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!