The Literacy Course students are pleased to present a series of interviews with SOLE students about their cool projects, experiences, and adventures outside of school.
My Interview With Miku
Andrew Russell
May 24, 2022
We have a star here at SOLE! SOLE student Miku starred in a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty. Last week I interviewed Miku about her experience. Here’s what we talked about.
Andrew Russell (AR): What were some of the struggles that came with doing this?
Miku (M): I’d say there weren’t really that many struggles. I’ve been on stage before so it wasn’t really that much of an issue, really. I would say that some of the struggles would be like finding time to do it, because sometimes, like rehearsals, they come up on short notice and you can’t really change anything. It’s either you go or you miss it.
AR: What was something you learned from this experience and how could you apply that to future ballets?
M: One thing I learned is that if something happens when you’re on stage, you typically just wanna keep on doing what your part is. You can’t really just stop in the middle so you kinda just have to deal with it, own up to it, and depending on what it is you might get laughs from the audience but yeah. So really I’d say that the lesson you kind of learn from that is if a mistake happens, let it happen and try not to do it next time.
AR: What was one of your favorite memories from doing this experience?
M: Well there’s a lot, but I’d say one of the greater ones was just all the people there. Not only the dancers but your fellow supers, which are basically actors not dancers. And also the staff there are really nice, really talkative.
AR: Do you remember what your reaction was when you found out you got the part?
M: I guess I was kind of surprised. It was the same ballet that my dad was going to be doing and he is well known in the opera and somewhat in the ballet industry as an actor so when they reached out to him, they asked if I wanted to- no actually he asked if there was a part for me. So then they looked into it and said yeah; I was kind of surprised.
AR: So you kind of had those expectations, since this is something that your father did?
M: Yeah!
AR: Can you describe how it felt on the first day of the show? Do you remember what you were feeling that day?
M: I was kind of excited; I mean a little bit scared, like I had the stage fright. Well, not really stage fright, but I had butterflies in my chest, but it was pretty exciting. The part I had, I was right next to the dancers for the most part so I could see all of them up close, and yeah. It was a really good experience.
AR: I just have one more question for you. After this experience and the ones that came before, do you want to continue doing ballet? Is that a career path you want to set out for yourself?
M: Honestly? Yeah. The first ballet I did was five or six years ago, it was Sleeping Beauty. And then I just recently did Sleeping Beauty a few months back and now I’m doing rehearsals for Swan Lake. So yeah, I think it’s something that I want to do and you also get paid for doing it so yeah.
AR: That’s all the questions I had. Is there anything else you want to say?
M: I will say though, this came up a few questions ago. For struggles I’d say like one of the struggles you might get is the costumes. Cause I know the first time I did Sleeping Beauty, two of my costumes had a lot of buttons and if you missed one you’d have to redo it all over again. They are also just really hard buttons to do up, in general.