Dress Rehearsal

The end of year show for Dance Til Dawn is this weekend (omg I know, right!?).  This means we had a dress rehearsal yesterday to run lighting checks and basically see what kind of shape we were in for our paying audience.

And there's all sorts, little girls from no older than 3 all the way up to us old timers.  It seems to be organized chaos, but I stride on in there with my chinese takeaway in hand and I am pointed to the adult dressing room, which is a kitchen.  Which is handy, cause I need a fork!

Anyway, unload my stuff, meet some of the other ladies I've never seen before because they do tap, jazz, contemporary, etc.  I get changed into my costume and realize that I've not brought my makeup and I make a mental note to pack that along on friday, as I was looking a bit pasty in comparison.  And after all, stage lights wash you out and if you're not wearing loads of makeup, you're not doing it right.

Because I'm in the second half of the show, I take the opportunity to watch the other dances.  And let me just say, the little girls and the girls who are younger than me, but far better than me, are my favorites.  The little girls just sorta flail adorably and say hi to their mums and dads who are beaming with pride.  The older girls just remind me of what could be.

Stroll back to the dressing room to don my sarong and get my slippers on.  I follow my classmates backstage and we await our turn in the dark amongst the curtains.  And then our music comes on and the lights change for us and we classical walk our way out there.

This is when everything went wrong for yours truly.

My feet have decided that they're done for the day and they're not having any of this dancing nonsense and just give up.  My arms, however, troopers that they are, desperately try to remember what they're supposed to do, but they're about 10 counts behind and just waving uselessly about the place.

I'm blinded by the lights and and trying to catch a sneaky glance of the others to try and catch up, but it's over.  I'm facing the wrong way, just lost on stage.  And while I can't see much, I'm sure I can feel Dawn's eyes of disapproval on me.

Feeling utterly embarrassed with myself, vowing to practice this at least one thousand times when I get home, we leave the stage and the next group comes on after us.

We're all crammed backstage now, the next dancers doing their thing and we can't find the door.  10 grown women and we are stuck, where loads of small children succeeded before us, we failed miserably.

Of course we're laughing, because it's been about 2 minutes now and if we don't figure this out, we're gonna create a massive jam.  Suddenly light floods in and we're free.

Head back to the kitchen/dressing room for a debrief on how we did, thankfully I wasn't the only one who wasn't feeling terribly confident for our upcoming performance, but they have other things to do and are off.

I start to practice.