Music and Ballet

Maya with First Violins

Maya had a full day of music and dancing. She committed herself to both a concert and a ballet performance on the same day at overlapping times. She had daily rehearsals all week for both ballet and orchestra at the same times, and went to orchestra Monday and Friday and ballet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. She kept insisting that she would make it to both events. I had no idea what to say to her conductor or her ballet teacher, so I avoided them both. I thought eventually Maya would decide to give up one or the other, but I was quite wrong in my assumption.

Casa de la Musica

She wore her ballet clothes under her concert attire, and we drove early to the 'Casa de la Musica'. The concert hall is high up the side of a mountain with a great view of the valley. As we walked in, a fellow musician told Maya that she could not play in the concert because she had missed most of her rehearsals during the past week. Several more children confirmed that they had heard the same. I was ready to leave and head to her ballet rehearsal, but Maya talked to the first violinists' teacher and found herself reinstated. I left her to tune and prepare herself with her musician friends, and raced to the 'Casa de la Cultura' where I spoke to her ballet teachers and explained that she would be late to her rehearsal. I did not tell them exactly how late. I raced back to the concert hall in time for the performance to begin. The children played the March from Carmen, The Synchopated Clock, a gorgeous Christmas Carol called 'Claveles y Roses', the Pink Floyd song 'Wish You Were Here', and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer'. The lights suddenly turned off halfway through the last song, but the children kept playing for a bit until things began to fall apart, and Felipe, the conductor, cut the song short. The children were amazingly good. Maya was absolutely certain that she wanted to play today, and I am beginning to understand why.

Maya was unfazed when we arrived two hours late to her ballet rehearsal, and joined the seventy or so ballerinas for the last part of the run through. Her two hour break went by too quickly; she had to be back at the theatre in her make up and costume by 4 PM. Isabel joined us in the audience. The ballet was 'La Fille Mal Gardee' , and what was wonderful was that every child had a significant role in the dance, and Maya was onstage throughout. Unlike Peabody, her dance program in Baltimore, where the children have limited roles, her 'Fundacion Danza' appeared to choreograph the ballet so that every role was significant, and the children in their amusing costumes were regularly on stage. Maya danced well on her pointe shoes, and missing rehearsal did not seem to be a disadvantage for her.

Dancing Girls

I have done nothing today but run around after Maya and her performances. It has been a day of music and dance for her and for me.