A bit fuzzy around the edges…

Awesome!! The show went really well… at least so I’ve been told. My memory of it all is a bit blurry as I was starting to really come down with a nasty bug… blergh!!
I was feeling off most of the day on Friday, all over achy and tired. Still I trotted off for the dress rehearsal keen as a button.
There would be no cameras allowed on the night aside from the official photographer so it would be our only opportunity to get our own snaps. I’d left my good camera behind and picked up our little sport camera as I left home. My classmates’ daughter was going to watch the dress rehearsal as she had volunteered to help in the kitchen on show night and would miss the actual show. She offered to try and get a few snaps for me which was wonderful (and where the photos for this post came from).
The day of the show I was really starting to feel crappy. By the afternoon I submitted and slept on the couch until it was time to get ready and leave.
There wasn’t a lot of room in the backstage change area so I hung out my costumes in order and laid out my bags each containing the accessories I needed for each set in a space that was free. Then it was time to get ready…. The whole time slugging back energy drink and sucking on cough lollies.
The show got started and backstage we gathered around the TV with the video feed from the stage to catch what we could of the other performances.

The first dance I was involved in was a group sword number about halfway through the first section of the show. At the dress rehearsal it had gone really well, the sword balanced well for me and stayed on my head through twists and turns…. But not tonight…oh dear! It started out well but once I got the sword on my head it decided it did not want to be there… what a disappointment.

Still, there wasn’t time to dwell on it, I had to be changed ready for the next number. We would be winding up the first half of the show with a tribal number. I was really looking forward to this number as it changed each time. There was no choreography to remember and so there was nothing you could really get wrong. It was certainly fun to perform!

During the intermission I scurried to get my hair extensions in and the next costume on because we were on second in the next section with our wings number. By this stage I was starting to feel really awful, as we waited in the wings for our turn to perform again I realised I was still sucking on a cough lolly… I crunched it up as quickly as I could as tried to make sure all evidence was gone by the time we needed to be on stage. We had struggled a bit with this choreography. The first time I’d performed it we had nine of us on stage but tonight there was only four. Still the dress performance had gone okay so it should be a breeze…. And it was… that was until about half way through the dance when things started going haywire. I think at different points from here on in we all messed up at different points. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened but it was an awful feeling…. To just be blank… and not know what came next!!! Gah!! I was most pleased to get off stage after that one!!

I had 16 minutes in which to be ready in costume for my next piece… my solo! There was no time to think about what had gone wrong with the wings number! I slugged back more energy drink and popped another cough lolly in my mouth as I hurried to get ready. I wasn’t really nervous… more numb… by this stage it was a struggle to stay upright! I was really pleased with the reaction from other dancers to my performance at the dress rehearsal. I’d been paid so many compliments but even so I still find it a bit hard to believe in myself. I know my music inside out so I wasn’t concerned about forgetting the choreography for this… if I did, I could just improvise… no-one would know any better! I needn’t have worried as it went without a hitch – my first solo in a show, my first solo performance for non-dancers!! Wow! I did it!

One more change of costume, one more performance to go… the finale! I love the number that we’d be performing to close the show. It is such a fun and cheeky number! Aside from not being able to hear some of the base notes to begin with it went without a hitch!!

Hooray!! It was over… all I could think about was getting home to bed which is a bit of a shame! Still, I have the DVD to look forward to!