Today, presentation of my personal body conditioning programme to the tutors and class, and which I will post partly when it's finished.
And then only personal coaching of Solo from Dark Elegies (Tudor, 1937). After and inbetween rehearsals started watching White Nights with darling Mikhail Baryshnikov in it and some bad Russian accents and had a huge thanksgiving dinner not so compatible with sleeping well or class tomorrow..

I will have the performance exam in a few weeks, performing this solo and the Prélude one from Les Sylphides (Fokine, 1909).

About this solo:

Choreographer - Antony Tudor:

Antony Tudor (1908-1987) believed that ballet could and should engage the general public, not just an elite group. Throughout his career as a choreographer, he chose universal themes such as death, societal oppression and the nuances of personal relationships, exploring emotions at a primal level.

"We do Tudor's ballets because we must. Tudor's work is our conscience."

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Basically, Antony Tudor was born in England and started dancing late in his teens. He payed for his dance classes at Marie Rambert's studios by doing work around the place, and took classes in the evenings because he was working during the day. Apparently he did not love dancing but choreographing most: 
"Although Tudor later admitted he liked dancing in his (and other people’s) ballets, especially dramatic roles where he could emotionally connect with the audience (like Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet), he knew if he truly had ambitions as a dancer, he would have to work on steps, which he loathed. It appeared that, for Tudor, dancing was always a means to an end. And that end was to becoming a choreographer." (Source: http://www.antonytudor.org/index1.html)


Synopsis:

Dark Elegies is danced to the Song Cycle Kindertotenlieder (“Songs on the Death of Children”) by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). This is a work consisting of five songs to lyrics by Friedrich Rückert.

Tudor described this work as his favorite ballet. And many consider it to be his greatest. From tender moments of quiet devastation to careering bursts of rage, Tudor’s “ballet requiem,” set to Mahler’s absorbing Kindertotenlieder, expresses the raw emotion of a tight –knit community faced with the inexplicable loss of their beloved children.