RPMs, Splicers, ODDs, USBs…A Dancer’s Half-Century Trip Thru Tech

Posted on by - 2024, Dance

My heartbreaking choreographic debut

Spring 1968. 8th Grade. Pine Grove Junior High School Talent Show. For my solo, I wore a purple leotard, pink tights and pink pointe shoes, to dance my original choreography to the smash hit “Love is Blue.”

“Original”? Perhaps I stole a few signature moves from my beloved ballet teacher Sally Espino. From a young age, I’d taken her classes at Live Oak Community Center, Berkeley Parks & Recreation, an affordable choice for my parents (who were raising seven kids). When I was eleven, Sally approved me for toe shoes and sent me to a children’s shoe store on Shattuck Avenue, where a clueless, middle-aged man in a suit squeezed my feet into chunky Capezios. At age twelve, I performed with Sally, en pointe, in the Live Oak Theater, to music from the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

For the junior high talent show, I entrusted my 45-rpm vinyl single to the A/V boys, along with a plastic adapter in case the school’s turntable didn’t have a pop-up adapter.

On cue, I stepped out on the curtainless stage to face a sea of whispering, giggling middle-schoolers. My heart pounded through an awkward pause before the needle went down with a crackle. Pulling up to relevé for my first emboîté, I nearly froze. What?! A slow-motion nightmare. The turntable was set to 33 rpm! I slogged and teetered through a drawling parody of the music until, near the end, the pink ribbons of one shoe unraveled to the floor. Pretending my shoe wasn’t loose, I improvised a woeful, dying-swan-like ending and left the stage in sobs.

Dancing, Teaching, and Performing in the early ’70s

In high school, my parents upgraded my training to a professional studio, Dancer’s Theatre in Oakland, an affiliate of the Royal Academy of Dancing. An RAD examiner flew from England to California every two years to judge our progress. While seated, the examiner gave the exercises in French ballet terms and evaluated our technique as we executed the movements to live piano accompaniment.

When I was 18, I switched studios to Carlos Carvajal’s Dance Spectrum in San Francisco. Both studios often had live piano accompaniment. Pianists at Dancer’s Theatre played traditional classics, while the pianist at Dance Spectrum in SF improvised new-age minimalist kinds of melodies, occasionally adding wordless voice—appropriate for the vibe of the hippie years. We ballerinas defied convention, wearing socks for barre exercises instead of full-sole ballet slippers—that is, when we didn’t do the entire class en pointe. Flexible split-sole ballet slippers hadn’t yet been invented.

When live piano wasn’t available, teachers used LPs on turntables. Both the Oakland and SF studios had wood floors that shuddered when we jumped, causing the record to skip occasionally. At Dance Spectrum, Carlos used orchestral music for many of his center combinations—something that was different and exciting.

I performed with both companies, Dancer’s Theatre and Dance Spectrum. Recorded music for performances was played from a turntable or reel-to-reel tape player connected to the sound system. [My father had a reel-to-reel player at home and swore it was the best sound for his jazz favorites—although it required transferring music from his LPs to the tape!]

1973, a memorable performance. We danced Carlos’s choreography to live music at the SF Civic Auditorium, Arthur Fiedler conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Fiedler’s “Pops” concert). For Saint-Saëns’ Bacchanal, we danced part of the piece in the aisles. What fun! Here are the front and back covers of the program.

When I was 18, I landed my first teaching job at—guess where—Live Oak Community Center. Every Saturday, six classes in a row, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. They paid me $9 per class. I supported myself on this, plus an 8-hour weekly housecleaning job at $2 per hour.

As you can see in this 1973 photo, the clunky turntable was on a long, folding table, a little wobbly. I don’t remember the records skipping when we jumped, but perhaps nothing could shake that shiny linoleum-covered cement floor at the rec center, where we risked shin splints, hairline fractures, and slips-and-falls.

My second traumatic choreographic effort

1973 spring recital. The choreography was all mine and not half bad, as far as I recall, but very short. Students in all six classes performed, a couple of minutes for each class. We weren’t in the Little Theater but in the gymnasium with folding chairs set up for family and friends.

As people arrived and took their seats, I sat with my students on the floor. Every student—but one—arrived on time. Five, ten, fifteen minutes ticked past the appointed hour, people getting antsy. Finally, I gave in, made my opening remarks, lined up the kids, and put the needle on the record. Fifteen minutes later, as we took our final bow, the tardy student and parents rushed in, half an hour late. “It’s over?” screeched the angry mom. Crying child. Embarrassed teacher.

That was the first and last recital I staged at Live Oak. My dance ambitions lay far beyond Berkeley Parks & Recreation.

Soon after, I left for Amsterdam, where I studied at Theaterschool with hopes to audition for companies—a whole story I won’t go into here. After five months, an injury sent me home, where I moped around for a bit, took a temporary job stuffing envelopes at a mass mailing outfit, and decided to go to college, then law school.

Interestingly, I did perform again at Live Oak Theater with the Berkeley Mime Troupe in 1975.

The’80s arrive with high tech! And… My third and fourth choreographic efforts

Gradually, through the ’70s, LPs gave way to cassette tapes. Oh rapture! No skips or warped LPs. Actually, the cassettes did warp if left in the sun. And there were other annoyances. Like, somehow, the tape could get pulled out and tangled.

And you always had trouble cuing up your song. All that rewinding and fast forwarding, no index or track indicator.

Then there was the extra expense, time, and effort to convert your favorite music from LP to tape. Equipment, cables, magic. Turntable with output, tape recorder with input. New possibilities! Compilations: favorite songs from different LPs on a single cassette tape.

’78-’81, while in law school in Boulder Colorado, I subbed a few dance classes, using cassette tapes. Nerves…not about teaching but about the music, fast forwarding and rewinding. Those years, I danced in local performances and with the Boulder Jazz Dance Company. One piece was called “Walkmania,” and these things were part of our costume!

My third and fourth choreographies were in Boulder. 1980: a solo entitled “Amor Lejano” (you can see excerpts here—yes, that young girl with shoulder-length hair).  1981: “Inner City Drama,” a dance for me and three others, performed in Boulder and New York City. I don’t have a video and don’t remember the choreography, but it included this whacky jump.

Each choreographer provided the sound manager with a cassette tape containing only their music. The sound person would cue each tape to the start and switch out the cassettes for each piece during the show. My tape for “Amor Lejano” was easy enough—a single piece “Utviklingssang” by Carla Bley  But the music for “Inner City Drama” combined parts of songs from the “Together Brothers” LP, Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, something I couldn’t edit. A company member adept at splicing created the tape for me. Can you imagine doing this? Cutting the tape at the exact moment with a razor blade and taping it to the next section. Some of the splicing jobs for various choreographers were none too perfect, with little glitchy sounds at the edited points.

The ’90s and new millennium

Although CDs came on the market sometime in the ’80s, dance teachers were using cassette tapes most of that decade. As I started my law career in Manhattan, I was taking dance class whenever I could fit it in. In 1989, after having my first baby, I dropped out of the dance world for a decade. When I started dancing again, everyone was using CDs. On hiatus from my legal career, I danced like crazy from ’98-’08: taking and teaching classes, performing, choreographing, and running a dancewear store.

CDs: what convenience! But…have you played a CD recently? So annoying, all those extra seconds to open the tray, insert the CD, close the tray, select the track, wait for the player to “read” the disc. These days, it seems so slow.

Again, we had to convert favorite tracks from outdated media to CD. Somewhat easier with computers connected by USB cable to a turntable or tape player. In those days, every computer came with an ODD (optical disc drive).

I soon gave this up for the new thing—music streaming. In the early ’00s, we subscribed to Rhapsody for about $10 a month [avoiding Napster, a “free” service that violated artists’ rights and was later sued for copyright infringement.] I used the RealPlayer program on my Microsoft laptop to save selected tracks from Rhapsody on my computer and “burn” them to a CD. RealPlayer could also “rip” tracks from our store-bought CDs and burn them to a blank CD. I made a lot of compilations for listening and teaching.

But, more work! No metadata, so I manually typed the title and artist onto each track saved on my laptop. This information did not transfer to CD when burning. I typed and printed a list of the songs on each CD. For teaching, my compilations grouped songs with similar rhythms for certain exercises (e.g. for jazz pas de bourrées, kicks, and pirouettes); I labeled each CD and taped the list of songs on the CD cover.

I still have tons of these homemade CDs!!! They’re all good.

For my students’ performances in the early ’00s, the sound manager asked for a CD with the single track for each dance. Later into the ’00s, this changed to a separate USB flash drive for each piece.

Moving into now

After working another ten years in law, I returned to teaching dance in 2017. A decade had passed, and most teachers were using smartphones (or tablets or laptops) connected to the studio sound system by Bluetooth or cable/dongle attachment.

I was behind for a while, still using CDs, but soon learned how to transfer all the music on my laptop to iPhone with the sync feature. I made playlists for some of it. Every studio has different equipment so, to soothe my nerves, I travel everywhere with my own little speakers and use Bluetooth. I love them, especially when I use two for “party mode.”

For performances, no more cassettes, tape splicing, CDs, or USB sticks. Simply send an MP3 file to the sound manager on a file sharing platform. I’ve also edited and combined tracks on the Audacity program to create a unique piece of music for performance.

I could write pages about the technical conundrums of teaching dance on Zoom during the pandemic, but I’m not in the mood to revisit that! One good thing came out of it. When I went back to the studio, I recorded several dance classes and uploaded them to YouTube for my students who wished to continue dancing at home. Go ahead, take a free class at home! Here’s my YouTube channel.

The latest tool for dance teachers is a smartphone wristwatch playing purchased music or streaming from a service like Spotify. Freed from the sound equipment, the teacher can roam the studio, observing and correcting students while easily starting and stopping music. But, dare I admit…

I’m kind of afraid of them. So small, and my music is all over the place, favorite tracks in albums, others in playlists. Will I be able to find what I want? I’m getting nervous just thinking about it. Perhaps I’ll skip this and all subsequent innovations until we get to the point where it’s possible to simply think of the track we want and music will fill the air. I don’t doubt this will happen one day. It’s all magic.

Thank you for tripping through 55 years of technology with me!

Keep an eye out here for news about my upcoming novel! I’ll be making announcements soon.

 

2023—Let It Be

Posted on by - 2023

Like all years, 2023 held the good and the bad. For me, the scale tipped more toward the bad side, but thankfully, most of that is well behind me. I have much to celebrate today, my 35th wedding anniversary, so let me reminisce.

Photo by Qui Nguyen at unsplash.com

Why a picture of coral? Symbolizing longevity and success, coral represents the 35th anniversary. Neither plant nor rock, coral is animal, an invertebrate that can live for hundreds, even thousands, of years! A sign that these beautiful old fossils and their strong union will last nearly into eternity.

 

Oops, those aren’t the old fossils but the young cuties in 1987 and 1988, respectively. These are fuzzy stills taken from the video interviews we did at the dating club where we met, then known as American Millionaires International (“AMI”) on West 57th Street in Manhattan. No, we weren’t millionaires or anywhere close, even further from that mark after AMI took a big chunk of our money in membership fees! Worth it, though, right? The people at AMI eventually realized the name was a little off-putting and changed it to “Invitations.”

For those of you in the dating app click-and-swipe generation, here’s how the antiquated system worked in the 80s. I filled out a two-sided, single-page questionnaire with basic info and still photos, what AMI called the “Perfect Match Profile.” I’d go there and leaf through the binders of profiles, find the ones I liked, and ask to see the corresponding videos with scintillating questions like, “What’s your idea of a romantic date?” and “Where do you see yourself in five years?” If I liked a video, AMI would snail mail a postcard to my chosen one, asking him to come in and look at my profile and video. If it’s a “yes” from him, AMI snailed me a postcard with his phone number. It was up to me, the initial chooser, to call the amenable chosen one. If someone chose me first, it would go the other way around. Don’t think I had too many of those.

What a process! Had to be patient in those days.

I’d been in the club for a year and had about eight dates before meeting Kevin. He was new, and I was his first, occasioning his tongue-in-cheek comment that he didn’t get his money’s worth on the exciting dating scene. I told him, “You lucked out big time.” The eight dates I had were painfully awkward. My favorite was the guy who had a fantasy of driving me to the restaurant on the back of his motorcycle. On the phone I said, no way, I’ll meet you outside and we’ll take a cab. He showed up at my building with his motorcycle anyway. On the intercom, I nixed the motorcycle ride again and refused to open the door so he could leave his helmet in my apartment. When we got back from the date, his helmet was no longer dangling from the handlebars.

Six months to the day after our first date at Windows on the World, Kevin proposed—also at Windows on the World. I could guess what was coming as he nervously whispered his practice lines. So could the party of four sitting at the next table. Before Kevin could take out the ring box, one of the men blurted in a Texas accent, loud enough for us to hear, “I think he’s going to propose!” It was a “yes” from me, of course, uttered shyly to Kevin as he put the diamond on my finger, with my back partially turned to that boisterous (drunk?) group.

Soon after, we went back to AMI and politely demanded our profiles and videos as keepsakes. When they found out we were engaged, the cry went out, “Engagement here!” Three or four startled singles in the library looked up from the profile books and started clapping. AMI agreed to release our profiles and videos only after shaking us down for a Member Profile Interview to publish in their newsletter. The writer got creative and colorful in exaggerating our respective career titles and “quoting” our remarks about the fabulous AMI system.

And the rest is history.

I owe Kevin, as well as other family members and friends, my gratitude in helping me through my 2023 health setback. Chemo, surgery, and most side effects are now out of the way with complete success, so it’s full speed ahead with good health in the New Year! I had to quit teaching dance for several months, but I’m back now and looking forward to teaching many adult classes in 2024.

This photo with some of my students at Scarsdale Ballet Studio was taken in February before I went on break. I danced at home during this period to try and keep in shape.

 

Here is a still from a short piece of choreography I recorded in July, pre-surgery. You can watch it here on YouTube.

 

The writing life continues. Had a lot of fun appearing on the Voice of Indie podcast in August. You can hear it here. The two hosts, Beem Weeks and Stephen Geez, are excellent writers with interesting books I recommend.

Didn’t get anything published in 2023 but wrote a few stories and I’m close to finishing a book-length collection of short fiction. Murderous Ink Press will be publishing my story, “A Father’s Duty,” in one of their 2024 anthologies. I’m most excited about my new novel, Indelicate Deception, a character-driven family drama with an element of suspense and social thematic underpinnings. Although one of the characters is a lawyer, the novel is a far departure from my Dana Hargrove suspense novels. I finished the first draft early in the year, polished it, and am sending out queries to literary agents. Wish me luck trying to get this book out to the world sooner than later!

Dear friends, here’s to health, happiness, and peace in 2024 and beyond,

Vija

Gratitude and Curiosity…and a Post Script

Posted on by - Ballet & Mystery, Dance

My Royal Academy of Dancing certificates, faded and stained, hang on the wall near my computer desk. I see them every day, but like so many things in the home environment, they fade into the background and go unnoticed. Today I focused on them with feelings of gratitude—and curiosity.

The gratitude: For my parents

With seven children and very little money, they still found a way to give me ballet training. They knew how much I loved it. I lived for dance class, twice a week as I remember, plus rehearsals. Professional-level training should be daily, but that was something well outside the family budget. As a teen, with my own income, I added classes and somehow made it to a performing artist. Ballet, and later, jazz and contemporary styles.

Dance has stayed with me for more than 60 years and now I dance daily, either taking or teaching class. No other form of exercise includes all this: full-body strengthening, flexibility, stamina, and coordination; musicality, mathematical precision, and artistry; mental acuity and memory improvement; organization and discipline. Surrounded by other dancers in the studio, you absorb their energy and gain inspiration. You walk out of there feeling happy the rest of the day. An endorphin high.

Okay, you get it. I’m grateful.

The curiosity: Who were my RAD examiners?

My RAD certificates are signed by my examiners: Ruth French and Jean Bedells. I was a teenager when I took those exams. Like most teenagers, I lived in blissful ignorance of the backgrounds and daily lives of my teachers and elders. I knew next to nothing about the RAD examiners.

All I knew was this. The studio I attended in Oakland California was an affiliate of the Royal Academy of Dancing in England, whose president, Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991), was the prima ballerina in a storied partnership with Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993). In 1962, when Fonteyn considered retiring from the stage, she reluctantly agreed to dance with the Russian defector, who was 19 years her junior.

 

As it turned out, their unlikely partnership was magical and lasted for decades. Nureyev once said of Fonteyn that they danced with “one body, one soul”. Their last performance together was “Baroque Pas de Trois” in September 1988 when Fonteyn was 69 and Nureyev was 50; they danced with Carla Fracci, then 52.

Click here for a video of Fonteyn and Nureyev dancing the Swan Lake pas de deux on the Ed Sullivan show in 1965. Fonteyn was 46 years old. Gorgeous.

I digress. Back to my exams.

My training in classical ballet followed the RAD syllabus. Every two years, RAD examiners traveled from London to our studio in California. As I recall, a few students took the exam together. We wore a regulation outfit: black leotard and pink tights with a particular kind of skirt and headband. The examiner sat at the front of the studio and gave us the exercises and dance combinations using the French terms. What’s the difference between a “pas de bourrée dessus” and a “pas de bourrée dessous”? The words sound almost the same, but you’d better know which one the examiner wants you to do. Nowadays, when I teach, I call them “pas de bourrée over” and “pas de bourrée under.” So much easier.

In my recent search for information about my examiners, I couldn’t seem to find the “Royal Academy of Dancing.” Isn’t that the organization on my certificates? Mystery solved when I learned that the name changed to “Royal Academy of Dance” in 1999. Does “dancing” sound too pedestrian? Better to say “the dance,” pronounced like “the sconce.”

My elementary examiner was Ruth French (1903-1986). It was 1970, I was 16, and the lady from England seemed ancient. In fact, French was a year younger than I am now—and, of course, as you surely will say, I’m not ancient, or even very old (!)

French danced before the so-called birth of British Ballet, so she had to develop her own career. When touring, she advertised with her own publicity boards—like the one pictured above. She twice appeared in Royal Command performances and danced with Anna Pavlova in the 1920s. In a 1935 production of Swan Lake, young Margot Fonteyn and Ruth French were co-stars, Fonteyn dancing Odette (the white swan), and French dancing Odile (the black swan). French later became a respected teacher and an examiner for the RAD. In 1973, she received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.

My intermediate level examiner was Jean Bedells (1924-2014), daughter of Phyllis Bedells (1893-1985), who was a founding member of the RAD in 1920 and helped develop its first syllabus. Jean Bedells performed with Sadler’s Wells Ballet, the precursor to the Royal Ballet.

Here is a photo of her as a teenager in 1938. A list of Bedells’ performances includes a 1942 performance of Coppélia in which she danced the part of one of Swanilda’s friends. Thirty years later, in 1972, I danced that role in the RAD company I performed with in the East Bay Area, Dancer’s Theatre.

 

Here is another photo of Bedells from a performance of “The Quest” in 1943. Not sure, but I think she’s the one in the middle.

 

In performance, 1973, when I had enough hair for a bun

I never took the RAD advanced level exam. I was training for it when I decided to switch studios. In 1973, I joined Carlos Carvajal’s Dance Spectrum in San Francisco.

This is me on stage in Carlos Carvajal’s “Iridis,” to Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin.” Beautiful music and choreography.

I’ve enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, along with everything I learned with a little extra research. Now for a….

Post Script

Here’s a bit of news about my other passion—fiction writing!

As many of you know, the sixth and final Dana Hargrove legal mystery, Power Blind, was published in January 2022. A few years ago, the first four novels were combined into two e-book double sets, making them available at a discount and free to Kindle Unlimited members. Now the third and final “Dana Hargrove Double” (novels 5 and 6) is on pre-order, to be released February 17.

Here’s the real news. During the preorder period, all three double sets are priced at just 99 cents (regularly $5.99). All six novels, for pennies. So, load up your Kindle before February 17 for rainy day reading to come!

I’ve just finished writing a new novel (very different from the Dana Hargrove series), and I’m on a hunt for a literary agent. Wish me luck!

Ciao for now.

2020: Positivity and Perfect Vision

Posted on by - 2020

Perfect Vision

In 1989, the lure of big cash, fame, and glory, inspired me to write my first novel. The “Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award” called for unpublished works of fiction on the theme of creative and positive solutions to global problems. Set in 2020, with an oh-so original title, Perfect Vision was to be my stunning debut novel, featuring a cast of fascinating, prescient characters who creatively avert a future dystopia. I gave it a happy ending. Sadly, however, Ted Turner passed on this masterpiece, cliches and all. The trash can wasn’t so picky.

Accentuate the Positive

Now, as we say goodbye to the actual 2020, I’m giving the final page a happy ending. “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,” Bing would sing. I hope you’ve been cheered by at least a few positives this year. Here are mine.

The year started out great with the January launch of Seven Shadows and two sets of Dana Hargrove Doubles on Kindle Unlimited: Thursday’s List & Homicide Chart and Forsaken Oath & Deep Zero.

My writing brain took a while to refocus, but now I’m well into a draft of the sixth, and final, Dana Hargrove novel. Title to be announced! I’m also working on a new story collection.

In February, before the pandemic hit, we had a fantastic road trip through Southern states. Click on my travelogue for all the highlights: routes, sights, events, food, and more.

Social Distancing = More Socializing

Say what? This year has seen more frequent socializing—but of a different kind—with neighbors, friends, and family.

Used to be that the only breathing creatures out for a walk on our quiet cul-de-sac were the deer and squirrels. That changed with homeschooling and work at home. Now everybody needs to get out for a little fresh air and a walk. We’ve had many socially distanced conversations with our wonderful neighbors, and during the warm months, even had a few happy hour gatherings in the turnaround at the end of our cul-de-sac.

Speaking of walks, we are blessed with many beautiful nature trails in the area, and it’s been nice to see more families out together walking. One day, I was surprised to hear a lone saxophone player in the woods. Click here to go to my Instagram post to hear the beautiful sound.

We’re all Zooming, of course, and this has meant more interaction on screen with my children, siblings, and other family members who do not live nearby (why didn’t we always do this?) My longstanding book group of close friends, the Lit Chicks, have had more meetings online than ever before, and I found a new online book group full of smart, insightful fiction lovers, Books and Bars. Great books and intelligent conversation!

Dance, Dance, Dance

Virtual dance classes at home make it easier to get to class! Kevin installed a beautiful wood floor in our sunroom this spring, giving ample space to take class and teach class.

Wasn’t so easy, figuring out camera angle, sound, and virtual teaching techniques, mirroring and saying “left” when I’m on my right. A fun challenge. The sides of my brain may be permanently switched. To my dedicated group of adult dancers at Scarsdale Ballet Studio: thank you! It’s been wonderful teaching you ballet and jazz and watching you dance on my screen.

Not having to deal with driving or riding the train long distances has made it easier to take classes I would not otherwise get to. Big thanks to all the wonderful ballet and contemporary dance artists whose classes I’ve taken this year: Christian Claessens, Igal Perry, Nina Goldman, Tanner Schwartz, David Fernandez, Tobin Eason, Noriko Hara, Kate Loh, Nancy Bielski, Teresa Perez Ceccon, Diane McCarthy, Laurie DeVito, Jana Hicks, Tyrone Monroe, and Johanna Bergfelt.

And so ends another year, with great things to look forward to in 2021. I’m grateful for my health and the health of my family. Yesterday, December 30, Kevin and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary.

Here’s wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year full of laughter, dance, fiction, and fun.

A Special Experience: Expressing a Caregiving Story

Posted on by - Dance

V.S. Kemanis in “Embrace, Give, Heal,” photo credit Nick Bonitatibus.

I was honored to be invited to participate in a program of the CareGivers’ Project, “In Time & Space.”

“The Mission of the CareGivers’ Project is to create a place to express and reflect on the complexities of being a caregiver for an elder and provide resources, support and benefits to the health of caregivers.”

V.S. Kemanis in “Embrace, Give, Heal,” photo credit Eric Bandiero

In keeping with its mission, the CareGivers’ Project has spearheaded a number of valuable community-based programs and unique approaches to expressing and reflecting on the conflicts and rewards of being a caregiver. In Time & Space takes the groundbreaking approach of exploring caregiving stories and involving the community through the medium of dance. My solo dance depicted my experience as a sandwich-generation caregiver, suddenly called to care for an ailing parent at a time when my children were very young.

Last weekend, we had our premiere performance at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, with audience participation and talkback.

Talkback at Judson Memorial Church, November 3, 2018, photo credit Nick Bonitatibus

Teresa Perez Cecco, photo credit Irina Leoni

 

The project was fortunate to have the talents of choreographer/artistic director Teresa Perez Ceccon. Working with her on my piece was a dream come true!

 

Jomarie Zeleznik in “Cry Me a River,” photo credit Eric Bandiero

 

 

 

Other beautiful performances by dancer-caregivers last weekend were Dr. Jomarie Zeleznik, the executive director of the CareGivers’ Project, dancing “Cry Me a River”. . .

and nationally recognized speaker and educator Rochelle Rice, dancing “Bob and Eileen,” a hospice caregiving story.

Rochelle Rice in “Bob and Eileen,” photo credit Nick Bonitatibus

 

And we are just getting started! A film documentary is in the works, encompassing the process of creation, performance, community involvement, audience participation, and sharing of caregiving stories.

You can join us in our exploration of reflecting individual experience and expressing the caregiving journey through dance by giving a tax-deductible contribution, small or large, to the CareGivers’ Project. Any and all help is much appreciated. CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE!

Photo credit Eric Bandiero

 

Goodbye for now! Hope to see you at our next performance!

Farewell 2017! A page from my personal journal

Posted on by - 2017

Farewell 2017! From the personal journal, it’s a fond farewell. On December 30, 2017, my beloved husband Kevin and I celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. This year has been as rich and loving as always, and I’m thankful for the many warm and wonderful times together and with our daughters, other family members, and close friends.

In my legal mystery novels, protagonist Dana Hargrove juggles the demands of a high-powered professional career with her personal and family life. She has a loving husband, Evan, to support her. Evan and Dana are nothing like Kevin and I except for one thing: We are a team, giving each other space to pursue our personal interests. For this I am very grateful. I would not be able to accomplish my artistic goals without Kevin.

These are my professional and artistic highlights for 2017:

Publishing my fourth story collection, Love and Crime: Stories, to starred reviews by Foreword  and BlueInk.

 

Interviews with exceptional authors Eowyn Ivey  and William Burton McCormick on VBlog.

 

Getting on stage again after a break of many years, performing the stellar choreography of Katiti King and making many new dance friends along the way.

 

Many hours of joyful dance with my favorite teachers at Gibney Dance and Steps NYC, including Diane McCarthy, Laurie DeVito, Katiti King, Max Stone, Teresa Perez Ceccon, and Bethany Perry.

 

 

An amazing master class with Lynn Simonson, the creator of the Simonson Technique.

 

A wonderful sendoff by my coworkers and friends at the Appellate Division upon my retirement from my fulltime legal career.

 

Thank you to editor Janet Hutchings of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for posting my humorous account of my (now former!) commuter life, Rock ‘n Rail, on Something Is Going to Happen.

 

 

A lot of fun working on a video of my work with talented filmmaker Blake Horn. Stay tuned! The video will be posted soon to Amazon and Goodreads.

Putting the finishing touches on my fourth Dana Hargrove novel, Deep Zero, to be released on January 25, 2018!

 

I wish you a happy, healthy, artistic 2018!

Love from V.

Highlights: 2016

Posted on by - 2016, Legal fiction, Mystery fiction

Dear readers, writers, editors, bloggers, friends, and dancers:

As the year comes to a close, regardless of what may have challenged, frustrated, or saddened us, we can be thankful for these enduring gifts we all share: imagination and creativity. The creation and enjoyment of art in any form enlightens and delights us, sustains and enriches us. I am blessed to have had another fulfilling year in my two favorite art forms, fiction and dance.

The highlights include the publication of my new Dana Hargrove novel, Forsaken Oath, and interviews about my work with bloggers Jeff Kivela of Buttonholed Books, Marika from Mystery Sequels, and mystery writer/playwright Nina Mansfield.VSKPaperbacks - Copy

 

My story “Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt” (combining my love of dance and mystery!), was published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, …Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt Aug 2016

and a story on the lighter side, “Ballet, Law, and Mystery,” was posted on EQMM’s blog Something is Going to Happen.

 

There were many interesting and enlightening events with my fellow mystery writers. To name a few:  The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s 75th Anniversary Symposium, and MWA-NY’s Holiday Revels with Reed Farrel Coleman

I danced injury-free all year and enjoyed many wonderful classes with my favorite teachers at Gibney Dance, including (especially!) Diane’s four hour holiday class! dianes-class-12-22-16In 2017, I look forward to completing another short fiction collection and the fourth Dana Hargrove novel!

I wish everyone a healthy, happy 2017, with many creative, inspiring moments.

V.

Ballet, Law, and Mystery

Posted on by - Ballet & Mystery

I was a guest recently on Something is Going to Happen, the preeminent blog of Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.  I share the post with you, below, and you may also click here to view the entire post with Janet’s comments.  Mystery lovers: take the time to scroll through the blog entries on the site: some interesting articles!

Also, check out the exciting July issue of EQMM.  My story, “Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt,” will appear in the August issue!

Ballet, Law, and Mystery

Before writing fiction, I was a dancer and a lawyer. Still am, both. Oxymoron? You’d be surprised how many attorneys I meet in ballet class. Maybe it’s because law books and toe shoes are both hard—dancing attorneys are gluttons for punishment. On a positive note, ballet and the law share many nicer attributes. An idealized world, perfectionism, intellectual puzzles, exacting discipline, technical precision, and personal expression. The expressive medium of ballet is the more artistic, you might say, but I could debate the point (sounding like a lawyer here, even if we swap “point” for “pointe”).

My experience in the courtroom informs my fiction more often than my experience in the dance studio (although the protagonist in my novels, prosecutor Dana Hargrove, does take a weekly dance class with her sister Cheryl, a Broadway performer). With pleasure, I dove into the world of professional ballet in writing “Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt,” for EQMM. Memories from the time I owned a dancewear shop came in handy for this story. It could take hours fitting those potential instruments of torture, pointe shoes, on the feet of persnickety ballerinas—always a Cinderella-esque exercise in frustration.

As for this blog piece, I thank Janet Hutchings for humoring my obsession and allowing this small offering, a short-short mystery. The style is not my usual, but like every word buff, I look for any excuse to have fun with language—here, the beautiful language of ballet. Consider, for example, this direction for a lovely petit allegro enchaînement: “Glissade précipitée en avant, temps levé, tombé, saut de chat.” If the ballet instructor were to say it like this—“Quick steps forward, hop, fall, and leap like a cat”—I might just walk out of class.

You will find, at the end of the story, a glossary of the less obvious ballet terms.

Doctor Coppélius Meets an Untimely Death at the Opera House

As the only child of two physicians, Sylvia Musette was destined for a future in the healing arts. So it seemed, until destiny took a detour on the occasion of her eighth birthday, when she was treated to a matinee at the National Ballet. From that moment, every step she took was a chassé toward her dream.

At seventeen, she signs with the company. Passion is no guarantee of talent, and Sylvia’s passion falls short of artistic distinction, her grand jeté an inch below soaring, her port de bras heartfelt but uninspiring. Ever hopeful, she languishes in the corps, one of many cygnettes, sylphs, and Wilis.

In her fifth spring season, the light of good fortune shines upon her. Ballet master Stanislav Gliadilev, towering over the diminutive Sylvia, twirls a waxed end of his mustache and declares: “Friend!” She fights to remain à terre. It’s her first supporting role! One of Swanilda’s six Friends in the comic ballet Coppélia. Her heart nearly sautés from her leotard before the impresario qualifies the offer: “Understudy!” Sylvia wilts.

An exhausting rehearsal schedule fails to wilt Les Amies, who remain remarkably healthy and uninjured while Sylvia shadows them, unnoticed, a fly on the studio mirror. With too much time on her hands, she is, quite unintentionally, on a gradual pas de bourrée couru toward her true calling in life. Nothing escapes her eye.

She studies the principals: prima ballerina Peony Torne in the role of Swanilda, Enrique Dagloose as her fiancé Franz, and Morton Avunculario as Doctor Coppélius. Peony is known for the delicacy of her petite batterie, Enrique for his ballon, and Morton for his danse de caractère. What is the secret of their success? They’re strong and beautiful, Morton the most powerful, a favorite of Gliadilev who always gives him what he wants. Fifteen years older than the others, Morton is made to look 85 on stage with a painted face and a wig of scraggly gray hair, stooped and teetering with the aid of a cane.

Hmm, Sylvia thinks, did this help Peony make it to the top? Perhaps if I cozy up to Morton the way she does, gazing droopingly at him while Enrique scowls with glints of daggers in his slitty eyes . . . ? The whole thing is backward from the story in the ballet. Swanilda isn’t attracted to that crotchety, diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius, a disturbing figure with a toyshop full of spooky, life-size mechanical dolls. And Swanilda is the jealous one, not the faithless Franz. He’s duped and smitten by the lifelike doll Coppélia, sitting on the balcony of the toyshop, reading a book.

On the eve of opening night, an hour before full dress, company class is held on stage with portable barres. Peony, Morton, and Enrique plié center stage, and the others fan out from center, the Friends, the Dolls, the townspeople, and finally the understudies, lining the dark edges. Sylvia is a useless appendage, she feels. At least she would like to observe the greats, but they’re barely visible behind all the bodies executing les exercices à la barre: tendus, dégagés, ronds de jambe and finally, battements en cloche.

A small commotion erupts. Rats! What’s happening over there? Enrique mutters something to Morton, who gives an audible harrumph and stumbles away in the hunched posture of Doctor Coppélius, hand at the back of his neck. The dancers disperse to dressing rooms, wishing each other “merde.” The maître de ballet spies the understudies and shrieks: “Get off the stage!” In the midst of chaos, Sylvia slithers behind a wing, unnoticed.

Second act, it’s the dead of night, and something is astir, a menace of unknown origin. Swanilda and Friends break into the toyshop, setting the mechanical dolls to life. The Troubadour executes a stiff tour en l’air, the Spanish Doll a sharp coupé fouetté raccourci, the Scottish Doll a nervous pas emboîté en tournant. The Doctor bursts in! Friends scatter, Swanilda hides, Franz sneaks in through a window and is caught! Intending mockery, Doctor Coppélius produces two tankards, and they drink heartily to Franz’s love for Coppélia.

Franz is passed out when Swanilda appears, impersonating the mechanical doll Coppélia. But the Doctor is not quite himself. Deathly pale, he staggers off stage, totters and collapses behind the façade of the toyshop. With a brisk brisé volé, Swanilda runs to him. The music stops. “Morton, darling!” She cradles the gray-wigged head in her lap and looks up, searching blindly. “Please, somebody, help!” The Doctor needs a doctor. The maître drops to her knees, frantically feeling for a pulse. It appears that Morton est mort.

From center stage, Gliadilev quiets the crowd. “Remain calm! I’ve called for an ambulance.” From behind the curtain, Sylvia discerns, in the tensing of muscle, the pain that the impresario feels for the loss of his friend. Or maybe he’s remembering the inferior quality of Morton’s understudy. Opening night will be a disaster.

“How can this be?” The tear-stained Peony stands, bras croisé, mindlessly stabbing piqués en croix with her right foot. “There!” She points to the tankards. “He’s been poisoned!” She whirls in renversé. “He did it!” Enrique is fingered. But Peony pirouettes anew, unable to make up her mind. “No . . . it has to be him!” She points at the mousy little props man, scratching his head in confusion.

“Wait! You’re wrong.” Sylvia chaînés swiftly out from the wing. Quickly, before Gliadilev can banish her, she grabs the tankards, one at a time, and drinks from each. “It’s water.” She licks her lips. “Maybe a bit of iron oxide.”

Dumbfounded, the company awaits Sylvia’s next move. Like magic, a path to the body is cleared. Sylvia kneels, removes the wig, and palpates gently. “Basilar skull fracture, occipital bone, subdural hematoma likely. Suffered a blow with a blunt instrument. He’s been dying slowly before our eyes.”

There’s a communal gasp amid darting, wary glances. Was it the Troubadour’s lute, the Scottish Doll’s bagpipes, the Spanish Doll’s fan, or that little hardcover book Coppélia was reading? Maybe the assailant used the Doctor’s own cane, or a dismantled section of the barre? Sylvia examines the shape of the injury, mentally calculating height and velocity. She stands to face Enrique, his head drooping en bas. For weeks now she’s been studying him, getting to know every habit and quirk of technique. “You were standing behind Morton at the barre. It was your battement en cloche, wasn’t it? Directed straight to that nice little groove between neck and skull.”

“But,” Enrique protests, “I didn’t mean for him to die!” The suspect attempts an échappé sauté, but Gliadilev seizes him before he can run.

Intentional, reckless or negligent? A question for another day, a question for a jury. With a joyful sissone fermé, the case, for now, is closed. Sylvia is arisen from the corps.

A Literally Figurative Glossary of Ballet Terms

ballon: lightness, the ability to remain suspended in the air.

battements en cloche: beats like a bell. Basically, you swing your leg front and back, very high, like the clapper of a bell; it’s fun and relaxing.

bras croisé: arms crossed.

brisé volé: broken, flying. A beautiful light step with a small beat of the legs.

chaînés: chains, links. These are fast turns in a line, spotting your destination. Really fun to do and a good way to get dizzy if not done properly.

chassé: chase. Slide forward, one foot chasing the other.

coupé fouetté raccourci: literally cut, whip, and shorten. Does this give you any sense of what it looks like? Too difficult to explain.

échappé sauté: escape leap. As you jump, the feet “escape” from fifth position into second.

merde: I don’t need to tell you what this really means. It’s a dancer’s “good luck” wish.

pas de bourrée couru: a series of tiny rapid steps on pointe. When ballerinas look like they’re floating across the stage, this is what they’re doing.

pas emboîté en tournant: a springy, boxed-in step in a circle.

petite batterie: small battery in the sense of beating. There’s a lot of beating in ballet terminology, although it’s far from a violent art form.

piqués en croix: sharp piercing taps with the toe, front, side, back, in the shape of a cross.

renversé: reversed. You wouldn’t think this word is enough to describe the actual movement. It’s a turn with a pitched body and a high, circling leg.

sissone fermé: a leap from two feet into a split, landing on two feet in a closed position.

tour en l’air: turn in the air. Jump straight up, do a full revolution like a pencil, and land. Harder than it looks.