A split week in Mesa, AZ and Albuquerque, NM!

February 8, 2010

Laura Yanez, Soloist, Boyne Company

Happy February everyone! This week on tour we started a stretch of split weeks, where we perform in two cities per week. This generally means a lot more traveling, packing and an extra need for sleep…at least for me! Tour goes by in a whirlwind when we are seeing more than one city a week. Fortunately, for the first half of this week, we were able to stay at the Phoenix Baltimore and commute to Mesa, Arizona for shows.

That being said, we had another golden day on our hands this Monday! Many people took a four-hour journey to see the Grand Canyon. The pictures they took were spectacular, and they even got to see the sunset over the canyon.

Others drove to dance captain Maeve Croke and her fiancé Darren Maguire’s house for the night. It’s always a great comfort to be at a home when we’re on tour, and I’m sure they had a great time sitting outside during the evening by a chiminea fire and sleeping in their own beds for the night!

Still others (including myself) decided to stay put at the resort to relax all day by the pool. It was a sunny, beautiful day and I hope I got enough of a tan to last me through the winter! This is the last full day off we will have in a while, so I think everyone made the most of it.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we performed at the state of the art Ikeda Theatre. It was a gorgeous theatre in the artistic and cute downtown Mesa area. On Wednesday, we celebrated a very special birthday….our resident baby Rian’s first birthday! During intermission, we all piled into the company management office to attend a party planned by our Company managers, Jesse and Ryan. It is hard to describe how much fun this balloon filled, clown attended celebration was, but I hope you can get an idea from the pictures! I think the guest of honor was a bit confused by all the excitement, but he definitely enjoyed his birthday cake!

Thursday we took a short flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we were greeted by the cold for the first time in many months! Mountains surround this pretty Western city and the high altitude made for a very athletic show for everyone. The city is known for hot air balloons, so Friday morning, Irish Dancers Billy Kanaly, Marcus Maloney, Craig Ashurst and John Grimes took a morning ride over the area. They all enjoyed it, even Craig who was pretty nervous about being in a tiny basket in the sky!

On Sunday, we had our annual Super Bowl pool while we watched the game in between numbers of our second show. Every time I have played something like this, I find that the people who know the least about football seem to win, and this year was no exception!! Flamenco dancer Rocio Montoya took away the big prize as the Saints beat the Colts 31-17.

Monday, we head very early to Amarillo, Texas for three shows and perhaps a bit of snow! See you then…

Laura