Feburary in Review

Hello World,

There has been a lapse in happenings of note in my little sphere which explains the gap between blog posts. But as I have a couple of hours spare and don't want to spend it drifting through job websites, I decided that it was time to bring you up to date on my latest non-adventures.

Life has settled into a semi-regular pattern and I can't escape the subtle feeling that I have been benched. I'm stuck marking time and life is just running away leaving me behind. The family junk mail business (which has more sucking power than a black hole) and painting the 5-year-old house renovations continue to be my primary sources of income. There is a large degree of frustration in doing all that training to get a ballet body and now all I'm using it for is brainless manual labour, I'm grateful that the work is covering the bills, but I can't say that I'm passionate about it. The painting I don't mind, but the family business grows somewhat dull after a while. Working monotonous hot hours sorting tons (literally) of advertising material, and then spending hours in a car checking that the walkers have delivered it correctly. All just so some housewife can look at the stuff for 30 seconds between the mailbox and the bin!

I've been taking classes most days at my pre-New Zealand School of Dance studio, Desley Donaldson Ballet Academy. This is often the highlight of a dull day. Jane Devine and Paul Boyd are regular guest teachers there which makes it really beneficial.
The most exciting event of this month has to be Jane's teaching. She is teaching me how to dance without holding excess tension in my body. I've had this problem ever since I started ballet and have never know how to fix it. But Jane knows how to approach the problem and to communicate what needs to change. The results are revolutionising the way I approach my work. Instead of adding effort and energy to make a movement happen, I'm simply allowing the movement to happen. Often I don't know how, but it just happens.

So what's the escape plan out of this black hole? Despite my continual carpet bombing of my resume to every major retail outlet within 30 minutes drive, I've only had one interview....
Well speak of the devil! The phone just rang and I now have a job! Hoorah! Escape from the black hole! FREEDOM from this house!!! My next great career move will be working at Officeworks at Aspley. It's obviously not going to be an amazing job working on the floor of a department store. However, the pay is above average, I'll be able to see some different faces and the store appears tidy and the people there all seem to be friendly and human enough. The extra cash flow which is needed to start some serious saving will also be much appreciated. I'm actually looking forward to my first day which is on Wednesday.

So though Feburary has been a rather dull month it hasn't been without its benefits and has shown a late rise. The foundations are now laid and it will be all upward from here, I hope.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a question or comment.

Dream On!

DreamChaser

Audition for Disneyland Toyko

Hello Everyone,

I’m putting up a quick post just to let you know what happened at the Tokyo Disneyland audition.

It was quite a cluttered audition with about 90 people jammed into one studio. You had to be careful or you would end up with bad case of jazz-shoe-up-nose. We started with a basic classical exercise which was performed in groups of four. It took them quite a while to work through the whole group. After this, they did a cut and there were about 30 of us left. We carried on and learnt a short jazz routine which was also fairly simple. They gave you stacks of time to learn the choreography which made it all rather easy. We performed the routine in the same small groups. After which, they did another cut and this is where I stepped out.

I was just about to leave, when the panel called me aside. They told me that I had done a great job that day and was cut only due to being inappropriate for their current needs. They also said that they would like to see me at the next audition which is going to be in six months time. That was a nice positive to take away from the experience.

I have to say that this has to be one of the nicest auditions I have done. The panel were all smiling friendly and willing to communicate. A dramatic change to the frowns, and sullen silent gargoyles that inhabit most ballet auditions.

So I’m not going to be slipping off to Japan any time soon. As for what’s next, once again I have no idea. I’m just going to have to take it as it comes. When it does happen, (whatever “it” may be) I’ll be sure to blog it. So stay tuned for the next episode.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to post a comment below.

DreamChaser

The Journey Begins

It has been a while coming, but I've finally got around to putting up my first real entry in the Dream Chaser Chronicles! It's been a surprisingly eventful start to the year so I've got a lot to squeeze into this post. I wasn't really expecting to have anything exciting happen for at least a couple of months, but the curves in life's road been keeping me hopping.

As you can tell from the photos I've recently been to Sydney. After having a wonderful Christmas and New Year, one of the first things that I wanted to do was to have a talk with Mrs Donaldson (who was my teacher before I went to New Zealand) about kick starting my dancing career. It was great to see her again. We had a good catch up on gossip and did some brain storming for this year's plan of action. She suggested that I attend the International Summer School that was in Sydney in a weeks time. The summer school is hosted by the McDonald College and has a faculty of international teachers who in addition to teaching the pupils, have conferences for local teachers. For me, it would be a good week of training that would get me in shape and I would also be able to make some good contacts. On the down side, it was rather late notice and was going to be a bit of a stretch financially.

As you can easily guess from the photos, I did decide to make the trip though it was not an easy decision to make. After a day of pondering it, I eventually realised that I had no real choice. If I was going to make this dancing thing happen I was going to have to push it as hard as I could. Get big or get out.
It was a difficult leap of faith for me to make that decision. I always knew that I wasn't going to make history as a ballet dancer, but my goal always was just to be able to make a profession out of it. After graduating from the New Zealand School of Dance I didn't really have the confidence that I had the talent or technique make it. Guts, discipline, work ethic and raw determination I can do, but I suffer from a lack of natural co-ordination and talent. I discussed it with Mrs Donaldson and she said that she thought I still had a realistic chance. So decided to look at this summer school as a trial by fire. The summer school's faculty had some pretty impressive names in it including some previous tutors, Paul Boyd and Sarah Roe. They would be able to give me a realistic, impartial judgement on whether I should give ballet the flick. It was time to make or break!

It actually turned out so much better than I could have even imagined. The first couple of days were rather painful as I got out all the holiday bugs. Once over that, I had a great time learning and performing everything from ballet to jazz to character. I had only signed up to do one week of the the two week course due to the dollars. The faculty loved my work so much that they offered me a scholarship to stay on for the second week. Talk about a confidence boost! They were all so positive about my work and said that I should definitely persist in a dancing career. So I stayed the second week and had just as much as the first. I even got to perform a short ballet solo at the end of the second week that I had learnt the previous afternoon! That was definitely a challenge but so much fun at the same time.

I'm now back in lovely Brisbane (Sorry, I didn't like Sydney much as a city) and preparing my next move. For classes I'm doing some ballet at Mrs. Donaldson's studio and seeing if I can get classes at Queensland Dance School of Excellence and QUT. A little bit further down the track I'm hoping to get classes at Queensland Ballet and Expressions Dance Theatre.
As far as auditions go, I'm going to the Tokyo Disneyland audition on Tuesday. Then Opera Queensland are looking for dancers for there production of La Traviata in April.

So that's my life up to date in the DreamChaser Chronicles. Feel free to post a comment and if you subscribe to the blog you will be able to receive the next batch of stories.

Thanks for reading ;-)
DreamChaser

Welcome to Rodney's Blog

Hello World and welcome to my blog,

This blog is going to be the continuation of a project that I started while in studying at the New Zealand School of Dance. Originally being from Australia, I kept in contact with family and friends through a weekly email called the Reports. This regular email became rather popular over my three years of study with about 40 people receiving it each week.

I graduated in 2008 which meant the Reports series had come to an end. However, as I enjoyed the writing and found it to be a convenient way of storing memories and stories , I decided to continue the story in these Chronicles.

My aim is to keep everyone up to date with my latest adventures and hopefully keep you entertained along the way with a humorous perspective on some of the stranger points of this unorthodox lifestyle.

I hope that you will join me by subscribing to this blog, commenting and finding some entertainment reading about this unusual journey through life.

Dream On!
DreamChaser

God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. ~Author Unknown