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.