” I said calmly, “He took it.” She looked at the man sharply and shouted, “Cafe Mocha, cafe, Mocha. Mocha, mocha, mocha.” I supposed he didn’t order a Mocha. Anyway, she took it from him and gave it to me. I was very delicious.

Then we all met in the lobby before 9:30. Everyone was on time again; they’ve all been very punctual the entire trip so far…early for everything, in fact.

When we arrived at the Joan Weil Center, we were set-up in our room to wait for Troy Powell, our first Master Teacher of the day for a Horton Class. I walked across the hall just to see if Malik was in class there, since I knew he was in class somewhere in the building. It just happened that he was in a Graham Modern class and I was able to wave at him through the window next to the door of the room. I stood there at the window for a few minutes and watched him dance, then went back to our classroom before Troy arrived. I only hoped I’d be able to see Malik in person after the class.

Our dancers appeared to do much better than the group we brought last year. They seemed better-able to keep-up with Troy, and it seemed like he was able to complete his entire class without changing direction too much. It was funny that the last section of an across the floor combination he gave them was comprised of several of the previous “across-the-floor” movements that a majority of them were having the most difficulty with.

I wasn’t able to see Malik after class because he was already working in the offices on the 3rd floor of the building. Our next class was after a lunch break. Several of us went to a recommended place south of the school that gives a discount to anyone claiming to dance at the school. The food was great, then we all proceeded back to the dance center for the afternoon Hip-Hop class while in a food coma…

Robin Dunn is delightful, energetic and witty. I think she kept the dancers’ attention and interest very well, and she also seemed to challenge them very well, too. I was surprised that not only could some of the dancers not either keep up with or do the movement, but also it did not seem like some of them were even trying. Now, that’s embarrassing for us and extremely irritating for the teacher of the class. Maybe it was just my perception?

The class went smoothly with no mishaps this year, and I’m happy for that. Robin was very complimentary of Joy and Mikey and interacted personally with several of the other dancers. It was fun to observe the actions.

Kimberly was tired and slept a bit, so Majahlet, Kristin and I went to The Eatery not too far from the hotel for some famous New York City Hamburgers. It was a nice little walk in the bitter cold and blustery wind, but work the friendly, warm atmosphere after we got there. We stared at our menu for a while to make some sense out of the strange, yet intriguing creations and were finally very happy with what we ate, but also very tired.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed Markus and Kimberly, who were now off to a typical New York late dinner. We returned to our rooms and waited until room check time. We had to take care of a few proximity issues the next day, but everything worked out fine thanks to Kristin’s persistence.

It was basically a calm evening since we basically stayed up all night on the Red Eye…not much to worry about as far as bed/room checks and curfew this night.

We arrived at the hotel quite early in the morning and checked-in. Our rooms would not be ready for a few hours, as we expected, so we went directly to our appointment at The Joan Weill Center for Dance for our tour and observation of classes. I was so excited to possibly see my Nephew, who had been giving me more specific information about where and when he would be around since we actually arrived. I was hoping we might be observing one of his classes, but that didn’t work out.

We split into two groups of 10ish to observe a Ballet class or a Jazz class. There were many mixed opinions of what we saw. I hope some of the LDC dancers chime in here to give some opinions. It seemed that the dancers paid exquisite attention to what the students in the classes were doing. i only can wonder what they were actually thinking. Of course, as dancers, i’m sure part of it was, “That’s so easy; why aren’t they getting it?”and ” I can do that.” Both of which may or may not have been true… In every case, it was, again, a terrific experience for our dancers.

After the classes, we walked back to the hotel and moved-in to our rooms. The Chaperones checked on all of the dancers in their rooms to make sure everything was fine, then we left everyone to remain in no less than groups of three with the explicit instruction that room checks/curfew would be at 10:30pm on this night. We would have an early start in the morning with breakfast before our private Master classes at Ailey, which would be exhausting for the dancers.

Hello to all NYC travelers! Currently, the weather is 35 degrees in NYC, but weather.com states it feels like 25 degrees! Chilly! Make sure to pack your scarves and gloves!

I am really hoping all of the dancers who are attending this trip to the Joan Weill Center for Dance will announce to their families and friends that this blog exists.

This entry was Published in the Blog last year, but may prove to be useful again this year, so I thought I’d move it up as a new entry.

Take a look:

Here’s a brief list of things the LDC may try to do when not involved with us in organized activities; or maybe we may organize a few of these and go as a group? Thanks Mark!

Museums:

The Moma – Museum of Modern Art

The Guggenheim – Art Museum

The American Museum Of Natural History

The Intrepid Museum – Features aircraft carrier USS Intrepid

The Tenement Museum – The “Story” of NyC

NyC is famous for two kinds of food. The first one is pizza, as you will likely notice its different from southern California pizza. As well burgers, more specifically cheeseburgers are famous in NyC.

Restaurants:

The Shake Shack in Madison Square Park – Always a line for this burger joint in the park

There are various pizza joints although Joe’s Pizza on Bleeker St. at 6^th Ave in the west village is a very popular and famous “by the slice” pizza shop.

So is Pintaile’s Pizza with 3 locations on the Upper East Side

Good Burger – “Home of the good burger”, various locations through out NyC

Burger Joint – 119 W 56th St. @ 6^th Ave

BLT Burger – 470 6 Avenue Between W 11^th and W 12^th St.

NyC has various parks:

Central Park

Gramercy Park

Bryant Park (currently has free ice skating, in a temporary dome)

Union Square Park

Tourist Attractions:

Times Square (Especially at night)

Statue Of Liberty/Ellis Island

Union Square Market

South Street Sea Port – The South port of Manhattan

Empire State Building

City Sights NY Tours – A Hop on Hop off kind of bus tour

Hop On Hop Off – A Hop on Hop off kind of bus tour

Circle Line – Boat tour around NyC with lecture regarding Nyc

Schools:

Jillard

NyU/Tish

Alvin Ailey

Pace University

Fordham University

Columbia University

Another few important points, NyC has tons of tourists and therefore people have come up with many tourist scams or targets. One that is major is selling fake things on the street (DVD’s, purses, comedy tickets, “Rolex” you name it they have it) be cognizant of people trying to sell you things on the side of the street. Any time someone walks up to you on the side of the street and tries to sell you something think twice before pulling your wallet out.

As well if any of you wish to take cabs, be an active part of the ride and make sure the driver doesn’t take advantage of you when driving knowing you are a tourist. Remember Nyc is a grid full of predominately one way streets and in most cases every second street is going the opposite directions unless of course it’s a two way street or your are by the water on either side or down town (Below 14^th St).

Quick resources of the North/South bound streets which are called Ave’s:

1^st Ave

2^nd Ave

3^rd Ave Aka. Bowery Downtown as well as a few other names below 14^th St.

Lexington Ave – Has the 4,5,6 train running north-south it’s the green line

Park Ave

Madison Ave

5^th Ave – The East/West Boarder

6^th Ave

7^th Ave

8^th Ave

9^th Ave

10^th ave

11^th Ave

12^th Ave

The numbers get bigger going west.

The rest of the streets are numbered in the majority of Manhattan from Street names way down town to numbers from 1^st St – 150^th St.

Important note: Just remember you are on a once in a lifetime opportunity and enjoy and have fun!