20/12/08 - full dress rehearsal

Holistica 3-6pm

Holly Cassidy
Mariana Hitiris
Bernice McBride
Eilidh Newton
Jo Small
Erica Wilson

Thankfully our anticipated clothing crisis was not as terrible as it first seemed. Everyone has managed to either alter an existing gold top or add gold trim to a plain white one (nice work for sourcing the trim, Eilidh!). There seems to be a shortage of ankle bells and Holly and Erica still need to find some uncoloured diamante style jewellery, but that shouldn't be too hard... at least we are all fully clothed!
Today we did a full dress rehearsal, everyone wearing their jewellery, bells and saris (except me - not the sharpest of tools at the best of times, I forgot all my jewellery - tsk!). What is becoming apparent is that we'll be needing a lot of safety pins. Erica made a list of things individuals need to get before the show. We're thinking, to save on weight, just to share one colour nail varnish and lipstick, and to use the lipstick for our Tikkas too. Who knows if this will work, we could end up sightseeing in Amsterdam covered in red smudges, but it's probably the best option for perfomance, least likely to sweat off or stain horribly...
Any way on with the dance...
It was clear that due to the two week break between rehearsals we were all a bit rusty on areas of the dance. Personally, having performed the Ganesha choreography before I was quite confident in that, but felt very weak in the first piece. After a few practices we were more confident, but we'll have to take into consideration the effect the break has had on our performance because it will be another two weeks before we meet again and this time Zoobin will be watching us.
Jo brought her violin to the session this time and it was really good to see how the piece looks with music. We made a few alterations, Eilidh will now be remaining on stage after her duet with Jo, cutting a very striking Ganesha-style pose in the corner of the stage. We just felt this little change added a lot of fluidity and nods towards the Ganesha myth and the vigilance of the god. Erica, Heather and I will have to remove the Kathak footwork from our trio, it is far too heavy for the music. Erica and I will have to discuss this with Heather at the next rehearsal and try to come up with something to replace it.
We all obseved each other's sections in the first part of the dance then split the group in half so we could observe the Ganesha choreography performed and feed back.