Clan

Possibly the worst thing about being a swinger is that you always have that feeling of being under-rehearsed. Granted that the fit and healthy of us had a very short turn-around time from Gathering but I think I would still benefit from a week in the studio working it all out. On the positive side, however, is that not having very much rehearsal time, I can do have a got-nothing-to-lose attitude. Make a mistake? No problem, just blame it on not having much of a chance to rehearse...

... though this approach loses credibility when you consider that we spend three days in the studio in Sydney last week...

Tonight's performance could have been better. The section that I got put back in tonight was full of detail that I missed because it was all going too fast. Thank God for the State of Origin, there wasn't many people in the audience watching me fumble about on stage, prefering instead to watch the blues fumble a pass to give the series away to the maroons. Tomorrow I have an extra rehearsal to cover a solo, which will be difficult because it is so idiosyncratic of the original dancer.

It's good to be challenged; sometimes I believe that, sometimes I'd rather take it easy, is that a bad thing?

Technorati Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Swing, Swinger

I don't normally give my boarding pass a second look but as I was waiting for that tiny Qantas plane to take off to our next tour destination, I noticed in the bottom corner: FF SLVR. When did that happen?

It's no surprise, really. This particular tour has had us flying all over the country already. So many planes. The upgrade from Bronze to Silver quietly slipped past unnoticed. Great! I haven't used any of my points yet, maybe I should see if I've got enough for an upgrade for when we go to the UK (which seems to be going ahead now, despite the tour being reduced to only three venues, it doesn't matter 'cos I'm finally going to London which will be really cool).

We've taken to the skies again. We seem to be on tour forever. The injury seems like so long ago. Although we've spent a total of five weeks away from Sydney on this tour, these weeks have been in periods of one or two weeks and we actually spent a whole week at home last week. It's better than the marathon regional tour we endured in 2004, where we were away from home for five weeks visiting on average two towns every week; by about halfway the towns seemed to look all the same. (The whole tour went for seven weeks but the last two were practically in our backyard: the 'Gong and Newcastle.) At least I got some good pictures! But the agony of not having a decent cup of coffee every day and the monotony of seeing the same faces day in day out got really tiring. The numerous times we've been home through this tour have been a welcome opportunity to recharge. But we haven't done Clan for over a week, indeed we've been rehearsing a different program altogether, hopefully getting back into performance mode won't be too difficult.

Where are we now? Gladstone. We were here almost three years ago and, prior to our return, I could barely remember what it was like. There were tall chimneys (the aluminium industry) and all the nice beaches were way out of town. Oh, and there was a Mexican restaurant. If I didn't take a photo of it back then, I probably don't remember it.

Technorati Tags: Photos, Travel, Bangarra, Qantas, Frequent Flyer Points, Silver, Aluminium, Gladstone, Queensland

I'll lend you fifty dollars. Interest free!

Someone slap me. I was quite inebriated, talking to RP early this morning in the hotel lobby. She had just had her handbag stolen and, having recovered her handbag and mobile, was still missing her wallet. Luckily we were with a large group of people, most far more sober than I and once it became apparent that the bag was missing the others were on the ball. The handbag sans mobile and wallet was found in the women's toilet and when the others repeatedly called RP's mobile, she was able to hear her ringtone which led them to the two women that we suspect were the thieves. The thieves tried to get rid of the phone near a bin outside the club. The others confronted the women and were able to alert the police, who took them away in their paddywagon.

By that stage I was having difficulty focussing and thought it was time to go home. RP had to go back to the hotel to cancel her cards and a large group of us went with her.

It was a shame that the night ended so early, I was in bed by three. We had just finished our last show in Townsville and, with BO-A's birthday next week, it was time to get charged up. We initially started in PT's room but, with about twenty very loud people in the room, the manager came up to tell us to move on. Actually, he handled the situation very well (unlike our experience in Gosford where the manager barged into the room, ripped the stereo's power cable from the wall and started yelling at us...) and as we began to congregate in the lobby he actually directed us into the boardroom so that we could continue our little party. Awesome!

That being said, the boardroom was lacking... er... atmosphere, you could say, so we moved on to Coyote Ugly. Needless to say I was already pissed by this stage but it was so much fun there. Our group was so big we took over the dance floor and just LET IT RIP! We were having so much fun, the thieves were able to sneak away with RP's handbag. Almost, though, because DB's friend thinks she saw it happen and thought it was quite suspicious but wasn't too sure at the time because our group had grown quite large.

Later on that day, while I was feeling extremely seedy and wandering around town, RP was busy at the police station. Apparently the police officers hadn't filed a report, which is extremely inconvenient because, among other things, Qantas wasn't about to let her on tomorrow's plane without ID. Not good. I offered RP the fifty dollars again and she said she might get it off me tomorrow morning.

Tags: Townsville, Coyote Ugly, Clubbing, robbery.

Clan in Canberra and in many ways I felt like I had returned. It was here in Canberra that I first took up dance training that had sent me on my way to Bangarra. At the end of our media call on the day of our opening night the general manager of the theatre approached me to tell me that he was pleased to see an ex-Canberran back on his stage, a sentiment he repeated at the post show reception that night. It was a bit of a shock and perplexing really because, at that point I wasn’t really doing that much in the show; it seemed that having a post-injury me as the “swing person” was more important than getting me back into all of my roles. Which it is, I guess, but it makes it no less disappointing, and after all that anticipation of returning to form in the city that started me off.

By Saturday, however, due to yet another injury in the company, I found myself back in rather aptly titled section Power, the most demanding of the roles that I was to have in the program before I had injured myself. Misfortune had given back what she had initially taken away from me and it was both exciting and daunting, considering that for the past month I had had such a cruisy role in the show. At least I had the matinee that afternoon to rehearse before the “big one” that night, closing night, when JPB and a handful of other friends were to be in the audience. For those who haven’t seen the program, Power is almost entirely partner work (with a section in the middle where we sit down at the back and watch other dancers for a bit) and having not run it entirely for almost two years, I was more than a bit nervous.

Then again, as I said in a previous post, I’m much more relaxed about this whole dancing thing. Strangely enough, in the matinee, it was Power that was the best executed of my roles, the others suffering firstly from nerves and lastly from the exhaustion of actually having to exert myself. I was just happy to be back again and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole way through, even though I felt like I wanted to cough up a lung or something.

So I’m back in Canberra, I’m back doing the hard stuff. I don’t know how long I’ll be doing this role, I may revert back to being the swing. But it doesn’t matter. I had a taste of it, I can give it back now. None of the up-coming tour destinations mean as much to me as Canberra did.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Clan, Canberra, roundabout, swing.

Almost two years ago we were at the Griffith Regional Theatre teching through Spirit after completing what seemed like a tough major-cities season of Clan. Looking at the cramped wing space and the unforgiving sightlines, one of us jokingly pondered “what if we had to do Clan here?” For those who didn’t get to see it in 2004, the first half of Clan involved heaps of technical trickeries, props, quick changes and lots of quick exits-and-entrances, all for the purposes of reflecting on the man David Unaipon. Difficult for everyone involved.

I guess we asked for it.

And it’s more difficult this time ‘round, for the second half of Clan 2004 has been replaced by Rations, which is its own logistics nightmare for a travelling regional tour. Besides the dancers finding themselves at certain times in the show dancing with tin cans on their heads, throwing large flour bags across the stage, being wrapped up and rolling about in blankets, and flipping over and under a ‘fence', there’s also a large ten-metre ring that has to fly in and out throughout the dance. FR really likes her props.

What if? It was an important question back then. At the time I was having all sorts of anxieties with dance and, even just doing the relatively cruisy Spirit, going onstage came with a feeling of unease and dread. My nerves couldn’t cope with Clan again.

Two years and many frequent flyer points later we’ve finished our one show of Clan in Griffith and, well, everything went alright. It’s a shame that the only thing I exert in the first half is my voice box and that I’m only partly involved in the second half (thanks to the injury). But even if I’d been fit enough, the idea of doing this show doesn’t seem as crazy as it was back then. That Spirit regional tour was a seven-week marathon with its own demands and pressures but I think it allowed us to consolidate all that we gained as performers in Clan 2004. And having just completed the Gathering program with the Australian Ballet, it seems that just about everyone in the company has taken steps up. There seems to be more of a sense of ease and familiarity of this thing dance. The difficulty is there but there’s less anxiety about the whole thing.
I can’t wait for Canberra, where I get to flex my newly repaired calf muscle. My roles have changed since the injuries but there’s promise of getting more stage time.
And back to that original question, “what if?” Well the exits and entrances weren’t as slick as they have been, and there are some elements missing (such as the fantastic light boxes that fly in and out at the start of Motion) but all in all it’s there. And I guess it worked because there was quite a lot of applause at the end.

Tags: Bangarra, Dance, tour, Clan, Griffith, Spirit.

A couple of the other dancers had made the trek up Anzac Hill in Alice Springs to see the sun rise over the Alice. Although I have only a limited role in the current Bangarra tour I still didn't think it was a good idea to head off when we're doing full days in the theatre. The morning of our travel day to Darwin seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a trek. As with Castle Hill in Townsville, it seems like the only reasonable reaction to a big lump of rock is to climb it so at six in the morning I found myself rugged up and bleary-eyed walking in the pre-dawn darkness along the barren Todd River, racing to beat the Sun. Fingers frozen because I had neglected to pack my gloves and because I was holding my icy cold tripod in one hand.

But the effort was worth it. The streets of the Alice were slowly waking up and the sky was growing bluer and brighter. Three of the other dancers finally made it up the hill after me just in time to get front row seats for the daily spectacle, my tripod already set up and capturing the view and there were already a handful of random people also waiting around. A band of pink slowly swept across the sky to herald in the Sun, which finally emerged above the horizon as a piercing and brilliant glow. Several cameras suddenly went into action, including mine.

About an hour later we were back at the Alice Springs Resort tucking into a well-deserved hot breakfast, feeling energised from seeing such a glorious view. It was a good way to top off a pretty exhilarating few days in the Alice. The night before the company was receiving rapturous applause from an almost packed house at the Araluen Arts Centre. We even got a second curtain call, which is pretty special for a regional show. It was especially good because an hour prior to that there was serious drama going on backstage as the directors were trying to work out how to replace one of the dancers who had just received a blow to the nose and was off to get it checked out by a doctor. Conveniently enough DB has quite a big role in the second half including a solo that nobody else in the company had gotten around to understudying. None of this applied to me as I have such a reduced role in the show already but when the second half commenced there was quite a bit of anxiety as to how the show was going to go.

Half way through "String" there were a couple of strings in the wrong place. We were all able to work around them but it was clear that we were all on edge.

But once it was time for DB's solo, the anxiety started to lift as PT took to the stage. He had volunteered to improvise to fill in the time. It was both amazing and funny to watch from side stage, with the knowledge of the extremely late "casting change", just about the entire company were watching on the sides cheering him on as he proceeded to twist and turn to the music. The energy onstage had changed, it was another one of those amazing electric moments that I hadn't seen since Ground Force in Melbourne. And no one in the audience besides the directors were none the wiser.

In the space of half a day I had been blown away twice.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Alice Springs, Anzac Hill, Sunrise, Northern Territory, Clan

Sorry for not blogging for so long. I've been taking my time with a revamp of the whole thing. It's hopefully coming in the not too distant future...