#saleha kuo

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

some of Seth's coworkers/work friends at SVB.

Irma and Bijou are part of the corps, not soloists, and they're pretty recent hires, though similar in age to Seth.

Seth, Casey, Mark and Saleha make up half of the soloists. There are two other male and two other female soloists who I have not bothered naming or describing lol (plus the principal dancers) —these are the dancers Seth hangs out with the most.

Irma!! They're from Brazil! She's genderfluid! Usually based on presentation. As mentioned, a recent corps hire, and enjoys quirky and fun things like bright colors and weird clip-on earrings and stuff! obv that's limited when actually onstage, but for practice stuff anything goes as long as it's not dangerous or whatever. Sometimes Irma binds but only open-chest taping, not like a solid binder. esp when dancing. Is a very versatile dancer, with an energetic, bouncy, bubbly feeling, w/ emphasis on legwork. but again. downplayed when doing group dances. (but hey, danse des petits cygnes... or supporting dancer for the trepak or something...)

Irma's only like, 20, so one of the younger ones.

Bijou. She's not from France, she's American. Dapper butch lol. Has been dancing since childhood but started learning male roles and techniques in her teens or early 20s. "She/her or whatever" = she/her but will respond to like, "sir," or "he/him." Neat freak perfectionist.

She's a very controlled and precise dancer, and very fast and responsive, but can be stiff, or too sharp or severe. She's also not very good at pointe and doesn't really practice it anymore cause she mostly does men's roles but sometimes... there aren't enough men's roles. (SVB has expanded the way they do stuff by reintroducing partnered and co-ed group dances tho so... some leniency)

Me, crying as I try to make sure this guy doesn't look like Flash—Mark!! Short king. Mark is the shortest male dancer at SVB, which mostly favors taller dancers, so he kinda sticks out. Plus he's grumpy and has a permanent resting bitch face... and a slight midwest twang...

Guess what his nickname is:

Anyway Mark is a couple years older than Seth and takes dancing very seriously, may or may not be Seth's ex (I'm still deciding...) and tends to get roles which are villainous or threatening or involve crazy jumps because he is... intimidating and despite being 5'5" and shorter than all of the other men, he can jump higher than at least half of them lol —AND he can lift every other dancer in the company, including Seth, directly over his head.

A master of mid-air spins as well as any and all lifts, throws and catches, can do pointe (not WELL but he can do it because he insists on understanding exactly what the women he dances with are doing, and he isn't insecure about his masculinity so he doesn't care what other people might think) He is purposeful, intense, precise, and powerful, but on the flip side, he's not very versatile and lacks the kind of grace that is needed for like, princely roles or whatever. So he gets EXTREMELY typecast as scary characters except for the rare occasion he's put in drag to do bad pointe work. (cinderella's younger stepsister for example)

Saleha~ the shortest dancer at SVB, period. She... also sticks out like a sore thumb for obvious reasons as a 5'4" hijabi lady surrounded by people who are 5'11", but they can usually make her costumes work, especially for soloist stuff where being noticeable is a bonus. She and Seth are pals and def bond over costume stuff since they both have to get a lot of their costumes modified, albeit for very different reasons. She's Malaysian and came to the states as a kid.

Her dancing style is very light and airy, so she's good for fairies and flowers and phantoms and that kind of stuff. Sylph-like and dainty with crazy good balance. She's also done the stepsister (or is going to? that might actually be a future role not a past role...), like I noted on the drawing. Normally she'd be a weird choice for the younger stepsister in Cinderella since her whole thing is being floaty and graceful, but she's capable of utilizing her strengths to put on an air of exaggerated, flamboyant femininity and fake bad balance where she is constantly teetering around without ever falling, so... she can do it. (vs Mark whose take would be more aggressive and purposefully clunky)

I think she would be good as Giselle.

She's very friendly :>

and of course i've already posted Seth and Casey before:

I just copy pasted and flipped their head from an older ref I drew and slapped it onto the existing body for this since it felt like they were so much less detailed than the others (this is, to be fair, because this sketch was only as a height ref originally so it wasn't as detailed as Casey...) 😂

Seth is of course the tallest dancer at the entire company, often gets relegated to roles "en travesti" which annoys them, so the swan role is like... hell yeah!! and then they get blasted by magic—i mean very scientific geomagnetic waves and get superhuman powers. lol.

Casey—Seth's... boyfriend? Dance partner. Prince Siegfried. He's actually slated to get promoted to principal but at the time I have Seth get their powers, they're both soloists. Casey's a theater guy so he's good at imbuing acting into his dancing, and he's very fluid and graceful, so even the people who hate him have to admit he's very skilled and professional when presented with the evidence (seeing him dance). Plus he's charming and charismatic 😂

He's a very good all-around dancer with a lot of elegance in his movements, and he can do almost anything (though it will be more or less work/difficulty of course) as long as he has enough time to figure it out and get in the zone. Like, a scary aggressive villain is harder for him to do but he CAN do it. He's just better at being a handsome prince or romantic interest than he is at being like... a creepy wizard lol but give him some time... he'll get it done.