Good Sunday morning, everyone!

        Summertime seems to have either a heightened intensity-- must maximize every moment of a too-short season of delights!-- or a long, lazy, endless sameness, every day another similarly hot, sticky one with empty afternoon hours to fill with... what? (I haven't felt that kind of summer since I was... ten?).

    In the ballet world, June/July/August means one thing: summer intensive. Four to six or more weeks of dancing, all day long, nearly every day, more teachers, more classes, more styles, more experiences. It's an exciting time. Most ambitious young dancers start planning their summers months or years in advance, thinking not just about having a great time and learning a lot, but strategizing how to position themselves for future advanced training and even a career.

         I was assigned a very interesting topic for my latest Pointe magazine article: the social challenges of summer intensives and how to handle the inevitable interpersonal clashes that arise when lots of excited, nervous teenagers from all over are thrown together in ballet studios and dorms for weeks on end. 

     When I was a student myself, I did two different summer programs over the course of five years and remember only too well the exact issues I was investigating for this piece. Each of the three pros I interviewed offered up such good advice and comforting reassurances that I really do wish I'd had their voices when I was 12, overwhelmed with homesickness and tormented by the strains of peer pressure and cliques during my first summer away. (Remember, Dad? I called home EVERY day, often in tears of loneliness!).

        The main takeaway? Employ the same practices and mindset you'll need as a professional dancer (or anything else)-- take time for yourself, keep your inner "why" front of mind, know your own desires and priorities and stick with them, and remember that someone else's bad behavior is not your fault.

         I recently traveled to Florida to, at long last, meet my Endless Steps collaborator, Gene Schiavone. After over a year and a half of working together, we'd had many phone conversations, countless email exchanges, one Zoom meeting, but never been physically in the same room. So this meeting was overdue and much needed.

   Over just one and a half days, we sorted dozens of photographs, made choices, corrected mistakes and plotted our own next steps for this book. I also got to see Gene's office in his and his wonderful wife Ellen's home, which is a museum of historical artifacts, including his collection of signed pointe shoes from grateful dancers that he's photographed.

      The book is nearing the end of the beginning of its journey. Soon we'll be ready to submit it for initial editorial review. Time moves fast. I'd better get back to work! 

          May your July be as hot or cool or frenzied or calm as you wish, with cool breezes and refreshing dips (in water or on chips), cocktails or mocktails, watermelon eaten outdoors, work accomplished and unpressured hours alone on a picnic blanket or at the coffee shop.

        With love,

          Gavin