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[Pizza9]

Did anyone attend the Pacific region's festival?  It's like SERBA, but for the Pacific region.  

The Wednesday night performance was the emerging choreographers' performance.  Since I was performing in one of the pieces, I didn't get to sit in the audience.  I watched from the monitor in the green room.  One piece by Tucson Regional Ballet was really good- it was a modern piece with 5 girls.

One of the modern pieces on Friday night, Latcho Drom by Charles Maple [performed by Dance Penisula] was really good as well.  It was performed in 1998 at the IBC showcase by another company.  The dancers were really together- movement was clean and sharp.

Aside from those two pieces, I didn't really love any of the other pieces, but that's just me.  The dancers from Crockett-Deane Ballet had really good stage presence.  I was a little disappointed in the Utah Regional Ballet II piece, although my friend loved it.  I know some of the dancers personally, and they're always the company that everyone goes "wow!" after.  They did a good job, but I felt they could have been a bit more together and cleaner in general.  Some parts were really good, but the intensity dipped a couple of times.

I didn't get to see the gala performance [because I was performing in one of the pieces].  Bay Area Youth Ballet performed the 1st and 3rd mov'ts of Concerto Barroco, which a lot of people liked.  Another company performed Valse Fantasies.  The last piece was choreographed by Alan Hineline to be performed at the IBC showcase.  Each company was supposed to send 1 dancer to be in the piece [I think the Mid-states region did something like this?] but it ended up that some companies sent more than one person and some companies didn't send anyone.  It was a modern piece [on flat] to music composed by Jerome Begin.  A lot of the dancers backstage [who were watching on the monitor] really like it.

Some things I didn't like- too much all black or all white costumes.  There were at least 3 pieces that was in black, and three pieces in white leos/skirts.  Also, fouettes seemed to be a little too popular in the emerging performance.

All in all, I think everyone did a really nice job.  Because the theater was small [capacity- 500], there had to be 2 performances each day- 2 emergings, 2 galas, etc.  It's tough performing twice, with about 1.5 hours in between.  Not long enough to really relax and not short enough to stay warmed up.