The Beginning of Sensory Deprivation Overload.

Met Season is now officially underway as the first run of Corsaire comes to an end tonight and Stravinsky is born tomorrow. It has been a long week to put it most bluntly and strange one. Venturing into my third Met Season I was anticipatory but also knew that it would be a different type of season than the past two. There is a sort of comfort that comes with having two seasons under your belt and that is both great and frustrating at the same time. I never like the idea of getting "comfortable" since in the arts world I feel like it has such a negative connotation. However there is a sense of pride in knowing your way around the building, reminiscing about seasons past and not being quite as nervous about the shows in general. The past three days have just been sort of lackluster though at least for me. I don't want to be stuck in any way in my life so I am working hard on avoiding that. I keep trying to push myself in class and work hard in rehearsal even when I am tired.

It's bizarre how exhausted everyone seems already only three days into our 8 weeks of insanity. Exhaustion just comes along with being inside the cavernous Met and being deprived of the outside world for stretches up to ten hours at a time. On top of that it seems as if everyone is fighting off a cold at the moment (myself included) which can't help anyone. The next week brings Stravinsky Spectacular and along with that comes the ballet Petrouchka. For the boys this is the hurdle to get over during the season. Using our legs in a way that is never expected of us on top of doing other ballets each night is going to be a challenge. Some people haven't even really had the chance to get the material under their belts due to the fact that they learned it a mere week ago. Looks like it should make for an interesting string of performances.

While the Met magnifies physical stress it almost acts as Petri-dish for drama as well. Some people you go without seeing for what seems like weeks while others you are living closer to than you would ever wish. Gossip flies, speculation begins and people get bored. I have been struggling a lot recently with learning when to just keep my mouth shut. We have all been in the position where we say "you can tell me, I won't tell anyone" knowing that we absolutely will turn around and tell someone. Not necessarily out of spite; it's just human nature. Finding the people that you can trust is a never ending struggle in life but I just know that I want to be someone that other people can trust. It's harder to act that than to write it on paper though (or in cyber space as it is now). Will all of the stress that is beyond our control during this Met Season, I figure I might as well not act as an instigator to anything else. There are bound to be enough unexpected turns without me prompting anything.