NO8DO - A year ago tonight...

...was when I first set foot in that magical city called Sevilla. I've been so nostalgic lately... I miss Sevilla every day, and long to be there again. My time away was full of magic and awakenings, and it changed me. I did have a few bouts of bad luck but I'm still glad I went. I learned and gained from every trip I've had, but Sevilla was definitely one of the best.

I'm performing my choreography next week at the Mack in Dance Umbrella's student choreography showcase. It's a ballet/contemporary piece done to "Mio Bello Bello Amore" from the Cirque Du Soleil Zumanity soundtrack. I don't know if I'll perform it in the big recital at the end of this month though. We'll see...

I'm home sick today with laryngitis. I couldn't go to work because I can barely talk. Hopefully this won't last too long...

Apparently, the auditions for That Dance Show are coming soon (though Heidi didn't give details yet). I figure if I get cast, I'll stick around for the summer till the show ends, then go to Montreal. If I don't get cast, I'll probably stay for Nancy's wedding in July, then leave. And in Montreal, I'm seriously thinking of taking a CELTA certification course (CELTA is one of the highest certifications for TESL - teaching english as a second language) and then teaching English for a while. Getting certified as an ESL teacher means I can go abroad to teach, but I don't think I'll do that yet (besides, unless the EU loosens their anal-retentive limits on allowing non-EU citizens to work there, there's no way I'd be able to teach in Spain or anywhere else in the Schengen zone without having to sort through a huge can of worms - way more trouble than it's worth). But I don't want to be a school teacher - I DO NOT have the patience to handle a class full of rowdy kids or bratty teenyboppers. Teaching isn't my dream job, but it will do at least for a while. The ideal teaching arrangement that I'm hoping for would be at a language school like the one I went to in Seville - small school with small classes (my class had less than 10 students), adult students who are paying for the course and want their money's worth (which means they're taking it seriously and not using it as an excuse for a vacation), and students who already have some knowledge of the language (in my class, we could all hold a decent conversation in Spanish) and are mostly looking to refine their skills.

Youtube clip of the day:

Watching this vid made me so nostalgic that I started getting teary. All those images of Sevilla, and I remember on the night the feria opened, there was a group of young guys singing this song in the fairgrounds and I danced to it. Oh the memories...




More nostalgia - the song in this vid is the one we warmed up to in Carmen's flamenco class. I also remember a gitano with long curly hair and brown skin playing it on the piano at La Carboneria late one night (and I remember him kissing my hand once when I was standing by the piano)...




This one is just too beautiful to leave out...

Foul weather, dance improvements, parades, and La Macarena

Heh, long time no blog... Anyway, winter was foul this year and the groundhog was wrong when he predicted an early spring. The weather is still nasty and I'm getting really sick of it. Last month, we had that ice storm that blacked out the Island for a long time - in town the power was out only a few hours, but out in the country, some people never got electricity back for a week. Yikes... at least the days are getting longer with Daylight Savings Time, but I'm hoping the weather will improve soon.

Broadway Bound was fun, and there's another one coming in May that I want to get involved with too. Plus, I also auditioned for Anne and Gilbert, and Heidi (choreographer for A&G, and BB) wants me to audition for That Dance Show so I'll go for that too. I also did a student choreography for Dance Umbrella and auditioned for that too (3 pieces are getting picked for the end-of-year show). I wasn't sure about it at first because I figured I'd get told that I have bad technique and/or expressiveness, but in the end, the teachers liked my piece. Right before the audition, I was thinking stuff like "Whatever you feel, just dance it" (that's from Center Stage) and "Dance it like you mean it! Think - Felipe!" to get myself to dance more expressively (some of my teachers thought I wasn't expressive enough), and it worked! I'll know soon if it got picked. Actually, lots of people liked it, and I'm glad I auditioned - it let me know I improved a lot over the past few years.

So Holy Week is this week, but it's so boring here compared to Seville. I remember the daily parades with all the nazarenos in pointed hoods, guys carrying huge floats with religious statues (apparently, these floats weigh over a ton) all over town, the marching bands playing music, etc. I really miss it... When I woke up the morning after I arrived in Seville, I could hear the drums pounding outside the hostel and I figured it must be a Holy Week parade (I had read about them on the internet before going).

Youtube clips of the day:

Rocio Jurado sings sevillanas about 4 of the most important Holy Week processions in Seville - La Esperanza Triana (the hope of Triana - the first Mary statue), Jesus del Gran Poder (Jesus carrying the cross), La Macarena (do I even need to explain this one?), and El Cachorro (Jesus dying on the cross, and yes I know that "cachorro" means puppy/kitten, but there is a story behind the nickname!):




I found this one just now. Wow... The parades are so beautiful, and the end part of the vid really touched my heart. Those little kids in costume are soooo cute! And I remember the rain at last year's Holy Week - Antonio told me that his brotherhood couldn't even do their parade because it was pouring on the day they were supposed to go. And I remember seeing several nazarenos walking barefoot (on cobblestone streets - ouch! And Neal, cool it with the kkk jokes, alright? There is a huge difference between a nazareno and a klansman) and the wax on the streets marking the paths where the parades had passed:




La Macarena leaving the basilica during her procession. Notice all the people - Sevillanos think of her as the queen of Seville, and everyone wants to see her. That basilica is where I went for Sunday Mass for 2 months, so I got to see her in the church every week:




Pictures of La Macarena. Isn't she beautiful? Looking at pics and vids really doesn't compare to seeing her in person. I know some people will think "it's just a statue!", but looking at her directly made me feel as though I were looking at the Blessed Mother herself, and that she was trying to speak to me:



Yes, my love for the Blessed Mother has been much stronger since my stint in Seville last year (I can't believe it's been almost a year since I first set foot there...), and though I don't consider myself to have a true devotion yet (to me, it takes a lot more than just a strong love for a saint to have a real devotion), it's getting there!