Performance - 07/01/09

We returned to the theatre, somewhat warmer than before, and to say we were nervous was an understatement! We waited for what seemed like ages and ages until it was our turn to perform. We were all tired and suffering from cold, but it went really well. It was over in a flash! We all had worked really hard for this, and all our hard work had paid off. We just hope that we did Zoobin proud. It was an experience I will never forget, a 'once in a lifetime' experience for me! We came away tired but exhilarated, and with some good friends and memories. Here's to the next performance - wherever and whatever it will be!

Performance - 07/01/09

After a hectic day and some hotel-based issues, it was a rather emotionally bedraggled party that arrived at the theatre for the performance. However (and it really has to be mentioned!) our group had been working fantastically together, all through the experience, rehearsals, techs, travel... everyone remained positive and energetic throughout - we all knew that the success of the performance rested on our ability to work together and as such we were all positively charged and ready for the task in hand despite the lack of rest.
We had quite a wait ahead of us, mind. And this led to frazzled nerves! We were mostly ready by about 9pm, we'd started to prepare early so we could have time to run through and check our costumes were all secure. As generally happens, the programme began to run late and our slot moved from 10.15 back to almost 11!
Despite the time dragging on backstage the performance itself was over in a flash! Eilidh compared the experience to being on a rollercoaster - you wait for ages then in a blink of an eye and a surge of adrenaline, it's over! I agreed wholeheartedly!
We were buzzing when we came offstage and quickly gathered our belongings before heading back to our hotel bar where we could finally unwind. It was a long, intense day for us all but the experience was well worth it.
Despite the opportunity to take part in some dance classes at the academy, we decided that we'd prefer a free day to do some sightseeing and relax before catching the flight home.
Next stop: Amsterdam!

Technical Rehearsals 07/01/09

Finally the day of performance has arrived!

Strangely, though, I didn't feel like I was preparing for a performance, all the usual nerves were gone, replaced by the 'holiday feeling' generated by ludicrously early start and the anticipation of a long journey.

We all arrived at the airport at around 6.00am, sleepy and cold. By the time we'd checked in, gone through passport control (rather traumatic for me - my jeans buttons were beeping, resulting in being pulled to one side and searched) it was time to get on the plane.

I hate planes. I should point this out at this juncture. REALLY hate 'em. Luckily the plane was quite empty which meant I had a whole row of seats to myself during takeoff. I also had prescription drugs! Way hey! I seated myself, but to my consternation there was no window blind! Pants! I'd have to remember not to look left. DO NOT LOOK LEFT!!! I munched my pills and hunkered down for takeoff... Half an hour later I was still locked down in my seat, muscles seizing up, brain all pink and floaty, still waiting for the wings to be sprayed with de-icer! Damn! Thankfully the flight was uneventful, we landed safe and sound and my drugs hadn't knocked me out too much. I relaxed on the train and by the time we reached Tilburg I was wide awake and ready for the day.

After dumping our bags, puzzling over the somewhat unconventional toilet arrangements at the Central Hotel and quickly wolfing some food we headed off to the theatre for technical rehearsals.

The theatre space was lovely; huge, lofty and monochromatic, very clean and sparse with white floor and black curtains. Oddly, or so we thought, there were no wings. Although we agreed that this looked amazing, it did give us something else to worry about, the practicality of our planned stage entries.

Techs started late, partly due to us arriving at the venue later than anticipated, partly due to the technicians not being ready, which meant we hadn't had time to warm up properly. We walked through the dance, checking lighting, sound etc, but also our entries and cues - very important! Spacing for the quartet was a minor issue as we were threatening to move into Jo's violin-playing spotlight near the end due to the dance's gradual drift from stage right to stage left.

After techs we had a quick coffee with Zoobin then went into a studio for corrections/ amendments.

Zoobin amended some of our opening pieces, Eilidh and Jo came away relatively unscathed, a slight staggering of some of their movements resulting in the two following one another rather than being simultaneous. Holly and Marianna had to focus on making connections with each other and the audience, Holly also had to exaggerate her contractions and jumps. Our trio was not altered too much either, apart from my dropping Heather on the floor needed to be faster and less careful. I was very worried about this. Although Heather said she'd be fine and was near enough to the floor at the drop point not to suffer any injuries, I was still nervous about doing this and worried that I might not do it properly during the performance because of this small anxiety. I understand the effect Zoobin was trying to create with the dropping and know it would look much better than my original catch, I just didn't like doing it. The quartet was the piece that received the most amendment, Zoobin urged us to speed up our movements. We had previously been moving quite slowly, probably imagining Jo's violin to be slower that it actually was in practice. Zoobin cut some small yet fiddly sections and changed some movements to make them less ponderous and quicker to execute.

Just hope we can remember them all for the performance!

Technical rehearsals 7/1/09

The day was finally here for our trip abroad. We all met at the airport after some very early starts and after mentally checking my baggage to make sure that I had my costume, jewellery and candle we boarded the plane bound for Holland. We arrived intact, but we were delayed, as the plane had to clear ice and snow from the wings, and then we circled the airport for a while prior to landing. The nearer Tilburg got, the more nervous we got. We passed the time discussing our logs and applying our nail varnish. Luckily for us, Dutch public transport is much better than ours, so the journey was very smooth so there were no varnish accidents! (If it had been England, then it would have looked like a nail varnish blood bath!) We finally arrived in a snowy and cold Tilburg, and had only a very short time (due to being delayed) to get to the hotel, eat lunch and get ready for the technical rehearsal that was going to start at 1pm. The hotel looked OK from the outside, and the restaurant looked very nice. We checked into our room but had to lug our suitcases up many flights of stairs as the lift was broken. An omen of things to come? We ate, and met Zoobin who was ready to escort us to the theatre. We ate in shifts and got ready to go to the theatre. Zoobin was concerned that we would be late for the technical rehearsal, but we managed to get there on time - checking in, eating and changing took less than 30 minutes. We arrived at the theatre ready to start only to find that the technicians were not there, so we couldn't start checking the lighting and the visuals until they arrived, but we were able to work on some of the spacing. The venue was larger than the places I had performed in before, and there were no wings, which was instantly a concern for us, as we were visible all the time during the performance, so no time to relax! The contrast of the white floor with the black curtains was so dramatic, but we were slightly concerned that our white costumes would blend in with the floor. We started to walk through the solo, duet, trio and quartet sections, and we were too near the back, and not making full use of the space, so that needed addressing instantly. We then ran through the main Ganesha dance, and again, the proxemics needed addressing. We also had to work on this with regard to the lighting effects that were used, for example, and square light for Jo and her violin. Our time using the stage was rather short as we were late to start, but we made the most of it, and after 2 hours, we had a break. Zoobin had booked us a rehearsal room so we could polish certain bits of the work. We all had to focus on intention and eye line - maintaining and creating relationships with performers and the audience. Each section was dissected, and we focused on small bits polishing them. In Jo and Eilidh's section, they worked on precise and clear movements contrasting the sharp head movements of Eilidh's start with the later sections, and worked on Jo's eye line. In Marianna and Holly's section, they focused on making a relationship between themselves, and on the contractions and stretches of one of Holly's sections. It then came to our trio - Me, Bernice and Heather. We hadn't had time to work with Zoobin on this section, so it was the first time he had worked with us on it. Zoobin said that he felt that I was looking around as if I didn't know what I was doing. ON the contrary, I knew exactly what I was doing, I was just checking that we were in time with each other, I suppose this comes down to confidence in the end, and I didn't want to get carried away and end up out of time. Really though, I was fine as I was in time with the other 2, I just lacked confidence in myself. I was pleased that he was working with us on this section as there was one bit we altered - the foot work section that Bernice had mentioned before. In this bit, I thought we were all doing the same, but I was doing a plie in 2nd, where as Bernice and Heather were lunging, I then changed to lunge with them. The hand movements of this section also changed - instead of us putting out hands together, we had to 'push' them together, as if we were squeezing the air. We also used this push idea in the following bit where I push Heather into Bernice's arms to show death. I was pushing Heather to start with, but it was changed to a non contact push. We then worked on this ending where Heather is placed on the ground to make it flow more as it was rather static and the action we had before came grinding to a holt. It was then onto the quartet. We had had timing issues with this, and we thought we had resolved them pretty much, but it still wasn't right. We still needed to work more on the contrast between the fast and the slow sections, and the timing of Bernice's devised bit was not right. We went through the transition from Holly's section to Bernice's section and changed the timing again, this time counting in 3 rather than 4. We also altered the turn, as this was not in time either. The next section to be worked on was the 'look at the ankle' bit. I know that I always felt that I was out of time on this section, but I wasn't - confidence again! We changed the large sweeping 'ankle looking' into more of an 'eagle' movement which meant that we were facing the correct diagonal for the final bit which was the end of my devised work (the start of which began the quartet). With this section, we needed to work on the precise movements and placings of the start and then the transition into the fluid arm movement and turn - we needed to make sure that the contrast was correct, and that we were all doing the same movements, as on the open plie in 2nd, we were meant to be taking our arms down to then swing them to the right and over our heads, back round to the left again. It was a hard and demanding rehearsal, but it left us more determined to succeed and to do ourselves and Zoobin proud. Next stop - the performance!! ARGH!

20/12/08 - Full Dress Rehearsal

This was a sorely needed rehearsal, but the time of year was not the best as we had had a 2 week gap in meeting, and you could tell! I hadn't had time to get a plain jewellery set, and neither had Holly, and it was a good chance for us to Ali get together and go through what w e had and what we needed. We made a list of possible things that we might need: Red felt pens (as I am allergic to the one we normally use), red nail varnish (one person to be responsible for this so that we all have the same colour), 2 silver jeweller sets, anklets, spare bangles (silver, from Primark) and safety pins. I also needed some new tights as I had been sold what I thought were footless tights, but they had feet! (and were very see through!)

We worked on our small sections - the duets, trio and quartet, and then put it all together with the violin. It was then that Bernice and I realised that there was a problem with our trio - the Kathak footwork did not fit in with the fluid and lyrical violin piece. Without the music, it was really effective when combined with our sharp hear movements to convey the character of the ganas. We changed it into a lunge into an open plie in 2nd, and kept the head movement. Bernice and I thought that this was much more effective with the music. Eilidh and Jo had had also made some changes to their duet, like removing the roll, but adding a twist of their hands, which reminded me of 2 elephant trunks intertwining. I was pleased that our quartet was much more secure and I was starting to feel more confident with all the sections now.

We ran through the main dance, and focussed on attention to detail. We split into 2 groups and watched each other, so give constructive feedback. For example, making sure that all mudras were the same etc. We also timed the sections to make sure that we had enough, as some times, we thought that we might not have enough material. We were pleased that we had more than we expected. We also came up with smooth transitions between the duets, trio and quartet so that they flowed into each other and there was continuity.

It was a good rehearsal, and although we all had things to address, we knew what we were doing. We all agreed that we needed to make sure that we watched the recordings of rehearsal sessions to keep us familiar with the work, as it was going to be almost another fortnight 'till we all met again.

30/11/08 The Elephants are losing their heads!

Our trio was difficult to start, we didn't know which part of the story, character, emotion or theme to use, but as Bernice has said, the elephant was out inspiration. We thought about being Shiva's Ganas out hunting, and made some sequences around this theme, but we decided that we needed to rethink our plan. Heather came up with a motif that involved swinging out arms, and at one point, this looked like a swinging trunk, so Heather became the elephant, and we were the ganas. By the end of the session we had a good idea, but we knew that it needed work and developing. We planned to work on this at the next session.

23/11/08 - Duets and Quartets!

A full session today! We did all struggle to remember Bernice's choreography, but it was because it was a totally different style of dance - well it was for me! It was more like 'street dance' than any other style because of the strong, sharp and precise movements rather than the more balletic/contemporary and lyrical Indian movements we were using. I think we also found it hard as we knew we were playing to Jo's violin music, but we hadn't got that to practise with, so the timing was sometimes hard to grasp. We then tried to put it to a count, knowing that the fluidity would suffer, but we needed to learn the steps and and I needed a count to help me memorise them!

I too got my flight booked when I got home, as Bernice said, we needed to make sure we all got on that flight!