Back to the dance!

Well, Im now officially back into the world of ballet. Today was my second saturday of work. I only work saturdays at the ballet, 9-5. You'd think, wow great you get 8 hours of work, but no. In actuality, I get 5.5 actual hours of work and therefore pay for the 7 hours and 55 minutes that I have to be there. theres a huge 2 hour break right in the middle, grr.
I like the mornings, the exact same classes as last year, teachers and everything. I start the morning with Primary Ballet. This is great cause hte kids are cute, and the music is basic enough that I can improvise it without expending too much brain energy. The next class is a joint elementary and intermediate level ballet class. These are the more advanced students in the General division, so I run the full gammet on sat. mornings.
After the long long break during which I can eat lunch, practice, socialize and still have extra time, I have a dreaded afternoon. the middle class isn't too terrible, its a workshop class, so the teacher works on more specific kinds of work than they would in a standard ballet class, basically, it means that I will be playing the same kind of piece over and over again. Today was steps across the floor, so I played about 8 different waltzes, varying the tempo a bit, or the accents, or the style...
On either side of the workshop class I have musical theatre. Shannon must have misunderstood. When I told her I was enjoying working in the young ballet classes because i get to really see how they react to music.... I did not mean that I enjoy sitting behind a keyboard watching the snotty little shits playing games and screaming their heads off with a teacher that doesn't have the foggiest idea of discipline. I actually get a headache by the end of the day. I played some musical theatre classes last year, which was only slightly agonizing, because it was adults or at least older kids. The class actually involved singing what was on the page (well as close as music theatre people get, I dont think theyre generally literate, thats why they have to listen to things on the cd before they try and sing it).
And speaking of how shitty it is and how much I hate musical theatre.... what the fuck is with this Annie crap. if i wanted to hear a sack of undignified untrained, loud rank unpleasant voices, I would go down to a real orphanage, or to a school where I can hear stupid children mutilate their tonsils. Why would anyone want to go see a musical where people who are assumed to have some training, stand on stage and purposely sing as obnoxiously and badly as possible.
In other words, I do not enjoy playing for music theatre class in general.. especially not for 7-9 year old children. In ballet class they are at least encouraged to have respect and dignity in the class, but this teacher and most jazz/music theatre teachers tend to throw that out in the trash. Boo hiss.
Im not looking forward to later in the year when I get further screwed over and that workshop class no longer needs a pianist. Then I will have an hour long break between two musical theatre classes. KILL ME NOW!
On the other half of my ballet experiences, I met with my choreographer. As a person as well as a choreographer, she is extremely unoragnized in her thinking and is struggling to make the initial plunge into choreography. Im hoping this will work out, but I have my reservations. Basically, Im doing this for course work, so I will need to make it work out. Im kind of worried that she's going to quit part way through and leave me out to dry. I really did try to voice my concerns to the organiser of the program, and tell her that I wanted someone with experience, cause i dont know how much I will learn from doing the same thing as last year, atleast that choreographer was organized before I came intot he picture.... well not organised, but she had ideas of what she wanted. She told me what she wanted the dance to be, and I made the music fit it.
I spent our first rehearsal talking to this girl and explaining to her not just why, but the basic principal that her dance had to have some kind of a form, and that form had to have some reason to inspire cohesion. I went through all sorts of examples of how it could have a storyline, or if she didnt want a story, she could have the dance be a development of something, or a degredation. We talked about how the dance could have different sections with a common element in order to highlight a variation, and the music could shift to represent that.
She had heard a piece of music that she wanted me to hear, yet when I asked her what she liked about it, she couldn't say whether it was the colours, the harmonies, the melody, the rhythms.... and it wasn't just lack of musical vocabulary, cause she has that, she just couldnt identify what about the piece was good.......
This is going to be an interesting venture.
Nevertheless, I'm going about my business. I told her that I basically can't start doing anything until she informs me of the form and reasonings/storyline. Then I can start thinking about vague musical elements, but I still need to wait for the choreography to be in place before I can give shape to the music.
Bottom line is that this is not a reassuring start to this project. She said yesterday "It seems like no matter how my part works out, your part will turn out well; But I need for my part to be perfect.." Im glad that she has utter confidance in me, but I don't want to work with bad choreography. I don't even want to work with average. I would much rather be working with great creative minds that would inspire and encourage me to work up to their level.
Oh well, i hope this is all just angst and fear of the unknown.... she flighty enough that there could really be a great creative power in there, just waiting to be unleashed... I will believe that for the moment. This will be an exciting project, yes, I'll go back to that mentality...
good night