Beautiful to read…. The true thoughts of dancers being spoken.
grace dripping,
off sharpened collar bones.
beauty
in the shadow
of a rib.
poise,
point.
i envy her.
________________________
Thank you for reading,
~ Victoria Elizabeth
Dance.
Oatmeal Pumpkin Cookies
Hello dear readers,
Hope you are all enjoying the beginning of your December and starting to buzz with the excitement of Christmas approaching. It is time for the first of my baking posts. Late last week, I decided that I finally had the inspiration to bake a delicious treat after months of baker’s hiatus. The source of inspiration? My friend’s birthday that took place on Saturday. I had been looking at this recipe for a while now and decided that with the pumpkin, the spices, and the dark chocolate chips (winner), this would be a sweet treat that hopefully everyone would enjoy. The original recipe was taken from Sally’s Baking Addiction (http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/10/02/favorite-pumpkin-oatmeal-cookies/) and I must say, the original recipe turned out a delicious first batch, but later, I made my own slight adjustments to the recipe based on my personal preference to get a cookie that I simply could not get enough of.
Ingredients:
2 cups, 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon (I love my spices!)
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (I told you)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup pumpkin purree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds (only put in the last batch)
Preheat oven to 350 F. Take cookie sheet, line with foil, and spray with nonstick spray.
Toss flour, baking soda, salt, and all spices together in a large bowl.
Melt the butter in the microwave ahead of time and let it cool in a medium size bowl. Then combine with canola oil (makes for a less cakey, fatty cookie). Whisk in the molasses and both sugars. Once thoroughly combined, whisk in the egg yolk, and then add the pumpkin purree and vanilla extract, whisking until smooth and free of lumps.
Pour all at once into the dry bowl and mix until combined. Fold in your cranberries, chocolate chips, and toasted almonds (once cooled). My dough was quite heavy and thick, but should not be overly wet or cake-batter like.
Any normal spoon will work for scooping 1 or 2 spoonfuls of dough onto the baking sheet. The cookies will spread so place cookies about 2 inches apart (I could only fit 6 cookies per batch).
Place into the oven. The recipe called for 13-15 minutes bake time, but I found that my cookies were still soft almost to the point of being raw. I like a very well done, well baked cookie, so for those of you who are like me, I baked mine for 20 minutes at 350 F. Afterwards, I let them cool for 10 minutes on the sheet and it was off to my friend’s birthday party.
If you compare my recipe to the original, I made adjustments that made the cookie less cakey and thick, but more cookie/biscuit like, and cooked all the way through. Enjoy!
Tatiana xoxo
Inside Ballet Detroit
Here is a little video about our school, Ballet Detroit, and what it’s like to be inside this beautiful theater everyday working. Video shot by Irakly Shanidze, enjoy!
Thanksgiving Baking Ideas
Definitely will be trying some of these, YUM!
{Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting}
I honestly can’t believe that tomorrow is already Thanksgiving, and I have absolutely zero idea what kind of dessert I’ll be making. Talk about procrastination, which is pretty unusual for me, especially when it comes to baking. I already have pretty much my whole Christmas menu planned and ready to go, but no idea what’s on the agenda for tomorrow. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that we don’t do anything crazy for Thanksgiving, and that I’m leaving for vacation two weeks from tomorrow. Something about being in a bikini in such a short amount of time isn’t leaving me wanting to get too crazy on Thanksgiving. But rest assured, I will most definitely be making up for it with all the Christmas-inspired desserts I have planned. While I’m not sure if I’m going to be trying out a…
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Twas the week before Thanksgiving…
Hello readers,
Well the first snow has fallen here in brutally frigid Michigan and with it came the excitement of the approaching holiday season and arguably the earliest performance of Nutcracker excerpts to date. Yesterday, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra held a fundraising luncheon and Ballet Detroit was asked to perform excerpts from the Nutcracker. And so the usual rehearsals came and went to prepare a re-choreographed Waltz of the Flowers and Marzipan pas de trois to fit a 12×20 stage but there is nothing like the feeling of stepping on stage and performing alongside Tchaikovksy’s wonderfully festive score to put you in the Christmas mood, no matter how early into November we are. This was also the first performance for Ballet Detroit and I’m happy to say it went exceptionally well, good job to everyone involved. This weekend brings more snow to Southeast Michigan and the first of my many holiday baking endeavors that will be enjoyed with a cup of hot chocolate and a holiday film (too early?). So until then, here is the link to Ballet Detroit’s first ever performance at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Nutcracker Fundraising Luncheon, enjoy!
My sister, Anastasia (left) and I at the performance of Giselle.
Review of Giselle
Hello readers,
Welcome to my blog! I genuinely hope you’ll enjoy reading about my life and journey through the ballet world as a teenager that is absolutely in love with this art form. Since this is a blog being written by an obsessed fanatic of ballet, what better subject for my first post than… BALLET?! Over the weekend, I went to go see Houston Ballet perform Giselle at the Detroit Opera House. Now I don’t know much about Houston Ballet as they haven’t really been on my radar in terms of researching ballet companies, so I went to this performance not knowing what to expect at all. Overall, I was quite pleased with the performance but I do want to take some time to give my detailed opinion so anyone who has seen Giselle or the Houston Ballet perform can get a sense as to where I’m coming from.
For those who don’t know the story of this ballet, it follows a young girl named Giselle who lives in a Germanic village. One day, she meets a seemingly ordinary peasant named Albrecht. They fall in love with each other but what Giselle doesn’t know is that Albrecht is actually a nobleman who is already engaged to an aristocrat, Bathilde. When Giselle’s other admirer, the peasant Hans, reveals this to her, Giselle’s weak heart gives out on her and she dies in Albrecht’s arms after going mad with heartbreak. That night in the forest, we see the legend of the Willis come to life before our eyes. The Willis are the souls of girls who were jilted by their lovers before their wedding. At night, the Willis rise from their resting place and any man who should come to the forest at night is met by the Willis and forced to dance to death. At sunrise, the Willis return to their graves and appear again the next night. As Hans enters the forest to mourn at Giselle’s grave, he is met by the Willis and suffers under the merciless queen of the Willis, Myrtha, until he is thrown into the lake and parishes. The Willis that night summon Giselle from her grave to join them and as Albrecht also comes to the forest that night to grieve, Giselle appears to him in a vision as they start to dance together. Albrecht, too is summoned by the Willis to dance to his doom and obeys out of his love for Giselle. They dance all night and just as he is about to die, Giselle’s love, and the rise of the morning sun saves Albrecht. But as he looks around in the light of dawn, Giselle has disappeared with the Willis and he is left to mourn alone in the forest.
So with that background info, Giselle has quite a powerful story to tell and powerful emotions to convey to the audience without a single word. The themes of innocence, betrayal, heartbreak and forgiveness need to all be present and noticeable in this ballet to make it effective for the audience.
In the first act, I was quite pleased with the technical ability of the entire company. Everyone’s footwork was impressively precise and sharp where it needed to be, and among the boys, they was no one lacking in a strong and high jump when the music permitted. I did find however that most of the corps girls seemed to sit so heavy, as if they had a magnetic pull to the floor. Even in the cheerful polka towards the end of the first act, the light graceful sautés that should reflect the mood of the villagers at harvest time was instead glued to the floor and quite loud upon landing. At the end of the first act, we see the demise of pure and innocent Giselle and her descent into pure madness to the dismay of her friends, mother, and Albrecht. Here I was quite disappointed to find that the mannerisms that should convey sorrow, betrayal, and more than a little bit of crazy on Giselle’s part looked very forced. The little gestures on stage that would have been beautiful if they were spontaneous and in the moment were quite obviously directed and I could see that the dancers were commanded to move this arm here or look at their partners there, every single time in rehearsal. What is most beautiful to me is when a dancer is on stage and lets him or herself surrender their true emotions to the story and give a true, honest reaction as if it is happening in real life. I think that is where true artistry and beautiful gestures come from so I found it hard to feel anything emotionally at the end of the first act because I felt like I was watching a perfectly manufactured story with perfectly manufactured expressions and gestures, and that is not what appeals to me at all.
As the curtain opened for the second act, I remained convinced that stylistically, this ballet company did not seem to understand the story correctly. As the Willis and their queen danced on stage and exited with some of the fastest bourrées I have ever seen, I was left with the impression that these Willis never even died at all. Again I saw the same heaviness that bothered me in act 1 but here it was totally unwelcome and seemed to contradict the story. Who are the Willis? They are souls of girls who have died of heartbreak. Souls, not people. The Willis should ideally look as if they have descended with an unearthly elegance and are only here temporarily to seek revenge before drifting off as beautiful white visions back to their resting place. In particular, the Myrtha who danced in Sunday’s matinee production looked as if she was trying to jump and arabesque her way out of the grave and go search for her lover that left her to give him a piece of her mind. This production’s Myrtha was so focused on being fierce and queenly that she lost all elegance and seemed to forget that she was a ballerina… and playing the role of someone that died. I did think that Albrecht and Giselle’s interpretations of act 2 were much more stylistically correct and closer to the soulful and expressive Russian production that is world renowned and that I love more than any other ballet in Russian ballet’s repertoire.
As I said, I was quite happy with the performance. I thought that the costumes and sets, in particular, were beautiful and that the technique of the entire Houston Ballet Company was among the best in America. I just wish that the choreographer, or the dancers would have taken it upon themselves to look at the story more closely and find cues in the upper body expression that would have told the story much better.
That’s all for today’s post. Please reply back with your thoughts, I would love to hear them!
Tatiana xoxo
Tatiana Olson 