New Blog...

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Touring the UK

It's been about a month and we've seen a huge cross-section of the UK. London, Plymouth, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and now Nottingham. The company has been well received in all the venues so far. I've been to Rosslyn Chapel, been fishing off the coast of Plymouth, drank a Newcastle in Newcastle, walked the outdoor markets in Birmingham, and hope explore the Lace Market here in Nottingham tomorrow.

Mom came to the second week in London and boy did we see the town. Mary Poppins and Billy Elliot in the West End, the British Museum, the South Bank, Westminster, Trafalgar, the National Gallery, and more. Most fun of all was just hanging out with friends and enjoying the company--she saw them three times. It was Mom's first trip out of the country and I do believe it was a great one. Perhaps it will inspire her to see more of the world.

So, another 9 days in the UK and then we're off to Lyon. It's turning out to be a great tour so far. Busy, busy, but good. Still no pictures to post yet, but I have been taking them... Soon enough.

London...beginning of tour...

So we headed off for tour on Saturday. A morning flight to Heath Row and then a day off in London on Monday. I mainly rested and acclimated to the time change. We loaded in to Sadler's Wells bright and early Monday morning and Tuesday we opened for all of London to see! We'll be here for 2 weeks and then it's time to hit the road around the UK for 4 1/2 weeks. I haven't taken pictures yet, but please know that I will, and i will post them as well.

Nathan Trice/ADRF

So this past weekend was an intense one. Friday night and Saturday day I worked with Nathan Trice on a filming of three ballets. It was quick, hard work, but it was exciting to see the ballets in a "performance" environment. It was also a great pre-tech for our week upcoming at Jacob's Pillow. On Sunday, I lit 9 short ballets in 8 hours for the Ailey Dancers' Resource Fund--also quick, hard work, but very cool. There was some great work that'll be performed this Friday and Saturday at the Ailey Citigroup Theater at 7:30pm. Come on out! See pictures above.

In other news, we received delivery of our new lighting console at Ailey today. For the next few weeks we'll be translating all our old shows over to the new system and trying to figure out how to use it before our new works tech. Good luck to us! We are all excited about the console, but we realize it's going to be alot of work to make the switch.

Dispatch

So I finished playing Worship in the Round last night at All Angels Church and looked down at my phone for a text message. My friend Joanna texted me "Call me asap if u r free tonight." Most of the time, in my circle of friends at least, that means free tickets to the theater or a concert. It wasn't just free tickets, but VIP passes to hear Dispatch at Webster Hall. Not only that, but to hear our mutual friend Paul Stivitts play drums on a few songs for Dispatch! For those of you who don't know dispatch...read here. Dispatch at Wiki

Needless to say, the concert was fantastic! I can't wait to go again on Sunday to the last of 3 sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.

This week marks my return to full-time work at Alvin Ailey. We will be in the office prepping for the international tour and city center season until we head out on the road on September 1st. I've been archiving ballet lighting info this week so far...making sure we are preserving the ballets as best we can! It's satisfying and all, but I'm reading to be done with O2 tracking printouts!

Making the Switch...

I hear that blogger is real easy, so instead of my old self-run blog that never got updated, I'll try out the blogger thing for a while.

Yesterday was July 4th and it started with a concert in Inwood Park. What a great day to sit in the grass and listen to a very talented saxophone quartet. Good friends and good music. Then it was off to Queens to be with a bunch of old friends. It just keeps getting better! Burgers, dogs, beers, and good folks! Then off to Brooklyn to catch the fireworks right....wrong. We went to Brooklyn and spent a lot of time there, IN TRAFFIC. It was chaos. We didn't see the fireworks and really just spent 3 hours driving around...lesson learned.