HI, I’m Adam Bloodgood. My girlfriend Izzy Overstreet and I joined San Diego Ballet the fall of 2017.
Izzy and I met in Atlanta when we were both “on the road”. Travel is quite common in the dance world, whether it be for summer programs as a kid or touring as a professional adult.
I have always wanted to travel. Growing up in Seattle, both of my parents were constantly reminiscing about the life they shared touring with my dad’s band Bloodgood throughout the better part of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. From my perspective, “getting out” was simply what adults did.
Izzy’s first taste at wanderlust began as young girl exploring her great grandmother’s antique jewelry chest. Within Pandora’s box were the rings, golden bracelets, and amber pendants passed down from her great-great aunts, the Burr sisters, famous in the Overstreet family for spending their life traveling all over Eastern Europe.
When Izzy and I first met, this commonality found almost innately in our families helped bring us together, and has continued strengthen our bond ever since.
During our post-Nutcracker break, we traveled to England to visit Izzy’s family. This trip had a profound effect on us both, individually and collectively.
While we were in London, we took class at Pineapple Studios with our lovely co-worker Georgie Parfitt. There’s an age-old cliche saying, “the dance world is so small,” but like a lot of cliches, there’s a good reason this one exists. The first day we took class I ran into an old friend I trained with at School of American Ballet that I had not seen for a decade.
During our brief two-day tenure at the studio, we took class alongside many talented, hard-working dancers who didn’t look at us twice until I broke the ice with my now impressionable American accent…
Later in the trip we saw Royal Shakespeare Company perform All’s Well That Ends Well. For me, this was something I never thought I would get to experience in my lifetime. But, thanks to Izzy’s superb planning, we were able to fit it into our schedule.
Towards the end of our surrealistic journey, we stopped at Abbey Road Studios. As a musician, I will never be able to accurately articulate how I felt getting to stand where so many timeless recordings had been captured.
I felt very comfortable in London. There’s something homey to me about a city that’s usually gray and semi-raining, I wonder why…
After a life of traveling, no trip has ever left such an impression on me. Growing up, England existed only in legend to me. This one small island was packed full of nearly mythical artists, scholars, and teachers; no mere mortal could compare themselves to the individuals from such a place. Having now seen some of these places in person, I realize that is the daily commitment to work that has made this place what it is. There was no sorcery or inhuman quality to the places or people I witnessed in the UK.
Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” In my book, nothing could be more true.
After this reflection, I say it’s time to get back to work in the studio. Until next time!
-Adam