Nachmo, Day 2 - Joy

Yesterday I choreographed some 44 measures (in 4/4 time, so like 146 counts?). Didn't finish the song, but got just past halfway. And you what? I am absolutely happy with a minute and a half done on the first day, especially in tap dance (it's a lot easier to make ballet take up a lot of time than tap).

 

I can't even explain HOW FREAKING EXCITED I am for this year's choreography. I don't think I have ever been excited for Nachmo proper (M and I used to do a National Choreography Month -- which we dubbed NaChoreoMo -- in May every year, and I usually got way more hyped for that, as I was usually not dying of pneumonia at that time of year).

I'm excited about the show itself, for sure, but I'm also just really excited to be taking part in a creative challenge again. I haven't done one since NaNoWriMo 2023, and that one was really difficult/generally not-fun for a number of reasons.

I guess I forgot how much I love creative challenges, especially in a medium I'm currently 'feeling.' I was so high on life yesterday as I started this project that I wondered if that was what mania feels like. (No doubt my college professor would still have said I was being 'too sad.' But *beep* him. He has no emotional integrity, and you can't be a good artist without emotional integrity.)

 

Tonight I finished the first song of the show, and for the first time since 31 December 2022, I was able to actually add a song to my 'Completed Choreography' playlist (Sottovoce didn't use music, and I don't have the music for the two theatre shows I did in my iTunes library because both companies sent the music through ROCS ShowReady).

For trivia purposes... the playlist alone is now 130 songs, 8 hours and 10 minutes long. That's a lot of choreography, and that doesn't even include Sottovoce (24 minutes) and the theatre musicals. I could start the playlist when I arrive for my day job in the morning, and I still wouldn't reach the end of the playlist before it's time to clock out. That's so much music. That's so much choreography. I've accomplished so much, and I honestly feel like I'm just getting started.

I remember in February 2012 when I swore I would finish choreographing a dance to prove my mother wrong (about how I didn't want to choreograph 'bad enough'), and the elation I felt when I finally finished that piece (Sing Your Freedom) on 10 April. Look how far I've come. I just choreographed a tap dance in two days. At the time I choreographed Sing Your Freedom, I didn't even know how to tap dance.

I'm just so excited that I still get to do this. I'm so happy this is still a part of my life.

More Of The Dream

I guess I can now officially announce that I am choreographing my first-ever theatre musical!

This is a HUGE step, one that I was starting to think I would never get to take. This is a major milestone on my journey to fulfilling my lifelong dream.

I've done a couple of 'assistant choreographer' things, but this is the first one that is both 1. all mine (not 'assistant' or 'guest'), and 2. not also performed by me, myself, and I.

I remember being seventeen and my parents, my extended family, and my church despairing when I told them I wanted to be a choreographer. How they told me it was a pipe dream and I would be wasting my life and should just get a 'real job' (side note: the real job is trying to kill me. It has destroyed my body more in three years than dance EVER did in all twenty years put together). How hard I had to fight to get anybody (including performing arts profs) to take me seriously. How everybody thought I was too stiff and graceless (and don't forget stubborn and stupid) to be a dancer and would never amount to anything in the performing arts.

Here I am, lead choreographer for a musical theatre production.

Are there other, bigger steps further down the path that I want to take? Absolutely. But this is an important one, and this is one that not one person was convinced I would ever take.

Years ago, back when I was only just beginning to admit to myself that I felt a calling to be a choreographer, I named my Instagram account 'dancer by grace.' I saw myself as a dancer who was called and equipped by God's grace. And there are many stories (many of which are on this very blog) of God's provision along the way. I have not paid out-of-pocket for tap shoes since my first-ever pair in 2012. God led people to gift me the money for all the shoes since then. That's just one example.

They say that the foolish things of the world would shame the wise. I guess I am one of those foolish things.

Morning

I've never been a morning person. Even as a baby, my mother recounts stories of her staying up with me deep into the night -- not because I was crying, but because I was simply awake and wanted someone to play with. I was homeschooled and usually managed to push my wake-up time to ten or even eleven o'clock. College and work have both taught me how to get up early, but on my days off I've settled into a pattern of waking up at about nine... or, still early enough in the morning to actually call it morning.

And... it's not as bad as I used to think it was.

Mornings (on my days off) are peaceful. The cool light of morning is different from all other daylight, and it reminds me of the open skies and rolling fields of my childhood home (as well as that early-morning drive to dance classes). The desert heat is not yet at full force, so it's actually possible to breathe the air with little effort. My husband and I eat a calm, simple homemade breakfast -- sometimes eggs and hash browns, sometimes toast with jam.

I find myself most inspired to write in this light, with the music of decades gone by filling my ears.

After spending the morning and early afternoon on my creative projects, I have enough energy to do some household chores (I try to split these up over my days off, partly to conserve my very-limited mental energy and focus, and partly to lessen the strain on my injured back), and with those done early, I can actually focus on being with my husband for the latter part of the day rather than trying to cram creativity, housework, and relationship all into the precious few hours between supper and bedtime.

My desk has become my creative workspace. Recently I acquired a Croton plant and moved it along with the other two plants onto the 'shelf' above my desk. They won't be able to stay there through the summer, as two of them are desert plants and will very much NOT appreciate the air conditioning unit we put in this room at exactly their height, but for now, they are here above my head while I work, and they are reminding me of the colours and greenery of my childhood home (as opposed to the washed-out browns of this desert landscape). Our apartment doesn't get a lot of natural light, but the morning light seems to cover them well.

This desk is my morning sanctuary, whispering to me of a pink room (now blue, and my sister's instead of mine) that once cocooned me and let me fly quietly on the wings of creativity.

This morning is one of those mornings, and for just a fleeting hour or so, I am happy.

One Year - Novel Rewrite Update

One year ago today, I officially started rewriting Kyrie.

I'm well into the 'midpoint' section now. This is the part where the villain begins to show his true colours. This villain is based on some of the villains of my own story, and that, coupled with (yet another) domestic spat and my worsening asthma, is causing a lot of havoc in my body.

I tend to approach my writing as an actress. I place myself in the scene and act out all the characters in the scene. I think this is why people often say that reading my writing reminds them of watching films -- I write what I see in 'real time.' This means that I share in every character's emotions and reactions, and having mined some of the darkest times in my life for this midpoint, those can be very intense, very visceral reactions.

I had planned to write two scenes today. I've written one and my heart rate is already 92 (my resting rate is around 70 and I've been sitting all morning) and I needed my rescue inhaler. I don't know if I'm physically capable of writing the other scene, as it will hit even more of those 'triggers' for me.

On one hand, I'm hoping that the audience will feel the same anger I'm feeling at this character. But on the other hand, it's forcing me to unpack some stuff that I haven't yet regarding some of the people in my own life who treated me this way. I don't really know how to deal with these things in a way that won't ruin my life now. A lot of those villains are no longer a part of my life... but they're now in my head. And I don't know how to get them out of my head.

I am very proud of the progress I'm making in the novel, though. This midpoint scared me a lot and now I would say I'm over the hump and running downhill from here. I've already faced and worked through a lot of blockages and fears in (re)creating this work and I'm so proud of being able to look back on such a substantial document. I would say I'm just past the halfway point of the story, and most of the plot points that scared/overwhelmed me the most have already been written. I have forty-some scenes left in this novel. If I wrote one per day, I could finish before July. If (more realistically) I wrote one scene every day off of work, I will be done before September. Of this year.

I never, EVER even dreamed I would actually experience being so close to finishing a full rewrite/revision of any of my novels, even my best ones.

Two big things that have helped me get this far are: 1. framing it as a 'rewrite' rather than a 'revision,' and 2. making a timeline.

As long as I thought about it as 'revision,' I thought I had to completely restructure the book. 'Revision' implies 'moving stuff around,' but I couldn't find stuff to move around. I liked the structure and timing of the book exactly the way it was and couldn't find another way I thought was better. It was like trying to make a puzzle when the pieces were two different sizes. But as I soon as I started calling it a 'rewrite,' I didn't have to re-order anything. I could keep the general idea exactly the same and simply make it stronger.

This was where the timeline came in. I already had a pretty strong idea of the timeline in my head, but I pulled up a calendar from the year in which the story was set, and wrote out a day-to-day timeline of every single thing that happens to the two main characters of the book. Some of the things don't make it in the book at all but are referenced as things that happened off-screen, or are simply there for my own orientation (grad weekend, for instance -- I don't mention grad at all in the story, but it lets me know that I can't have the characters going to classes or doing homework anymore). Some events did get rearranged here, but not nearly on the level I thought they would have to be.
I colour-coded certain recurring themes and printed off this timeline (all six pages of it) and have had it at my desk ever since. It's been my lifeline and has done wonders for my poor overtaxed brain. The acid-melting-my-brain-whenever-I-try-to-revise feeling completely disappeared once I did this.

I'm so close and so proud and so happy and so relieved and I'm feeling so accomplished. Here's to the second half of the story.

Vulnerability

In years past, I was known for my bluntness and honesty, in all situations, 'socially acceptable' or not. This kept the weird neurotypicals at arms' length and brought the neurodiverse people who actually tell you exactly what they're thinking into my circle.

Then I went to college.

A common theme among my directors and professors was vulnerability. "You need to be more vulnerable." "You need to be more open." I couldn't understand what they were on about. I asked them so many times to define, to explain, to give an example of what they meant, but none of them could. The main one would smile sardonically and say, "I think you already know." But I didn't. How could I be vulnerable? In all my brutal honesty, what had I missed? What was I hiding that they didn't already know?

And the other day while doing the dishes it hit me.

They wanted me to be honest.

But there was a fatal flaw in their logic -- they assumed I was not already being honest. This was why I could not understand what they wanted -- I was already doing it, but they wouldn't recognise that and instead kept telling me I was wrong. The fact that they could never once explain to me over the course of five years what I was missing/doing wrong should have tipped me off that I was not actually doing anything wrong. But I knew I was inexperienced and I was trying to trust their 'experience.'

I went through an obscene amount of emotional pain in college. The death count alone from those years of my life exceeds the death toll of friends of people twice my age. I drew on that heavily for my first character -- Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. The child loses both parents and the only home she's ever known to cholera. Surely she's haunted and grieving when she first arrives in England. I think this is what made my performance of that show so great. I could relate to the emotions of the character. And yet, I remember the director telling me that the character (at the beginning) needed to be 'happier.' He gave no reason for this. I ignored him, of course... even then, my acting instincts kicked in to save the show from his incompetence. While that's not the way I should have gone about it, he was also at fault for not being willing to acknowledge the emotional states of all the characters at all points of the show. He used this incident as proof that I was 'too stubborn' and 'refusing to be vulnerable' and ultimately used it to justify actively preventing me from getting my diploma.

To him, 'vulnerable' meant 'happy.' To me, 'vulnerable' means 'honest -- no matter what.'

To be happy at the exclusion of all other emotions -- no matter how valid -- is to skip over at minimum half of the human experience. To be vulnerable is to be honest about every emotion, not just happiness.

I maintain that I am more vulnerable every single day of my life than he perhaps has ever been at any point of his.

Sheeple

Two weeks ago my husband tested positive for COVID-19.

This meant I couldn't hug or kiss him or five days. But I'm grateful that it was only five days, and not a lifetime -- because the vaccine gave him a much higher chance of survival. I'm grateful he got COVID now, after he and I were double vaccinated, and not before, when it could have legitimately killed both of us.

It was terrifying seeing how sick he got, and I don't want to know how bad it could have been had he not been vaccinated. I wasn't feeling well either (but tested negative at first -- tested positive five days later), but he was truly in bad shape... and that was with the vaccine. I firmly believe that had he not been vaccinated, he would have died, and I would never get to hug or kiss him ever again. Five days is a long time, but a lifetime is even longer.

Call me a sheeple all you want, but the love of my life is alive today because of the vaccine. I and my crappy asthmatic lungs are alive because of the vaccine. My husband is alive and we still get to spend the rest of our lives together. If that makes me a sheeple, then I'm a sheeple. No regrets.

NaNoWriMo - End Of Day 21

Still struggled a lot this week a lot with the 'I know where this story needs to go, but I don't know how to get it there,' thing.

I knew who the villain was, and I even managed to plant some half-decent clues, but all the clues point to why the brother was murdered. I could not figure out how to plant a clue (or even what clue to plant) to bring the detective MC back to the kidnapping case that she was supposed to be working on. I've written kidnappings before, but this one seemed more difficult somehow. Maybe my standards are just so much higher now. I haven't even written a scene from the kidnapped kid's perspective in like 20,000 words because I just don't have any ideas. All she (detective) had was this 'sense' that they're connected, but absolutely zero proof of that, and I didn't know how to provide it.

MC was making a ton of progress on her brother's case though -- you know, the one she was not supposed to be working on.

It's turning into another church drama, which I guess was the point. Apparently I really like those -- exposing the sins of a so-called 'perfect' institution. This was a theme in my writing even before the church ever really hurt me. For this story I'm drifting from my usual Baptist one (Baptist churches are the worst for sweeping crap under the rug and spraying lethal amounts of Febreeze over it when it starts to stink) to a more word of faith-style church -- which I think is what a lot of Baptists have bought into anyway and that's why they treat people so badly and are so resistant to change or even admit that they might possibly be wrong (how many Christians on your news feed are both anti-vax and anti-mask right now?).

In addition, my formerly trusty Neo 2 word processor, Lila II (she was the second one), died on Day 17. This means that I can't write at work (I would get anywhere from 300-800 words in a single lunch break), and this has upset my momentum significantly. I went from easily making over 2k per day to struggling to make it to the minimum 1,667. I am still way ahead in my total word count though (currently at 45.7k, goal for Day 21 is 35k). Some very kind souls in the Discord forums sent me some resources, so I may be doing some Neo surgery come December. By my own diagnostics, it's either a loose wire or a broken/damaged trace, although I'm going to try replacing the button cell battery that I didn't know Neos had until said kind souls sent me said resources. I was at least able to back up all of her files to my computer, so I won't lose anything. If surgery goes well, I'll try to resurrect Lila, my original Neo 2, which died in 2019 following similar symptoms.

Also, the word tracker is SO helpful. I'm really glad I'm using different colours because it really makes the tracker easier to follow. And it's still really satisfying to colour in the progress bar every day (even though it's so long now that my hand gets tired. I guess that's a good problem to have). It's also come in handy when talking to people about the project -- all I have to do is flip to the spread and show them what the minimum goal is, and where I'm at in relation to it. It's all right there in one graph, and it's easier than trying to explain all these numbers to people who have little to no context for them (it also makes being 10k ahead far more impressive). I've actually had people ask to see it by way of an update. Definitely going to be doing the tracker thing again next year (and I would also really like to figure one out for National Choreography Month in January).

(And now, back to our feature presentation...)

Last night, my husband and I were talking about my stuck-ness and he mentioned footprints at the scene. And that was all I needed.

I planted the child's footprints at the scene (which also boosted my word count because then my detectives had to figure out/explain why they didn't see the footprints the first time they studied the scene) and also got the idea of the detectives re-interviewing the kid's best friend. He is proving to be much more informative than he realises -- he unwittingly gives them not only the name of the villain, but the motive behind the kidnapping.

I also know exactly how justice is going to come about now. I'm at the point now where I've tipped the starting domino of the climax, and my job from here on out is just to write like the cold snowless wind outside to keep up with the coming cascade of events. This part is one of the best parts of National Novel Writing Month. I still remember the Day 30 rush of writing 10k in one day back in 2012 not because I was that far behind but because there was so much coming together and it was beautiful and fascinating to watch. That's the moment I live for every year. That's the reason I put myself through writing an entire novel from scratch every year. And that was what I've been missing for the past seven years.

Music Day - Song In My Soul

Here's another song I inherited from my dad's music library. As far as I know, this is the only not-Christmas album he had from this band.

They were an a cappella band, but without the pretentiousness of Pentatonix. These are clean, simple, refreshing songs with no unnecessary virtuosity. There's nothing in this track that doesn't directly contribute to the pure richness of the song. These guys also write their own songs, so if you love a cappella music but you're tired of Pentatonix butchering perfectly good hymns and Christmas songs with overdone, overdramatic flourishes, this is the artist for you.

My dad listened to this song all the time when I was a kid, and now all it takes is that ascending bass intro to put a smile on my face. I still have a hard time believing that this is all done with the human voice. There's even some beatboxing in other songs on this album (keep in mind, this is 1989 in CCM -- we still don't have beatboxing in mainstream Christian music in 2021). The songs are so rich and full of backing harmonies that one doesn't even miss the band.

This song in particular is a song of unabashed joy, something I don't think any of us has seen in a good long time. It's a worship song that you'll never hear in a church. Parts of the lyric hearken back to the Psalms themselves. It's a pure, simple declaration of joy in God's handiwork. It all clips along at a very danceable, grooveable pace, and they make their point and get out of the way in less than three and a half minutes. It's cheerful and energetic and fun. If you need a quick little pick-me-up, here's a song that'll keep a spring in your step for the rest of the day.

The smile on my face comes from the smile in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

You put a song in my soul and I want to let it out

Your Spirit in my life, well it makes me want to shout

I'm moved to sing with every beat in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

Title: Song In My Soul

Artist: AVB

Album: Song In My Soul

Year: 1989

Label: Clifty Records

iTunes here; YouTube here (live version here -- caution, mullets abound).

Music

If you've been around here long enough, you may remember the music-collector days, circa 2010-2013. However, five years of college and six of unemployment put a real damper on the whole 'buying obscure music from out-of-country' thing.

Now, for the first time in a very long time, I have both a relatively stable job and am not paying tens of thousands of dollars every couple months in tuition fees. You have no idea the financial freedom I have. I am working minimum wage, but I have more 'disposable income' now than I have EVER had in my entire life. I'm still not well-off by most people's standards, but I feel like I'm living a life of luxury. I can buy cheap muffins regularly now instead of only buying them on special occasions. There is a massive weight off my shoulders that I have not felt since before I left for college. Lecrae's sentiment that 'being broke made me rich' is spot-on.

Anyway, all this to say that now that I actually have a couple extra pennies to spare at the end of the month, I took advantage of a few Boxing week sales from a couple of music dealers who specialise in my obscure genre of choice. One such dealer was Girder Music, and one such deal I took advantage of was the Halo/Scott Springer remastered 4-CD pack. I've had my eye on both Halo albums (particularly Heaven Calling) for years now -- since before college, but there was always an album I wanted more... then, of course, there was that college-induced financial drought.

I didn't realise at the time I bought that CD pack that the purchase included full downloads of all four albums, so even though the CDs only shipped today, I get to listen to them at my leisure, starting now.

Due to all the aformentioned circumstances, I haven't been able to buy and enjoy any of these really rare albums for a long time now. And just sitting and listening to these included downloads from this obscure early-'90s band that nobody's ever heard of was such a powerful experience that it made me tear up.

This was the music of a time in my life when anything was possible, my mental health was at an all-time high, I was surrounded by talented, creative, fiery people (who were not yet dead), and my creativity was at its absolute zenith. Even the mere act of sitting and listening to music without thinking about how I should be working on an assignment instead was almost foreign to me. For just a few moments, I've been able to grasp hold of a thin thread of what my life used to be and relish that safe, secure, on-top-of-the-world feeling that I used to have without even realising it.

Hopefully I can do a more in-depth review of the albums once they arrive, but until then I just wanted to chronicle how much I loved simply listening to the music of my younger years after such a long drought.

What is Good?

The last two days have been full of despair and fear. I have exactly $20 cash to my name. One of my most promising opportunities for the summer may not even happen -- leaving me very much in the lurch and forcing me to make long-term decisions sooner than I anticipated. And overall I've been feeling very alone. I just want to spend time with someone, but it seems everyone's busy. And this makes me frustrated because I feel guilty for needing so much people-time.

I was reading over the last few posts on this blog the other day and I realised that it's been pretty depressing here as of late. I want to do a 'good' post, a sort of hopeful post, but I didn't know how or what about. So I'm just going to bullet-point it.

- This past week I've finally started work on Kyrie again. I'm truly loving writing this story right now. I'm trying not to think too much about how many plot holes and loose ends there still are and how many characters are severely underdeveloped.

- Peanut butter banana smoothies. Some days this is literally the only thing that makes me happy.

- I recently obtained a copy of Crumbächer's incredible album Escape From The Fallen Planet on vinyl. This is one of my top five favourite albums of all time, and I've wanted it on vinyl for several years. I finally got a chance to listen to it today, while reading the lyric sheet.
I've known and loved this album (on CD) for years now. It was one of only three albums that I could stand to hear for about six months following my cousin's sudden death, so I played it a LOT. But there were always a few lyrics that eluded me, and now, reading them in full, soaking in the rich, full sound of the vinyl, I discovered (as I had rather hoped) another layer of conceptual and sonic depth to this album. This is what I love in good music. This is what I look for -- I look for the music that will give me new things for years and years to come, no matter how many times I play it.

- My mom and my brother came to visit for a few days. It was nice to walk around campus actually talking to someone rather than wandering about all by myself.

- On Friday one of my friends came up and gave me a hug.

- Michael W. Smith's '80s output. (i 2 (EYE) and The Big Picture.) Also the Imperials' ...This Year's Model.

Things I Really Like About Being a Performing Artist

Note: this is, believe it or not, NOT a sarcastic post. This is a tribute to my reality; this life I love so much. I really do love these things.

- Doing makeup between scenes at rehearsal.

- Costume changes.

- Changing in random bathrooms (dancers know what I'm talking about).

- SO. MANY. GRANOLA BARS.

- Driving to practice/rehearsal/performances with one hand and eating Subway with the other.

- The smell of makeup and hairspray.

- Costume fittings.

- Photo shoots.

- Memorising lines.

- Dancing to other peoples' songs while waiting backstage.

- Lining up right before you walk out with the choir.

- Learning new blocking.

- Hearing the full orchestra for the first time.

- Water bottles.

- Trying to walk quietly in heels or tap shoes.

- The full-cast onstage warmup.

- The director's last words before showtime.

- Waiting in the wings.

- Helping others with choreography and costume changes.

- Monologues for auditions.

- That moment when your ballet/pointe shoes are finally warmed up and responsive to your feet (Canadians in winter... you know where I'm coming from).

- Wearing that one favourite zip-up sweater over your practice clothes and it totally clashes with your turn-of-the-century dress or your silver tutu but you don't care.

- The prop table. Holding my water bottle since 2008.

- Posting teaser photos from rehearsals on Instagram.

- All those circled notes and breath markings and arrows and underlined consonants in the sheet music.

- Legwarmers.

- That one last run-through of the section you always forget with one or two others in the wings right before your dance.

- Memorising the programme order before the show starts.

- Footlights. Actually, all of the lights. Especially how the lights cut through all the stage fog.

- Watching the set get bigger and more detailed with every rehearsal.

(More to be added as I think of them.)

Music Day - Invisible Man

After many years of waiting and hoping and wishing and waiting some more, the day has finally arrived in which I can feature the utterly fantastic band Prodigal on Music Day. As longtime readers know, I don't feature songs that aren't available from either iTunes or the band's website because we all know how frustrating it is to hear about this GREAT song or album... and then it's not available anywhere, ever. Back when I started the Music Day posts, I pledged to myself that I would not torment my dear readers in this fashion. However, it has made Music Day maddening, because almost none of the music I like enough to bother featuring is on iTunes. This is the primary reason that Music Day goes on hiatus so often... I simply run out of songs.

But today -- oh happy day! -- my options have widened, however slightly (unfortunately, despite their brilliance and incisive songwriting, Prodigal only made three albums before disbanding).

So here's the first song on the first official album (there are rumours about a previous one under a different name).

Title: Invisible Man
Artist: Prodigal
Album: Prodigal
Year: 1982
Label: Heartland Records
Listen and download from the band's website here.

This song pretty much set the tone for band's career, lyrically. It's the cry of the common man, yearning to mean something to somebody but not succeeding in touching anybody. The protagonist describes himself basically as a wallflower, unassuming, just an ordinary everyday person, but intertwines this description with the lonely and painful reality that if you're not 'special,' nobody even notices you exist. And we need that -- we need that camaraderie, that companionship. Someone to come alongside and encourage us.

This song, I think, is a very accurate representation of what it's like to have depression (I speak from long experience). Those of you with friends or family who have depression -- this is what they are thinking and feeling, every single second of every single day.

With your stare you cut me
But you never see the scar...

Why should someone care for me
When I'm not really there...

At times I think my biggest crime
Was being born alive...

A Lovely Night

The building blocks of a wonderful evening:

First, you take a dance practice. But not just any dance practice -- it's the first of extra rehearsals for Peter and the Wolf (WHICH OPENS THIS SATURDAY!). (I think my favourite part of performing is the extra rehearsals that get called as opening night gets closer.)

Add to this getting to see dance friends I haven't seen since Christmas break.

Plus, driving -- a commute long enough to listen to two full albums of music (White Heart and Daniel Amos today).

And don't forget the part where the driving happens at dusk (my favourite time of day).

Shadows And Lights

I have started so many posts, trying to put into words what I'm learning and what I'm experiencing and the pain of being away for such large blocks of time. I have yet to successfully make a post that smoothly covers all of that without going on for pages and pages.

A lot of the past semester was the depths of despair. I was away from my family, studying for a degree (which I still see as a cop-out move for people not willing to just move on with their lives and I loathe myself for now being one of these idiots), forfeiting dance -- the love of my life, having absolutely zero time for even listening to music (never mind doing choreography), and finding out that everyone on the planet has more skill and talent than I do at anything you could possibly name.

From this there were only brief moments of respite. Most of them were packed into musical weekend. And even then, there was sadness mixed in with them (the first of which being the knowledge that no-one I knew was coming to see this, the biggest production I've ever been a part of).

See, the college puts on this Christmas musical every year. This thing is a big deal. I don't know if this is standard procedure, but this year they ran four shows in three days. There's a full orchestra, three choirs, dancing, pyro, an intricately detailed set, and, of course, the drama itself. Apparently this thing pulls crowds of 10,000 people some years.

I'm in the college choir, thus I was in the show. I found out two weeks before the show opened that there had been the option to audition to be a dancer. But I hadn't known that back in September when they were holding auditions or I would totally have been there. I hadn't auditioned for an acting role because I know I can't act, and I doubted I wouldn't end up in the madhouse under that kind of rehearsing/course schedule.

Opening night was painful for me. It felt like there was something wrong with the universe. I was up in the risers with the choir and we were singing wonderful beautiful arrangements of lovely songs which I did quite enjoy, but words can't describe looking down from the choir and seeing the dancers in white skimming across the front of the stage. It was so hard not to cry. All I could think was I should be down there with them.

But there were redeeming moments too. The general atmosphere of being backstage and onstage, entering and exiting, looking up and seeing the lights, looking out and seeing the crowd, waiting for the music's cue, the cheers of the audience after our most spectacular rendition of O Holy Night, costume changes, the smell of stage makeup, silence backstage as we waited to file on. Even the hurried snacks of apples or granola bars in between acts were like being at home. This is where I belong. Backstage, onstage, in costume, under the lights, surrounded by music, living on apples, granola bars, and the odd sandwich. This was the first time I'd ever been in a show that ran more than once, and that made it even better because then if you slip up in one performance, you can fix it in the next. There's always room for improvement, and by the time you reach the fourth show, you are rocking it. Plus, it means more stage time and backstage time and just more time in the performing world in general. When you only do one show, it's one afternoon/evening and that's it, you're done. It's really only a hiccup in the fabric of your real life, you don't have time to sink in to the performing world long enough to enjoy it.

It was enough to get me through the final month of the semester. It reminded me of my dream: the stage, the music, the dance.

If only I'm not too old and beaten down for the dream once I get out of college...

Taking Risks

So it begins...

And it ended spectacularly. That photo was taken at 9.17pm, just a few minutes after I sat down and began to listen to the song. By 10.30 I had choreographed (sketched out) the entire dance, down to the individual steps, except for the entrance, exit, and the third verse. Oh yeah -- it's a six-minute song.

You may or may not have suspected as much from the album review, but this song is my favourite from this album, and it was a favourite from pretty much the first time I listened to it. This was also the song that seemed like it would be the most difficult to choreograph. In fact, I was reluctant to even attempt it -- nothing I could come up with could possibly do justice to something so lovely and nuanced. I didn't want to ruin the song by matching it with a forced (and by extension crappy) dance.

I was listening to the song that night just to listen, but this time I didn't stop the dancers in my head -- though I wasn't expecting them to do much.

Boy, was I wrong. This dropped into my lap. It was all I could do for my pencil to keep up. It felt gloriously like when The Double came to me in February. It's not so much me choreographing the dance as it was me writing down the dance. There's no effort involved, no 'what would fit best here?' the brain just takes the song and flies, grabbing my hand and dragging me in the wake of it, demanding that I write faster, still faster, lest I forget what I just saw.

You know, I think it's only with Daniel Amos/Terry Scott Taylor songs that I can do that (so far). I owe that guy a huge, huge debt for the inspiration alone (to say nothing of how much the songs themselves mean to me).

A Happy Check-In

So I got 80% on my book report. 96% on the music theory quiz.

We're starting on our Christmas music in choir this week.

Got two packages in the mail today. Both packages had food. One had a Crumbächer CD (Escape From The Fallen Planet) and a ballet syllabus music CD.

Spent most of the day with Vector's Dance in my head.

And I have ballet class tomorrow.

The only bad thing about this day was that I didn't get to work on choreography because I have a 1200-word paper due on Thursday.

EVEN MORE DA Awesomeness!

And you all thought my White Heart obsession was bad. (Don't worry. The White Heart obsession will return once they release that EP.)

Anyway, for those of you who read my review of Daniel Amos' new album Dig Here Said The Angel who didn't get the advance download (though I wouldn't be surprised if everybody who read it was also a Kickstarter backer), you can now pre-order the album on their website here.

And, if you scroll just a little farther down on that same store page, you can also find another real treat -- the ¡Alarma! album on CD. Oh, but not just that -- two CDs (deluxe remastered ones), plus photos and booklets and bonus tracks and enough goodies to satisfy this Daniel Amos nerd in training for... well, let's give it about a week before I've memorised it. Lyrically, this is a genius album (really though, which one isn't?). Sarcasm at its finest.

I don't have a real ending for this post, so I'm just going to steal a quote from Terry Scott Taylor (from one of the live bootleg shows, I forget which) (EDIT: I finally found it -- it's the Cornerstone 2000 show): "I'm not trying to plug anything. I'm really not... but I am."

This Just In...

For once in my life I'm speechless. I am seriously jumping up and down and screaming in delight (silently, but screaming nonetheless)...

I'll Just Let This Speak For Itself...

(From the Reunion Tour Event page. I didn't make that first post, but I very much appreciate the person who did for alluding to the question... especially because of the response it generated.)


Oh please, oh please, may it be true...

And Now, A Commercial

(Note: It's not an actual commercial -- no money's changing virtual hands here. I'm just a fan.)

Since I'm a Kickstarter supporter of the new Daniel Amos album, I just got to hear a rough mix of one of the songs on the upcoming album.

I won't get into too much detail (because I'm not sure how much I'm 'allowed' to share), but listen up, people -- you need this album. End of story. Whether you support the Kickstarter project and get it as a reward or whether you wait till it comes out and buy it then... you need this album.

I would seriously be content with that mix -- the 'rough' mix -- being the final mix on the record. Seriously. It's that good. There is nothing -- nothing -- that will be released this year, in fact, nothing that has been released in the last fifteen years (or more) that can touch this thing. And I've only heard one song.

But until that gets released (eventually...), you can check out a few of their live shows over the years here. (I particularly like the Through The Speakers 1981 show, but the 2011 Phoenix show is pretty good too... "3.5 million songs and the guy wants Sprinkler Head...")