Four years, four minutes.
Four Years
We had just finished our first quick regional tour around NSW, presenting a program of bits and pieces pulled together from repertoire. Just about half of the company were new dancers and so there wasn't much there to really stretch us, it more like Introduction to the Life of a Touring Professional Dancer. When we got back to Sydney, Moth was one of the first pieces that Stephen worked on for Bush and it featured the auntie/nephew partnership of DB and ST. Not quite Fonteyn/Nureyev, it was still quite enduring, and Moth became a signature duet for both of them and was performed numerous times both in Bush and on its own for one-off corporate gigs and stuff. CK and I were the official understudies but, back then, there wasn't a really concrete idea of the understudy beyond "just in case someone gets injured but it probably won't happen so don't worry about it". Besides, in Bush it really wasn't practical for me to do it anyway, considering I'm in the piece immediately prior to it.
Like all living things, Moth grew over the four years along with the dancers. For four years I kept an eye on it, noticing the changes made to it along the way. But even with the departure of ST from the company last year, there didn't seem to be any chance of me ever performing this duet as Bush has been to just about everywhere in the country (with the glaringly notable exception of Perth).
Four minutes
So there I am, settling into first plie immediately behind DB's right shoulder, waiting for the first of many abrupt strings that are the little flutters of my moth-shadow wings. The stage is small, rough and rickety. We are in the Paddington Town Hall, it had been a hot and humid day and, with the venue having no cooling system, there were large aluminium tubes connected to air-conditioning machines pumping cool air into the hall. A few moments into the dance I overbalance and almost fall over. There are people watching from their tables right next to the tiny stage and their gaze is putting me off.
This is my official Moth debut. Not Sadler's, not the Kennedy Center, not the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. But here. After four years. It was surreal, as if I was lying. "Hah! You've come to see Moth but, instead, all you're getting is this."
It was about halfway through the duet when I get a connection with DB and it starts feeling like a dance. Dance like nobody is watching, and for a moment it was true. But then I almost dance DB off the stage and my hand nearly hits the projection screen and I'm back in the stuffy old venue, on the rickety old stage. I was so conscious of making noise, as every landing from a jump was a loud thud on this stage and with people less than a metre from the front of the stage it was absolutely possible that they could hear my breathing. I am a shadow, I'm supposed to be quiet.
Four minutes later, we were taking our curtain-less calls. Maybe it'll be another four years before I do that again.
BTW, the event was for Yalari, an organisation that gives indigenous kids the support to get through secondary school. Even Robbie Williams had donated something to the silent auction: he's a good sort, isn't he?
