This week was very productive. The first couple
rehearsals were, at least for me, reviewing the music; we were called in my
parts to review each song; this definitely helped a lot of us, for we were
needing the extra rehearsal time. With this additional music rehearsal, I feel
a little more confident with some of the songs. However, there are still some
songs that even I get lost in; I feel we didn’t spend enough time working on each
of them for the music to be cemented in my head (and it’s not that I don’t want
to practice outside of rehearsal - it’s just I don't have ways to play music
when at home, limiting my rehearsal abilities). However, I think it will get better
once we put the choreography and blocking to the music.
I have been sensing from the cast a growing
irritability. I think a lot of people feel upset about how some rehearsal time
gets used. As many of the scenes they spend a lot of time working through
require a lot of us, we can’t use our down time to rehearse music or
choreography as we have to stay engaged with the work. But because we spend a
lot of time going slowly, our energy really drags, making it hard to stay
positive. And when that happens, people (myself included) begin to grow
frustrated.
On a positive note, I got my first major
experience at teaching choreography this week. I was called to begin working on
the first "sex scene", where Pippin first discovers women (among
other things). Because I started back to work at home this week, I didn’t get
as much time as I would have liked to prepare the dance, so what I did come up
with didn’t feel like enough. However, to counter that, the girls (as well as
cast members watching) are really enjoying the dance - the movement I set on
them allows them to get into a character, do some more physical movements, and
have some new fun. They tell me it’s a workout – something I didn’t expect. Feedback
from my cast-mates tell me that they are incredibly impressed with how it looks,
and that it's wonderful to see some new and creative dancing within the show so
far; that amount of praise makes me feel proud of my work, and also of how much
I have grown as an artist, dancer, AND director (as those skills have come in
to play a lot).
With some work this
weekend, I plan to not only finish the first dance, but also enhance the
choreography we currently have for most of the numbers. I think I will get the
chance in the coming week or so to not only finish the numbers I was given, but
with the choreographer’s permission, go back and revamp some of the old
numbers, and really solidify them (at least in terms of the dancing). It’s
going to look really good once it all comes together.
