Bugs on Stage
November 28th 2008 07:14
Dancing bugs are not exclusive of Latin dancing. Even when dancing by yourself all these things can happen. What things? Bugs. I’ve been a ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern dancer for 20 years before starting on the Latin styles here in Australia.
I remember some nice stories, especially from performances; they are where the funniest situations are born. Once we had this group of beginners little girls on their first performance ever dressed as ladybugs (talking about bugs) they were the cutest things, not one over seven years old, in red carcasses and funny little antlers fixed by a tiara on their heads. At the beginning of the choreo they had this thing of holding hands two by two and moving their heads. The bug happened when the antlers of two of the lady bugs got stuck. They did what they were trained to do: dance no matter what, and they did the rest of the choreo stuck to one another, trying to keep the formations: tendu, tendu, passé, pas de bourree. The public loved it! And they got the chance to do it again. The teacher unstuck them and they could repeat the presentation without being dragged around one by the other.
Another time it was the shoes, I had this turn ending with a jette, that traditional ballet jump with a split on the air. I spined with all my might and when the leg came up for the jette the shoe didn’t like the centrifugal and centripetal forces and went flying all the way to the curtains. I did what I had to do: prayed “I hope I don’t slip when my shoe-less and stalking-more foot hits the floor and end up in a real undesired split!”.
I can’t forget about my friend and the magic transformation from yellow to beige. We had these several choreos one after the other, the public can’t imagine how much you get changed behind the scenery at the back of the stage. I always say that if I was a man I would certainly love to dance, you get away with touching all the girls and you can see so many interesting things behind the curtains! So this friend had to get changed in less than 40 seconds. She took her first costume and put the body suit and skirt from the next one. She was already on stage on her third movement when she had to look down and saw the body suit was outside out! Lucky her costume was yellow and the inside was beige, not too bad. But bad enough!
But the champion of the bugs I can remember was about this choreo, it was a dense issue, with a heavy theme that comprised a Jesus on a cross that was to be rescued by two of my friends. This Jesus was wearing the traditional sheet wrapped up on top of the boxers. All was well, we were there dressed as Jesuit monks, with torches under our chins giving that macabre look, the music involving us all with its doomed notes… and the sheet decides for a rebellion and simply falls transforming Jesus in a skinny guy wearing boxers and what looked like pampers halfway to his knees. All the mood is in one instant gone and the public starts laughing so hard that it gets really difficult to continue crawling on the floor - you can’t have a good dense choreo without some people crawling under the smoke that the smoke machine is producing – and from under the smoke you can’t see what people are laughing about. But as the people say: the show must go on! Around dancers that stopped dancing because they have fallen to the floor laughing – they got under the smoke anyway, just be careful not to step on them - around the sounds of HA HA HA from the public, the Jesus sneaking out of stage, around the painful face of the choreographer watching from inside the curtains and the sound of the assistant choreographer banging his head on the wall. Those can be said to be the longest minutes of your dancing life. You get to the end of the choreo and the applause is the biggest one you ever got. You keep thinking “oh! I’m good!” and you only know the truth when everyone is talking about it later.
The Lesson of this story (again): keep dancing, the show must go on.
I remember some nice stories, especially from performances; they are where the funniest situations are born. Once we had this group of beginners little girls on their first performance ever dressed as ladybugs (talking about bugs) they were the cutest things, not one over seven years old, in red carcasses and funny little antlers fixed by a tiara on their heads. At the beginning of the choreo they had this thing of holding hands two by two and moving their heads. The bug happened when the antlers of two of the lady bugs got stuck. They did what they were trained to do: dance no matter what, and they did the rest of the choreo stuck to one another, trying to keep the formations: tendu, tendu, passé, pas de bourree. The public loved it! And they got the chance to do it again. The teacher unstuck them and they could repeat the presentation without being dragged around one by the other.
Another time it was the shoes, I had this turn ending with a jette, that traditional ballet jump with a split on the air. I spined with all my might and when the leg came up for the jette the shoe didn’t like the centrifugal and centripetal forces and went flying all the way to the curtains. I did what I had to do: prayed “I hope I don’t slip when my shoe-less and stalking-more foot hits the floor and end up in a real undesired split!”.
I can’t forget about my friend and the magic transformation from yellow to beige. We had these several choreos one after the other, the public can’t imagine how much you get changed behind the scenery at the back of the stage. I always say that if I was a man I would certainly love to dance, you get away with touching all the girls and you can see so many interesting things behind the curtains! So this friend had to get changed in less than 40 seconds. She took her first costume and put the body suit and skirt from the next one. She was already on stage on her third movement when she had to look down and saw the body suit was outside out! Lucky her costume was yellow and the inside was beige, not too bad. But bad enough!
But the champion of the bugs I can remember was about this choreo, it was a dense issue, with a heavy theme that comprised a Jesus on a cross that was to be rescued by two of my friends. This Jesus was wearing the traditional sheet wrapped up on top of the boxers. All was well, we were there dressed as Jesuit monks, with torches under our chins giving that macabre look, the music involving us all with its doomed notes… and the sheet decides for a rebellion and simply falls transforming Jesus in a skinny guy wearing boxers and what looked like pampers halfway to his knees. All the mood is in one instant gone and the public starts laughing so hard that it gets really difficult to continue crawling on the floor - you can’t have a good dense choreo without some people crawling under the smoke that the smoke machine is producing – and from under the smoke you can’t see what people are laughing about. But as the people say: the show must go on! Around dancers that stopped dancing because they have fallen to the floor laughing – they got under the smoke anyway, just be careful not to step on them - around the sounds of HA HA HA from the public, the Jesus sneaking out of stage, around the painful face of the choreographer watching from inside the curtains and the sound of the assistant choreographer banging his head on the wall. Those can be said to be the longest minutes of your dancing life. You get to the end of the choreo and the applause is the biggest one you ever got. You keep thinking “oh! I’m good!” and you only know the truth when everyone is talking about it later.
The Lesson of this story (again): keep dancing, the show must go on.
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