Last night on the way to
finding dinner we found this lovely Little bakery. Mmmmm was so delicious…
We decided
that we would try some pizza. It was really difficult trying to order as the
woman could not speak a word of English, but thank goodness there was a lady
that is a regular at the restaurant and she helped us order. We even took down
her name and she wants to meet with us before we leave. Our first Latvian
friend that we made!
After we
had breakfast this morning, we wanted to get an early start to rehearsing. So
we went to the Riga Choreography School and warmed up in the small studio.
After warming up I put on my Flower Festival costume, got comfortable and we
rehearsed. How stunning is my costume? Thank you to Louise for the donation
towards the costumes and to Alta to making these incredible creations! After
Flower Festival we rehearsed Satenella. Luisito felt like he had lots of
energy, but I was feeling pretty tired and sore, must have been the
contemporary rehearsal the day before… The variation is pretty challenging,
specially hopping on pointe on a raked floor! By the end of rehearsal I was
getting used to the raked floor.
After running my Santanella variation a few times, I was exhausted and my toenail was killing me. no wonder! we had been rehearsing for 3 hours straight.
how pretty is that tutu?
After the rehearsal, we went back to the hotel to rest before Elza(a Principal dancer with the Latvian National Opera) came to pick us up at 19:00 to give us a tour of Riga. She first took us to the National Opera Theatre. Its so beautiful!
Elza gave us a tour of the theatre(Latvian national opera) first showing us their big ballet studio
And the amazing view! :D
This is the
2nd smaller studio. Elza told us that they have separate male and
female classes everyday and that they alternate between the studios. Their
company consists of about 76 members and they can perform up to 3 different
ballets in one week. The Latvian audiences love the classics like Swan Lake,
Sleeping Beauty and La Baydere and their performances are never less than 80%
audience attendance. Wow, that would be nice in South Africa… They even have
standing seats in the auditorium.
This is us with Eza.
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