The show went well enough. I'd be lying if I said it came off without a hitch. There's no such thing. Someone will always be performing either ill or injured and someone will always be prevented from performing due to illness or injury. Someone will be thrown into a part with no prep time and pull it off admirably. Someone will almost be thrown into a part with no prep time and get a reprieve at the last minute with much relief. Almost everyone comes out with a story of how they almost destroyed the whole performance. Personally, I lost my spot on some tight turns, jumped the wrong way, and damn near smacked into the Winter Queen. Probably looked like bowling-for soloists to the audience. Less than graceful, but nearly smacking into the soloist is better than actually smacking into the soloist. So it goes.
I followed that move up by waiting in the wings on the wrong side of the stage. A friend whispered, “Wait, aren’t you supposed to be over there?” I’m really glad the expletive that came out of my mouth was not audible to studio manager. I booked it behind the screen to the other side of the stage and managed to bouree out just in time with my partner.
That was harrowing.
Between shows, I took myself out for a cup of tea and tried not to dwell. I’m a good dweller. I can dwell with the best of them.
Shawn and Luke met me for dinner in Davis. I saw them in walk into the restaurant and snuck up behind Luke. Getting down on my knees, I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around. “Mommy!” He catapulted a hug at me. Oh, this helps. This helps a lot.
“How did it go?” Shawn asked with a kiss. This helps too.
Back at the theatre, we tried not to get Valentine’s candy on our costumes and waited for our last shot at this. Half way through the winter piece, there was skip in the music and the tempo dropped by close to half and stayed there for the rest of the show. There was one sequence with the whole cast of winter where we went up and down like popcorn rather than jumping unison while we tried to adapt, but after that we somehow miraculously pulled it together. When the curtain finally dropped, we all turned and hugged each other because it was over, because we survived, and because we were proud of each other for pulling it off.
Of course this was performance they video taped.
Why do I dwell on the oopses? Well, as aforementioned, I am a dweller. But that’s not really it. With rare exception, you’ll never perform anything as good on stage as you did in rehearsal when your muscles were warm, you were at your ease, and the whole world wasn’t looking at you. It’s dealing with the oopses that marks a performance as unique, that and the inability to back up the track on the stereo. It’s working with that group personality and doing the best you can to scrape it together. I’m glad that they taped the bad-tempo performance. It was far from our cleanest show, but we pulled it off. We made it work. I’m kind of proud of us. This group that I dance with is pretty amazingly supportive all things considered. How we rally around each other in spite and because of the oopses is another amazing thing about performances.
Back to reality.
I came home and washed my face three times to get the makeup off and my hair twice to get out the gel. I put my earrings back in and slid my rings back on my fingers. That feels good. I’ve barely been home for four days, but in my absence, my long-awaited yarn arrived, as did my collector’s edition of Angel, so I’ve got some vegging with a pair of knitting needles in my very near future.
And I have pointe class tonight.
So it goes.