The day came and I was off to San Francisco with my husband for my audition with Oklahoma City Ballet. On the Oklahoma City Ballet website, they asked each dancer to call and RSVP. I mention this because I haven’t had to do this for any other auditions and it was a little different. We arrived and I found myself in the familiar SF Ballet lobby.
I began stretching on the cold stone floor breathing with my eyes closed, mentally prepping and staying focused. Every time I opened my eyes and looked up I saw more and more dancers arrive. Forty five minutes before the audition started we were led inside the studio to register. After I got my number I found a place at the barre and continued to warm up.
When the Artistic Director came in the focus shifted in the room. Silence fell as each of us were waiting for him to speak. He told us we were ahead of schedule and still had another 30 minutes until we began. A sigh of relief was let out all over the room since that meant we had more time to warm up and prepare. Okay… back to stretching. By this time I just didn’t want my muscles to get cold so I went outside of the studio and did a ponche on the wall for a while until the audition began. If you’re wondering what a ponche is… here’s a picture of the ponche i’m working towards!
The audition began and they let us stand anywhere we wanted at the barre…. this was nice and different from my previous experience! I was at a barre against the wall at the end. Perfect place except I couldn’t see myself! They had a curtain pulled across the mirror right where I was. As a dancer this can be nerve racking because you cannot see how you look in each position but instead have to feel it and trust you look good.
As the Artistic Director taught the audition I was trying to figure out what he looks for and what is important to him. Finally he said it… he wanted us to articulate more. Basically he wanted us to roll through our feet and exaggerate each position.
Barre was finished and we moved onto centre and across the floor. I definitely felt extremely shacky and lacking confidence during the adagio (extensions) and pirouettes (turns). I started to shrink back and feel that I wasn’t what they were looking for. At this point I had to kinda hit myself on the face to fight these thoughts and take a deep breath and relax. I reminded myself how I felt in the Colorado Ballet audition and the Ballet Austin one. After I snapped back into the determination mode I was able to really let my love of dancing shine.
After we finished the Artistic Director said they would contact us in April. I then began chatting with a few of the dancers and found out one of them I trained with when I was 16 at the Kirov… wow go figure?!
I ran out of the studio and my husband and I were off to Los Angeles for the Oregon Ballet Theatre audition the next day.
Audition #6 a success!
