YOUNG MGMT

Chris is officially on his last day of touring with Strange Talk, and I miss him terribly. Only 24 more hours until I get to tie him down and force him to pick napkin colors. Muahahaha

So, I've mentioned it through twitter, but have yet to brag fully about my amazing Fiancé starting his own management company, YOUNG MGMT. I knew this time would come at some point and I'm happy it's sooner rather than later. You know when you see someone totally in their element, like they're really in the zone and killing it? Well, that's what I see when I watch my man in management mode. He's so passionate about all things music and he's the kind of person who see's what he wants and does everything in his power to get it... Not to mention it's kinda hot watching him talk business. Love you baby!

Anyway, my love has recently added a new act to his roster, Vancouver Sleep Clinic, as well as a new website, courtesy of his loving future wifey ;)

Follow YOUNG MGMT on Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date on his adventures!

Now back to seating arrangements!

xx D

The do everything girl

I once had someone tell me "I've got to hand it to you, you've always got some sort of a job"

Thinking back on it now, it was a pretty back handed comment. However, at the time I was (and still am) very proud of my ability to find a job... whatever it may be. Of course I would rather be consistently booking dance/choreography jobs, but wouldn't we all? Any young artist knows that you can't always rely solely on your art to provide for you, sometimes you need to find an extra gig here and there. I've tried my hand at quite a few jobs over the years because I refuse to settle down and give up on my art to sit in an office 5 days a week with only 2 weeks vacation time. No way, not this girl!

D's extensive random job list:

Receptionist at a Pilates studio

Office assistant at a flameproofing shop

Cashier at a cafe

Mannequin model

Hostess

Dance stylist for a dance studio photographer

Home organizer (ok that was only a couple of times)

Waitress

Telemarketer for a travel company (that I'm starting to think may not have been legit)

Dog walker

Sales associate

Personal assisting.

Of course seeing this list inspires me to push even harder in promoting myself as an artist, but i'll be honest in saying, I still hold a lot of pride in my ability to swallow my pride to get the job done. Pointe shoes don't pay for themselves you know.

What random jobs have you taken to keep busy and support your art?

xx D

Wedding Arms

Youtube has become my personal trainer and I'm absolutely loving it. $100 a session my ass, free is the way to go. I've been searching youtube for easy workouts I can do at home in between planning, running errands, and working.  

I've promised to not give up on my wedding body even with the stresses of everything and I figured I'd start from the top and work my way down so I don't get too overwhelmed.

My favorite video so far is for Wedding Arms, although I'm sure they'll look hot for any occasion ;) For these exercises I use 3 lb weights, but as she suggests in the video, the exercise is still helping even if you're holding nothing. Did you hear that?... Nothing, so no excuses.

Don't feel bad if you don't get through the whole video.... because then I'll have to feel bad for not finishing it either. Baby steps guys.

However, I do have to warn you, this chick can be super entertaining. Don't get distracted by her high voice and enthusiasm.

Now squeeze into that spandex click here, and enjoy!

before...

after...

Side note: I've decided that everyone who chooses to get married should get appointed a fairy godmother or godfather to magically help with all the wedding plans. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually having the time of my life, but I'm feeling a bit scatter brains at the moment.

xx D

Our not so Drunch Brunch.

So, Chris arrived at LAX on thursday night and I've been pretty distracted  from anything els since he's gotten back. It's weird how being apart from him feels harder now than ever. I wasn't expecting all the butterflies in my stomach driving into LAX. 

Even though he was on tour for only about 2.5 weeks, it reminded me of the difficult times living in separate countries. All the work and changes we went through to live in the same country and here we were skyping again. Of course it's not the same, but I've clearly developed a love/hate relationship with skype. Nonetheless, it's amazing to have my best friend back in town and to get a little extra help on our final wedding plans. Only 26 days!!!

To celebrate his return and get started on some wedding projects, we decided that on Saturday we would get out of the house as soon as I had returned from teaching my regular summer dance classes. 

First stop, Bloody Mary's! 

We decided to head to Echo Park to a fairly new restaurant/bar, Mowhawk Bend.

Chris and I are both big fans of Bloody Mary's and who on earth doesn't love a good drunch? (drunk brunch). Unfortunately we were too late to enjoy a brunch so we went with appetizers instead. Sweet potato fries and wing style cauliflower.  

I'm just going to be completely honest here and say that we weren't very impressed. I really wanted to like this place for a few different reasons, i've heard amazing things about their beers and the fact that they have 72 on tap. The fact that they only serve locally sourced food and drinks was also pretty enticing, as the carbon footprint discussion was one often had, growing up in my family's home.  Either way, the food isn't good enough for me to even recommend. And i'm afraid to say my Bloody Mary was more like tomato juice and a bit of vodka. Looks pretty good though, don't you think?

I've decided to save the second half of this post until AFTER our wedding. It involves our personalized wedding favors and I don't want to give away too much yet ;)

xxD

Zucchinis are taking over!

My parents have a gorgeous vegetable garden that i've been left in charge of while they are on holiday in London. It's filled with 3 different tomatoes, blueberries, 3 kinds of hot peppers, and zucchini!

I've been super busy with planning my wedding, teaching, choreographing, all while trying to get in wedding shape, which has resulted in a large amount of neglected Zucchinis. When I say large, I mean L-A-R-G-E. Have you ever seen an over grown zucchini? They pretty much triple in size over night which also means they become more bitter, so you really need to cut them off the vine while they're still fairly small.

I've been searching all over cooking blogs, Pinterest, and of course my families cook books, for every recipe under the moon using zucchinis. I've decided to make my own list of favorite zucchini recipes for anyone who might be having trouble keeping up with their own green beasts.

Here's one of my favorites so far:

Zucchini Fries

These are super easy to make, and are quite filling. I only used one large zucchini and it was enough to call dinner. I served my fries with homemade Mayonnaise mixed with a bit of Sriracha sauce, although I'm sure there are many different dipping sauces you could experiment with.

Ingredients

1-2 zucchini (depending on the size)

1 egg 

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded parmesan

1/2 cup bread crumbs (I had a bunch of panko and decided to use that instead)

1. Preheat your oven to 425 F

2. Cover baking tray with either wax paper or cooking spray

3. Cut zucchini into 4 inch strips 

4. Whisk egg into small bowl and add milk

5. Mix together your parmesan and bread crumbs into a large bowl or ziplock bag.

6. Dip whole zucchini strips into egg mixture and then into your parm/crumb mixture and lay onto baking tray.

7. Bake for 25 min or until golden brown.

8. Enjoy!

Do you have any recipe suggestions for cooking with Zucchinis?

xx D

Who Disney Desires

This morning I work up around 8am to get ready for an audition for a live stage show at Disneyland. It's about an hour drive to the park, and maybe even and hour thirty during rush hour and on weekends.  Not exactly something I want to be contractually obligated to do. To be honest, I've never had any desire whatsoever to work at Disneyland, although I do know many dancers do. To me it's always seemed like a job you went for when you didn't have any other auditions coming your way, or when you were really wanting extra money. Oh boy was I wrong. 

First of all, some of these dancers were F-I-E-R-C-E! The combo was a tid bit more hip-hop-ey than what's in my comfort zone, but after learning the combo and the comfy pay rate, I turned on the power. there were about 100 dancers all together, most with agency's like myself, and a few freelance dancers. We all learned the combo together and were called 5 at a time to dance twice in front of the casting directors and choreographer. 

Something I was never taught in the ballet world but have learned from years of experience in the commercial dance world, is improv! There are always a few eight counts of music to get you prepared to break out the combo. Well, you don't want to look like an idiot waiting for the dance to start so you have to improv. One thing i've caught on to (although I wish I knew this earlier) is to show off your expertise, even if it may not be exactly in the style of dance you're auditioning for. For example, my forte is ballet, so I'm not going to pop my booty or do split jumps even if it's a hip-hop or lyrical audition. No, I'm the girl doing fouettes in heels to a grand jeté.

To make a long story short, I was in the very last group and by this time I had a pretty good idea of the people the were watching... short, hip-hop training, and DISNEY.... basically everything i'm not. Anyway, after attempting to make fouettes look mildly funky, i'm afraid I looked a little more classically trained than I wanted too, and I got cut. So, I rewarded myself for even going and went to in-n-out for lunch. The end. haha.

Bye bye free park entry passes!

xx D

Fortress Social Club

Last Friday I was working all day on a music video shoot for Fortress Social Club. I was asked to choreograph on 10 dancers including myself to create visuals resembling those of old black and white Busby Berkeley films. If you don't know Busby Berkeley, run to your closest library and rent "42nd Street" or "Gold Diggers" (1933). He was an extremely influential movie director and choreographer who used arial cameras to show geometric shapes with dancers, resembling what I see as a sort of kaleidoscope effect. Needless to say, he was very creative, and it was a pleasure to do my research. For an example, check out this video!

I was hired by an amazing company called Arts & Recreation Group. They work in many different aspects of the entertainment industry. I suppose it's because of their small team and/or desire to do a bit of everything, but it was refreshing to work close with a company willing to hear other artistic opinions. It's not often that choreographers are encouraged or even allowed to have any artistic input other than the choreography, but working with these guys was a blast, and everybody's job was important. 

Don't forget to check out Fortress Social Club on Soundcloud, follow them on Twitter, and like them on Facebook.

Most importantly, keep your eyes peeled for a post after the video is released! In the meantime, here are some more stills from the shoot day. 

xx D

Thinker - Fulfillment

ful·fill·ment/fo͝olˈfilmənt/

Noun:

1. Satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character.
2. The achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted: “winning the championship was the fulfillment of a childhood dream”.

What is it about our generation that makes this seem so hard to achieve?

It seams to me that we have all been taught that to achieve happiness we either have to be rich or doing something we love. It’s a known fact that today more and more people change their careers in the pursuit of work that is more fulfilling. However, accomplishing this gets harder every day.

We see other artists and professionals reaching great success, which results in fear of failure or desire to succeed. Both of which still making it difficult to actually feel fulfilled in the process. 

I can speak for myself in saying, when I see photographers, choreographers, and other artist, I often think to my self ‘I could do what they do! I should pursue more things to fill my time, to be happier’.

Why has it become so hard to be happy where we are now?… Not being a rock star, but enjoying music, not performing behind Beyonce, but loving dancing, not directing movies, but making art. I’m not talking about settling and giving up, I’m simply saying that perhaps taking a step back from the competition to enjoy where you are in the process, can be a good thing. 

So, in light of this, I herby vow for the rest of 2013, to find smaller joys everyday to leave me feeling fulfilled.

Things that make me feel fulfilled:

- wake up earlier 

- eat a full breakfast

- change out of my PJs even when I'm home all day

- make a pointe to get out of the house everyday, even if it's to grocery shop, or walk around the block.

- paint my nails

- tackle my 'To Do' list one thing at a time

- take mini breaks to send texts to Chris

- exercise every day, even for 5 min. (dance parties count)

- smile, life's good!

What I did to kick this off today: 

- woke up early to make my favorite breakfast of 2 soft boiled eggs, soldiers (toast cut into dunking strips), and iced coffee

- took a one hour Cardio Barre class.

- went for a quick swim in the pool to cool off

- tanned for 30 min. (tan lines in a wedding dress = not cute)

- showered (I actually shaved and moisterized too... whoa!)

- sent a work e-mail about a potential job.

- wrote this blog post.

All before 12pm people! It might not seem like much, but in my world, it's certainly doing the trick! Already feeling fulfilled and the day's only getting started!

What's something you do to feel like you've had a fulfilling day? And no, putting things on your 'To Do' list that you've already done doesn't count. (been there, done that)

xx D