Baby's first LecDem

Today was Dance in the Community's first community performance!! We danced for half of the 5th and 6th graders at the campus school. We technically had a gig on Sunday, but we didn't do our full program and the goal was just to entertain rather than entertain and educate, so I don't think it really counts. I have a lot of experience with community performances; I joined my studio's performance group when I was 10 and we performed on a semi-frequent basis. The most elaborate gig we ever had (in my seven years of performing) was pretty simple. It's a toss-up between the day we performed Peter and the Wolf three times in one day and the day we did two completely different ballets for one school. The latter was more fun, because it was one of the only times we danced at a city school, the kids were hella smart and asked really intelligent questions, the program was more varied than usual, and they bought us pizza. Actually, the triple show was at a city school, too; interesting coincidence.

We danced for an arts festival, terrible community theater productions (that's right, Towne Players, I'm looking at you), a few nursing homes, for fundraisers, and a girl scout precinct meeting (I don't think that's the right word, but it was all the troops in a hefty chunk of suburb, so there were a ton of people there), but my favorite venue was always the schools. Fun fact: Suburban schools in the Western New York area all have the exact same floor plan, and by my third year, I had it memorized. The campus school is laid out in much the same way, and when I walked in, I almost swooned from nostalgia. It was so familiar! The only thing that was missing was the super-elaborate movable set from Peter and the Wolf (which included a house frame to which a gate attached, a wall that several dancers had to stand on/dance on at the same time, a wooden tree, a fake potted ficus, and a pond) and the costumes made of spandex, feathers, and faux fur.

Our lec-dem was much less elaborate than Peter and the Wolf. Every dance has to be explained, and we had to sort of...stall at times where the program wasn't as well-developed or thoroughly rehearsed. First we had to introduce ourselves, then we started with an African dance called "Funga Alafia." (Coincidentally, I learned the song in elementary school when a group did a lecture-demonstration for us! I don't remember if they did the dance though.) Chelsea, a lovely girl who taught us the dance originally, talked the kids through the song and told them about African dance, and we had them sing while we danced and Marilyn (our professor) drummed. It got a little awkward when their clapping didn't exactly line up with the drumming, but they fixed it rather than give up completely, which was impressive.

From there, we went into "Steam Heat" from The Pajama Game. That was my baby, so I got to talk about it. I'm really proud of my speech, but it requires some backstory. When we did Peter and the Wolf in schools, my teacher Lisa had a speech that she'd go into beforehand, breaking down every character and the distinctive way they moved that made them look like whatever they were supposed to be. (For example, the bird had feathers that she fluttered, but the duck held her feathers in a different way because she swam.) I knew this speech by heart by the time I graduated, and it really was well-made. It was designed to engage the kids (who were often just shy of babies, like 3 or 4 years old) at the time and to keep them engaged throughout the dance. Children tend to get bored if they spend a long time watching something without words or anything specifically designed to get their attention. When Lisa showed them the movements, even with the narration to tell them what was going on, they could think, "That must be the bird! Look at the feathers! I bet that's what birds do when they're scared. I hope she doesn't get eaten!" and feel like they were a part of the story. I wanted to do the same thing, so I told the kids about Bob Fosse having a kind of weird body, and told them to look for round shoulders and turned-in feet while we were showing them the dance. I think it worked! They definitely seemed really interested, and a bunch of them were already familiar with the dance, so they got super charged up.

After jazz, another girl from the class demonstrated some ballet. She had never rehearsed this and didn't have any music, so she was really nervous. We were all there with her and we called up some students (several of whom were dancers. You can always tell from their gait and hair.), and all things considered it went really well. She did the positions of the feet and I did the positions of the arms in French and English, getting the kids to repeat the names back to me. Thank goodness for the Grade Four exam. I have a feeling that CCA exam theory is going to come in handy in this line of work. I think I've mentioned before that I get sort of wise-crack-y around children, and that happened again today. Dry humor, a sort of "let's be frank" attitude...I think it worked, though. I definitely got a few laughs and everyone was paying attention, so I call it a winning technique. I was sort of amazed that everyone was so excited about ballet--even the boys!

Next on the program was cheerleading. Lisa is a mover, not a trained dancer, but she was a cheerleader for three years and we all wanted her to show off her stuff, so she taught the kids a routine and showed them some jumps. That was also not very rehearsed, but she works with those kids so she knows them well, and came across really well. To close out, we did a hip-hop dance to "Baby" by Justin Beiber. I feel really stupid doing that dance, but it is really fun. Everybody loved it! They all wanted to come up and dance, and Jaritza did an amazing job getting everyone excited and energized.

This was just our first gig and I loved every second of it. The people in my class are so talented and chill, and in a few weeks we'll be really outstanding. No wonder Marilyn does this for a living--I'd love to do this every day!

Ailing

Hello lovely world! I have had a very long week, despite having the day off today. (Hooray Rally Day!) On Monday I started to feel sort of terrible, and by Tuesday, lo and behold! I had the flu. My friends (but especially Alice) are wonderful and beautiful and took such good care of me, checking in, bringing me food, and just being super nice in general. The fever's gone but I'm still feeling pretty rotten. My friends are all out getting pizza right now, but I'm not sure I could get downtown without collapsing, so I politely declined and am going to bed early. Today in rehearsal, I thought I was feeling better than I really was, so when we learned a dance I did it full-out and promptly felt worse.

Speaking of rehearsal, they're going well! I still can't believe how nice everyone is. Thursdays before rehearsals we have dinner together in Northrop, which is a small, less-frequented dining hall (technically just for residents of the house, but since the cast has several I guess it's chill?), and today was the first one. There were two other ladies there, and they were extremely nice. I quickly got over feeling intimidated and had a great time. Even better, I'm really having fun with the character. Being in Leaf Coneybear's head is awesome: he thinks everything's funny and has his own little world to play around in, even though he knows everything isn't really perfect all the time. It's nice to explore.

I had to miss all my classes on Wednesday because I was too exhausted to move, and now I'm anxious about making up everything I missed in Chemistry. I'm going to speak with my professor tomorrow but it feels like I'm dangling right now. In the lecture I understand everything perfectly, but once I sit down to do my problem sets, I have no idea what to do. It feels like I'm doing everything wrong! I really like/need the class, and it's frustrating to be confused all the time. I think I need to give myself more structure.

New things

I had a red-letter weekend. It started out with a wonderful snowstorm, Bananagrams, chocolate chip cookies and How I Met Your Mother. Then on Saturday, my friends and I went sledding by Paradise Pond. It was frozen solid, but I was still wary of sledding into it. Luckily, that fate was avoided (although Erika gave it a try and wound up in a thicket of bushes). Alice went sledding for the first time, and she wasn't crazy about it, but she tried, so props. After sledding for a while, we walked to the island in the middle of the pond. It had clearly been visited a few times before, as evidenced by various messages scrawled in the snow. I made my mark with "Under Me," but nobody got the joke. Everywhere, people were enjoying winter: there were some people making an ice rink, an older couple snowshoeing on where the path ordinarily lies, cross-country skiers, and Smithies sledding on everything from garbage bags to plastic storage containers. (I like garbage bags; they give you a faster ride with the added perks of distributing your weight and smoothing out the hill.) It was very picturesque.

Yesterday was also an exciting day, but before I describe it, I must admit that I've been holding out on you. I secretly auditioned for the Leading Ladies spring show this week. I decided to do this about a week ago when auditions were first announced, but I decided not to talk about it. I'm a very superstitious person, so partly I didn't want to jinx anything, and I partly wanted to avoid the awkward posts that I made last year when I systematically got rejected from every a capella group for which I auditioned. I figured if I didn't make it in, no one would be the wiser (except for all of my close friends).

The show is 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which I've been in twice before. The first time was in my junior year of high school, and the summer after that I did it again at Unirondack, playing different roles both times. This time I auditioned for the role of Leaf Coneybear, a hippie kid with ADD who's sweet and weird and wears a cape and plays with finger puppets. The first Leaf Coneybear I saw defined the role for me; my best friend, Marty Gartz, lived Leaf. He wore the cape around all the time and carried his finger puppets in his pockets several weeks prior to the show. It helps that Marty is also a very nice and extremely weird person himself, so the part suited him exactly. When I hear the soundtrack to the show, I'm always slightly surprised that it's not his voice on the recordings. I told Marty that I auditioned for the role, and he gave me his blessing. I felt confident. My audition song was "Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear" from the Muppet Show, and I did a bear voice and a sort of awkward little dance. They liked me!

So on Sunday afternoon, I attended callbacks. From 1 to 5 pm, I sang, danced, read, and did improv exercises, trying as hard as I could to be chipper and adorable and just weird enough that I wasn't off-putting. That last part was by far the hardest; I always go overboard when I'm trying too hard to be funny and get just plain weird. Fortunately, everyone else at callbacks was friendly and encouraging, but even that wore me out after a while. The whole thing was exhausting. By 4:30 I was sure I wasn't going to get cast. I was sure I blew it. I left Sage Hall feeling very A Chorus Line.

But I got it!

I'm so excited. Rehearsals start on Thursday, and I'm going to have a great time.