My dad has taught me a lot -- mostly by simply living life. I've grown up watching him run a business with integrity and hard work. I've watched him and worked alongside him as he strives for quality workmanship on every jobsite. I've watched him demonstrate humility and love (to his fellow man, to my mother, to us kids) and leadership and a constant dependence on God to lead and provide.
A story that sticks out is recently, I was shopping for new stage shoes. I needed a very specific style of shoe for my purposes (that is, for the show that weekend), and I found two -- one new, by a quality brand, for $95; and the other for $10 at a thrift store. Ordinarily I would have jumped for the higher-quality shoes without question, but this was at a time when my finances were at an absolute low, so the price tag gave me pause. Should I just take the cheaper shoes for now and replace them in a couple months when I wasn't scraping to pay rent?
I usually would call my mother in this situation but I couldn't get a hold of her, so I called my dad at work and explained the dilemma. He doesn't know the first thing about dance or dance shoes or really anything in this world of mine filled with tights and makeup and hairspray, but I figured any outside opinion would help clarify my own at this point. I was truly torn.
Normally he makes decisions slowly, weighing the pros and cons of each option (now you know where I get it from). But once I'd explained it, he said without hesitation, "You know that I always spend the extra money for a better quality tool. It lasts longer and it's easier to use. To me, this is the same thing -- these are your tools. I would spend the extra money for better shoes that will last longer and be better for you in the long run."
So I did. I got the $95 shoes. So far, I have no regrets (except maybe the fact that I broke them in during opening weekend). But something about the moment struck me... how this advice from a contractor with no performance background or training whatsoever so perfectly applied to my situation. My parents have often said they struggle with how to guide me as I pursue a world so foreign to them, but this guideline he'd developed from years in his own vastly different work was exactly what I needed.
Not only that -- for the first time in my life I felt that someone outside the arts saw my work as legitimate. And not because they were 'trying' (code for 'saying the right things and not meaning them')... they just did. There are no words to describe that feeling, especially coming after years of striving and straining for years for people to see me as a human with needs and wants and strengths as well as weaknesses -- instead of as God's failure. A weight lifted in that moment. My dad saw my work as serious and treated it accordingly. That was one of the best feelings in the world.
Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts
17 June 2018
28 July 2016
Watching A Dream Die
The last couple weeks have been harder than I've let on.
Much harder.
Like to the point where I've had to Google the suicide help line. I stopped short of contacting it, but I Googled it and had the page ready and waiting. Even in my darkest moments when I was sixteen, I never got to that point.
In part, this is my problem: all I have ever wanted to do is dance, and failing that, I wanted to be onstage in some capacity.
One year ago this seemed like a very real possibility. I was just coming off of my musical theatre debut and had been personally invited back to the college's musical theatre program (I believe it's one of the strongest musical theatre undergraduate programs in the country, but I don't know that for sure). I was diving into nearly full-time dance training. Everything was going fairly well on the 'future career' side of things (if not the 'personal/family' side...), for the first time ever.
My invitation to the college still stands for this school year only. In other words, either I go back to college this year or forfeit my degree. And I can't go back again this year, because finances simply will not allow it.
In lieu of that (as it looks increasingly unlikely that I'm going to have enough money for even one semester of college), I'm piecing together a near-full-time dance training schedule, between two (possibly three) schools and personal practice. If I'm going to dance, I need to gun it. Now. I'm already old in dance years, and I'm not getting any younger.
The problem is this: I have no talent. None. The only way I've survived this far is because I've learned how to shine by comparison. I can pick stuff up very quickly in a class setting, so while everyone else is still going 'wait, which foot do I start on?' I'm already doing the entire sequence. So they think I'm good because I can figure out the footwork quickly and I can remember stuff. But that's where I stop. I realised this right at the end of last dance season -- as soon as I have the footwork down, I start doing it by rote. I don't play with it, I don't work with characterization, nothing. This was a bit of a blow, but I resolved to take just as much dance next season and focus on that -- on truly making my dancing the best it can be, not just 'better than the others.'
But in the meantime, to bring my tap dancing up to par (I only started three years ago, therefore my skills are SEVERELY lacking), I decided to practice every day, for minimum half an hour. It's not much, but I'm still working full-time too. I hoped to see some improvements by the end of the summer, if only due to consistency.
But in the meantime, to bring my tap dancing up to par (I only started three years ago, therefore my skills are SEVERELY lacking), I decided to practice every day, for minimum half an hour. It's not much, but I'm still working full-time too. I hoped to see some improvements by the end of the summer, if only due to consistency.
Every single practice session this week has ended prematurely, with tears. I am literally watching my ability to dance atrophy every single day. Once I had great paradiddles... now a 'paradiddle' is apparently defined as 'a stomach-twisting scraping sound with a foot that would make a banana look straight.' Once I could syncopate to almost any song in my music library. Now I play an old standby to improvise to and I'm lucky if I can keep straight time, never mind anything approaching syncopation. I used to be able to do a toe stand and chill out there, no problem. Tonight I literally spent ten minutes on one eight count phrase that includes step-heel, step-heel, step, step, scuff. And I wound up giving up because my feet would not do it, no matter how slowly I went, no matter how much I spoke the phrase out loud, no matter how many times I reviewed my notes and the counts.
I have to face it: I can't dance anymore.
Everyone around me is telling me to go for these auditions I keep finding, to follow my dreams, and I am watching my feet turn into concrete blocks at the end of these dysfunctional sticks called my legs. No self-respecting tap dancer would be caught dead going to an audition knowing she can't even consistently shuffle anymore. No company on the planet is going to hire a ballerina who can't turn to her left, ever.
So now I can't continue my musical theatre training (and heaven knows I do need training), but I also can't pursue my true love. My brain and my body have conspired against me and have given up. What else is left?
Googling reasons why I should keep living, none of which apply to me and all of which ring hideously hollow.
13 March 2015
Music Day - Angel Falls
Named a novel after this one. I had been plotting the story and this song came on the Cephas Hour at the same time. (And your college English prof told you authors agonise over the meaning of any word, phrase, or title associated with their material. It's lies, I promise. Trust me… I'm an author. But I digress...)
When I first heard this song, I actually thought it was from the eighties (it's from 2013). The production totally does not sound overly loud, flat and generally obnoxious like most of today's songs -- and that, in my opinion, is a very good thing. Plus, that bassline (not necessarily eighties, just generally awesome).
The performer in me appreciates the loose theme -- a story of a girl being the star, the princess, all her dreams have come true… and the harsh reality in her quest for love, her loss of innocence. Thematically, it's ABBA's Thank You For The Music mini-musical meets Crumbächer's Jamie.
But ultimately the song is about a fall from grace. I think we can all relate to that.
Title: Angel Falls
Artist: Veil Of Ashes
Album: Eternal Teenage Angst
Year: 2013
Listen to and buy the song on Bandcamp here.
I needed this song tonight. I make my theatrical debut one week from today, as Mary Lennox (the main character) in The Secret Garden. This is the first official theatre production I've even been in, never mind in a lead role. It's a part I never honestly expected that I would get. I didn't think I was lead role material, especially since I didn't really have any acting experience at all. It's still surreal, and it's almost over.
We've been rehearsing this thing for a month and a half. Every night I fall farther behind on my homework, but I barely even notice or care because every night I've been surrounded by the magic of the stage. It's hard to describe to someone who's never experienced it. It's a totally different world on stage. We can get so totally wrapped up in that world that we forget reality (which is why I haven't been freaking out over the four papers I have to write this month). I especially identify with the subject of the song -- you get the sense that this is a previously unknown girl catapulted to fame, into a lead role. Sound familiar...? And then she falls -- in love? from grace? -- harder than she could have imagined. It's a little terrifying listening to these lyrics tonight even as I consider what I'm going to do with this newfound love of performing after I graduate next month.
When I first heard this song, I actually thought it was from the eighties (it's from 2013). The production totally does not sound overly loud, flat and generally obnoxious like most of today's songs -- and that, in my opinion, is a very good thing. Plus, that bassline (not necessarily eighties, just generally awesome).
The performer in me appreciates the loose theme -- a story of a girl being the star, the princess, all her dreams have come true… and the harsh reality in her quest for love, her loss of innocence. Thematically, it's ABBA's Thank You For The Music mini-musical meets Crumbächer's Jamie.
But ultimately the song is about a fall from grace. I think we can all relate to that.
Title: Angel Falls
Artist: Veil Of Ashes
Album: Eternal Teenage Angst
Year: 2013
Listen to and buy the song on Bandcamp here.
I needed this song tonight. I make my theatrical debut one week from today, as Mary Lennox (the main character) in The Secret Garden. This is the first official theatre production I've even been in, never mind in a lead role. It's a part I never honestly expected that I would get. I didn't think I was lead role material, especially since I didn't really have any acting experience at all. It's still surreal, and it's almost over.
We've been rehearsing this thing for a month and a half. Every night I fall farther behind on my homework, but I barely even notice or care because every night I've been surrounded by the magic of the stage. It's hard to describe to someone who's never experienced it. It's a totally different world on stage. We can get so totally wrapped up in that world that we forget reality (which is why I haven't been freaking out over the four papers I have to write this month). I especially identify with the subject of the song -- you get the sense that this is a previously unknown girl catapulted to fame, into a lead role. Sound familiar...? And then she falls -- in love? from grace? -- harder than she could have imagined. It's a little terrifying listening to these lyrics tonight even as I consider what I'm going to do with this newfound love of performing after I graduate next month.
19 February 2014
The Performer, The Mask
People who know me will say I'm honest to a fault. I'm not bragging, it's true. Ever since I was a kid, I loathed above anything else a liar. I would probably give more grace to a murderer than a liar. Of course, since I hated liars so much, as I grew up I came to understand that if I hated it in other people, it should absolutely not be present within me either. So I make the effort to be completely, sometimes overwhelmingly, honest (as longtime readers of this blog can attest). It's been a way of life for long enough that I suck at pretending anything.
And yet... my dream is a career in the arts. Hm.
This has been probably my single biggest barrier to the stage. I probably could be a fairly good singer/actress/dancer, if I could just emote. I have heard from so many dance teachers that I have great technique, but I need to smile more. They tell me that 'that's the first thing people notice,' but I could never understand that because when I watch someone on stage, I'm watching the body language. I'm watching the dazzling footwork, the graceful line of the neck and arms, the hand gestures, I'm hearing the rise and fall of their voice. I'm not looking at their face.
But it's becoming more apparent to me that even if I don't actually smile, I will still have to do something to infuse my dancing with emotion. I'm aware that my performing is flat -- in my head I'm jumping up and down, screaming with excitement over the mere act of dancing (heck, just being on the stage), but in my actual face and movements, it's all just sterile technique, carefully meted out according to the beat. And I've finally clued in to why it's so hard to add the emotion.
It's because of my (by now) hard-wired hatred for lying and deception. Yet the very nature of the stage is deception. We put on makeup, we wear period clothes, we jump the same height every time even if we're exhausted... it's all deception. Yes, the audience knows it's deception, but it's still deception. Honesty has been so hard-wired into me that even acting is difficult -- it's like it goes against everything in the universe. How do you pretend to be someone you're not? How do you pretend to feel something you're not?
I spent years disconnecting my outside from my inside and the result is that my body is an emotionless mask -- like the mannequin on the Doppelgänger artwork -- as the mind within whirs and buzzes like the electronics in Youth With A Machine. I spent years separating the two (silencing the truth rather than changing it -- so technically not lying), and now I've been trying to make them line up again so the honesty is richer and deeper. I still haven't figured that out. And then, when I perform, I'm expected to show emotions I don't feel and sometimes haven't shown outwardly in over a decade.
Dance, I think, is the hardest because you don't have words to fall back on. In a song, you have the lyrics to help fill in some of the blanks. In acting, you not only have your lines, you have dialogue between you and another person, which fleshes things out even more. But in dancing you're on your own, and often there isn't even a basic plotline written out anywhere like there is for a play or a film. You kind of have to make up your own. This had never even occurred to me until last autumn, and I still have no clue how to go about doing it since it was only mentioned in passing.
It seems strange to me that I would find this so hard. Since I know I can effectively separate my mind and my actions, why can't I take it one step further and raise the actions from a mere empty shell to something with intent -- even if it's the intent of a character?
And yet... my dream is a career in the arts. Hm.
This has been probably my single biggest barrier to the stage. I probably could be a fairly good singer/actress/dancer, if I could just emote. I have heard from so many dance teachers that I have great technique, but I need to smile more. They tell me that 'that's the first thing people notice,' but I could never understand that because when I watch someone on stage, I'm watching the body language. I'm watching the dazzling footwork, the graceful line of the neck and arms, the hand gestures, I'm hearing the rise and fall of their voice. I'm not looking at their face.
But it's becoming more apparent to me that even if I don't actually smile, I will still have to do something to infuse my dancing with emotion. I'm aware that my performing is flat -- in my head I'm jumping up and down, screaming with excitement over the mere act of dancing (heck, just being on the stage), but in my actual face and movements, it's all just sterile technique, carefully meted out according to the beat. And I've finally clued in to why it's so hard to add the emotion.
It's because of my (by now) hard-wired hatred for lying and deception. Yet the very nature of the stage is deception. We put on makeup, we wear period clothes, we jump the same height every time even if we're exhausted... it's all deception. Yes, the audience knows it's deception, but it's still deception. Honesty has been so hard-wired into me that even acting is difficult -- it's like it goes against everything in the universe. How do you pretend to be someone you're not? How do you pretend to feel something you're not?
I spent years disconnecting my outside from my inside and the result is that my body is an emotionless mask -- like the mannequin on the Doppelgänger artwork -- as the mind within whirs and buzzes like the electronics in Youth With A Machine. I spent years separating the two (silencing the truth rather than changing it -- so technically not lying), and now I've been trying to make them line up again so the honesty is richer and deeper. I still haven't figured that out. And then, when I perform, I'm expected to show emotions I don't feel and sometimes haven't shown outwardly in over a decade.
Dance, I think, is the hardest because you don't have words to fall back on. In a song, you have the lyrics to help fill in some of the blanks. In acting, you not only have your lines, you have dialogue between you and another person, which fleshes things out even more. But in dancing you're on your own, and often there isn't even a basic plotline written out anywhere like there is for a play or a film. You kind of have to make up your own. This had never even occurred to me until last autumn, and I still have no clue how to go about doing it since it was only mentioned in passing.
It seems strange to me that I would find this so hard. Since I know I can effectively separate my mind and my actions, why can't I take it one step further and raise the actions from a mere empty shell to something with intent -- even if it's the intent of a character?
19 January 2014
Whose Dream Is This Anyway?
The Edge Of The Dream.
I gave this blog this name mostly because of the White Heart song of the same name, but I justified it because I felt I was at the beginning of the journey to the dream God has placed in me -- the dream to dance/choreograph/be involved in the stage world.
But over the past couple of months, I have begun to question whether or not it is God's dream for me. There were quite a few little things that were sufficient to convince me two years ago that God created me to dance, but in the past year or so, all that has been thrown into question. Did God really place that dream in me? Or did I take it for myself and convince myself that He had given me this desire? Has my desire to be in the dance world filtered all of my experiences to such a point that I am unable to hear God saying, 'no, this isn't it'?
Over the last while, I keep hearing sermons and messages and things mentioning sacrifice. I always thought the idea of sacrifice in the Christian life, while not wrong as Scripture teaches it, has been grotesquely distorted by the churches of North America. Sacrifice, say the churches, is the law against cracking a smile. You cannot do anything you enjoy, if you don't think your life sucks, you haven't sacrificed enough. 'God created you for a purpose, whether you like it or not.' Sacrifice, say the Scriptures, is hard, but it is for your greater good, and one day you will look back and be thankful that you did because your life has been the richer and more enjoyable for it.
Which is correct? Am I supposed to be sacrificing the dream or sacrificing for the dream? Is this my dream or God's? How am I supposed to know?
I don't even get to find out the answer to this at my leisure. A huge opportunity has come up for me to be involved in an existing dance team, and the application deadline is Monday. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance. But the catch is, if I am accepted to this position, it means that I very likely will not see my family between August 2014 and April 2015. For most people my age, that's an incentive, not a stumbling block. But I'm odd one for my age and generation... As a homeschool graduate, I have spent literally all of my time with my family. As a result, we're pretty close. The two-month blocks between mod breaks here in college pushes my limit as it is -- can I really handle eight months? That and I'm the oldest of a rather young set of siblings... I feel an enormous responsibility to be there with them, to be a present sister, and instead I'm a nine-hour drive away. I've seen them for three weeks out of the past five months. I keep hearing how one of my sisters is practically gutted by my absence. I'm glad that she misses me, but on the other hand, I don't want to destroy her by prolonging the agony of separation. I remember being that age. I remember feeling unloved. And I didn't even have an older sister who left for college out-of-province. How much more will my history repeat itself in her life -- and how much more will it be amplified by my absence?
Which is worth more -- the family God put me in or the love for the stage that He has apparently given me? Which trumps which? Under what circumstances?
I gave this blog this name mostly because of the White Heart song of the same name, but I justified it because I felt I was at the beginning of the journey to the dream God has placed in me -- the dream to dance/choreograph/be involved in the stage world.
But over the past couple of months, I have begun to question whether or not it is God's dream for me. There were quite a few little things that were sufficient to convince me two years ago that God created me to dance, but in the past year or so, all that has been thrown into question. Did God really place that dream in me? Or did I take it for myself and convince myself that He had given me this desire? Has my desire to be in the dance world filtered all of my experiences to such a point that I am unable to hear God saying, 'no, this isn't it'?
Over the last while, I keep hearing sermons and messages and things mentioning sacrifice. I always thought the idea of sacrifice in the Christian life, while not wrong as Scripture teaches it, has been grotesquely distorted by the churches of North America. Sacrifice, say the churches, is the law against cracking a smile. You cannot do anything you enjoy, if you don't think your life sucks, you haven't sacrificed enough. 'God created you for a purpose, whether you like it or not.' Sacrifice, say the Scriptures, is hard, but it is for your greater good, and one day you will look back and be thankful that you did because your life has been the richer and more enjoyable for it.
Which is correct? Am I supposed to be sacrificing the dream or sacrificing for the dream? Is this my dream or God's? How am I supposed to know?
I don't even get to find out the answer to this at my leisure. A huge opportunity has come up for me to be involved in an existing dance team, and the application deadline is Monday. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance. But the catch is, if I am accepted to this position, it means that I very likely will not see my family between August 2014 and April 2015. For most people my age, that's an incentive, not a stumbling block. But I'm odd one for my age and generation... As a homeschool graduate, I have spent literally all of my time with my family. As a result, we're pretty close. The two-month blocks between mod breaks here in college pushes my limit as it is -- can I really handle eight months? That and I'm the oldest of a rather young set of siblings... I feel an enormous responsibility to be there with them, to be a present sister, and instead I'm a nine-hour drive away. I've seen them for three weeks out of the past five months. I keep hearing how one of my sisters is practically gutted by my absence. I'm glad that she misses me, but on the other hand, I don't want to destroy her by prolonging the agony of separation. I remember being that age. I remember feeling unloved. And I didn't even have an older sister who left for college out-of-province. How much more will my history repeat itself in her life -- and how much more will it be amplified by my absence?
Which is worth more -- the family God put me in or the love for the stage that He has apparently given me? Which trumps which? Under what circumstances?
17 January 2014
Music Day - Background
I always forget about this song until I listen to the album (which isn't very often because I tend to forget it exists -- too busy listening to Daniel Amos). But this is a really beautiful song. The stage imagery resonates with me in so many different ways. It's like if you were to take a different angle on Crumbächer's Understudy, strip away all the '80s orchestration and the harmonies, slow it down about ten times, and throw in a (conceptual) touch of their Royal Command Performance.
Title: Background (feat. Andy Mineo)
Artist: Lecrae
Album: Rehab
Year: 2010
Label: Reach Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.
In related news: Tedashii (Lecrae's labelmate) just announced today that a new album is on the way. I'm really interested for this one... Tedashii has gone through a lot (including the death of a child) since his last album came out in 2011. I get the feeling this album will be the Knowledge & Innocence of rap.
In related news: Tedashii (Lecrae's labelmate) just announced today that a new album is on the way. I'm really interested for this one... Tedashii has gone through a lot (including the death of a child) since his last album came out in 2011. I get the feeling this album will be the Knowledge & Innocence of rap.
28 December 2013
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...
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...
13 July 2013
I Have Seen The Future...
...And the future includes a rock star named Jacob.
Last week our church hosted their Vacation Bible School. I was working most of the week so couldn't volunteer, but I got to see the closing program on Friday, when the kids get to sing the songs they learnt for their parents/friends/family.
So there's fifty-some kids piled on the platform at the front of the church, singing and doing actions to a truly annoying and rather insipid song that's still in my head, and in the front row, there's a kid in a yellow shirt with dark hair named Jacob.
Seriously, this kid is Rick Florian all over again.
He's what, six? and he's running along the front of the platform in front of the group of kids, working the crowd. That was the moment I turned to my mother standing beside me and said, "He's going to grow up to be a rock star." I'd seen that move on YouTube from both John Schlitt (Petra) and Rick Florian and this kid pulled it off like a pro.
Then he took up residence in the centre front of the platform (downstage centre for those of you who know what I'm talking about) and did some fast footwork that brought me back to the official video for Independence Day. He joined what the others were doing for all of five seconds, then branched off into his own interpretation of the song again.
The thing was, he was not only completely in time with the music, he also managed (somehow) to make it work with the lyrical interpretation of the song (such as it was).
I have to admit, I was kind of in awe watching him. I work on a piece of choreography for months and it's only half as vibrant and well-done as what this six-year-old is making up off the top of his head in front of 200 people.
What got me the most, though, was his style. I'm telling you, it's Rick Florian. No back handspring (though I wouldn't bat an eye if I saw him do one next year), but that was the trademark Florian style.
So in twenty years when Jacob is headlining a rock tour, just remember you read it here first.
Last week our church hosted their Vacation Bible School. I was working most of the week so couldn't volunteer, but I got to see the closing program on Friday, when the kids get to sing the songs they learnt for their parents/friends/family.
So there's fifty-some kids piled on the platform at the front of the church, singing and doing actions to a truly annoying and rather insipid song that's still in my head, and in the front row, there's a kid in a yellow shirt with dark hair named Jacob.
Seriously, this kid is Rick Florian all over again.
He's what, six? and he's running along the front of the platform in front of the group of kids, working the crowd. That was the moment I turned to my mother standing beside me and said, "He's going to grow up to be a rock star." I'd seen that move on YouTube from both John Schlitt (Petra) and Rick Florian and this kid pulled it off like a pro.
Then he took up residence in the centre front of the platform (downstage centre for those of you who know what I'm talking about) and did some fast footwork that brought me back to the official video for Independence Day. He joined what the others were doing for all of five seconds, then branched off into his own interpretation of the song again.
The thing was, he was not only completely in time with the music, he also managed (somehow) to make it work with the lyrical interpretation of the song (such as it was).
I have to admit, I was kind of in awe watching him. I work on a piece of choreography for months and it's only half as vibrant and well-done as what this six-year-old is making up off the top of his head in front of 200 people.
What got me the most, though, was his style. I'm telling you, it's Rick Florian. No back handspring (though I wouldn't bat an eye if I saw him do one next year), but that was the trademark Florian style.
So in twenty years when Jacob is headlining a rock tour, just remember you read it here first.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)