EVIL PEOPLE FORCING PEOPLE TO SPEND moneyEnded up pending another $339, which, in addition to what I’ve already spent on my subscription plus Alessandra’s farewell performance, brings my total ABT spending this MET season to nearly $800. I said Met, by the way; ABT spending total was over $1,000 including City Center. Am I crazy? Are other ABT fans this insane?
Eh. In addition to my dwindling bank account due to ABT addiction, I am worried about this:
We only have a matter of weeks now until the performance and I only have half the choreography semi-memorized. I feel like I really should be tripling and quadrupling up on lessons from now until then, but at $95 per lesson, that’s several thousand dollars. Plus, I still owe hundreds more on the actual showcase cost. Not to mention the several-hundred-dollar costume. The hard thing about ballroom expenses are that you don’t really think about how much you’re spending until you look at your credit card statement and have a near nervous breakdown. It’s not like going to Woodbury Commons and spending several thousand dollars on clothes in a few hours. You’d realize how much you were racking up and would be incredibly reckless not to be able to control yourself. With ballroom, you have a definite and serious goal in mind, you have to be good, very good, performance-quality good by a certain date, and when it means you have to practice practice practice, which, since ballroom depends on two and one of you is your private lesson teacher, means spend spend spend. You don’t realize how much you’re spending because your focus is on your goal. And once you’ve already committed and put down a deposit, it’s too late, there’s no turning back.
Ugh. I guess from now on, I should set aside several thousand — seriously, probably no less than $6,000 — before committing to a showcase or competition. Or maybe committing to a competition far far far in the future and then just taking one lesson every other week. But, no, actually; I’ve done that before, and, just because of the student / female ‘I’ll never be good enough’ mentality, when it gets close to the show / comp you can’t take enough lessons. I blogged yesterday about ways to save on costumes, and now I’m thinking I may even go to Capezio and see what they have in stock that I can dress up myself. Mirella sometimes makes fancy leotards and I can buy some matching chiffon and go to the Garment District and find some rhinestones to glue on myself…? Maybe…
And then I have Blackpool coming up. I’ve already paid my fee for the festival, and fortunately B&Bs and food there are very cheap, but I still have the plane ticket…
What can I say? It’HARD having a dance addiction! No one understands… Is there a way to get paid for this???
Tell me about being addicted and the cost of it! I’m looking at NYC Ballet schedule and trying to reduce my Spring dates to under 20. Luckily, in honor of the Lincoln Kirstein 100th birthday, NYCB has lowered prices in 4th Ring for the Spring season. Still, it is quite an outlay, especially when I also have my opera addiction to deal with.
I know, Philip! The NYCB is my only saving grace with their awesome 4th Ring Soc. discounts!!! Thank the lord for them at least! I know — THIS is why I cannot become an opera fan!!!
By the way, it’s funny but when I wrote this entry and copied the images into my post on my small computer at home, they are A LOT smaller — closer to the size they are on ABT website. But when I get to work, on my larger screen, they are so big! So I guess the layout of the images depends on your computer screen. For the record, I did NOT mean to make Marcelo’s headshot and that underwear pic of D take up the entire screen, ha ha!!!
hey, when is Alessandra’s farewell performance?
Hey Tonya,
Are you sure you didn’t make those pictures so big deliberately? Pictures of those guys could never be too big for me!!!
I also did my exchanges on Sunday and I feel so poor now – it’s a good thing they lowered the NYCB prices this season or I’d really be hurting
The Ferri Farewell is the 6/23 evening performance. I had to trade for it and the woman at the box office said that it’s nearly sold out. I had to get really creative to find seats that I would be happy with – the Met is so huge and I didn’t want to be up in the rafters for this one…
Hi Susan! Thanks for visiting my blog! And thanks for looking up that date — I was too busy earlier. Wow, get your ticket soon, Dea! We’ll definitely have to meet up at the Met this season, Susan!
Ooof, I’m lad as far as classes go, I only have to pay for weekly group classes, and the occasional couple of hundred dollars for a weekend workshop or master class.
Costumes and props, though, oh my god. I have about $3000 of costumes and miscellaneous accessories in my closet right now. And that’s not counting CD’s, DVD’s, or any costume pieces I have sold to other dancers. I don’t enjoy the process of adding all of that up. And it could be a lot worse, since only one of my costumes is “pro quality”