On Friday, I danced in the show in Lexington. The concept was to honor deceased loved ones. I re-used Monsters by The Cruxshadows. The performance went well. Not nearly as good as my latest ones but then again I finally managed to chat with Teresa on Monday and decided on the piece on Monday night too. So I essentially ended up having 3 days to get ready. Most of it was improv'd on the spot but I did have some spots where I knew what I was doing. Some of those were highlights in my piece but I also came up with things on the spot that were highlights.
This piece was a good learning experience. Thankfully, not a GREAT learning experience. :p Mira said in the intensive that failures are good learning experience... so there were glitches from which I learned.
The very first time that I danced it, for a Fort Wayne hafla, I wasn't ready for it and didn't do it justice. I did a better dance this time around but it may deserve one more try to make it even better. ;) I actually needed a few more days (at least) to listen to the piece a lot more. The problem is that I hesitated for the entrance part and that was mainly b/c I wasn't 100% sure of the music. So 3 days to get ready wasn't enough. lol
I think that, if I had had 1 more week to get ready, the planned items would have been better settled in and potentially would have been either better executed or changed entirely. Also, I would have had time to develop a few more ideas.
Although I did flock with the music, I wasn't as much in character as I've been in the past few performances. I was very much unsettled by the height of the stage and the lights and all that. And, unfortunately, I had chosen that precise time to try out what Tempest had advised me to do, which is to keep my head up and not tilt my head. However, I've managed to get a good connection with the crowd lately so I was both trying to do that yet keep my head high and I didn't know where to look. I later asked Rachel Brice how often she looks at the crowd, citing my shortcoming from Friday and she said that it's fine not to look at the crowd. The issue, though, was that it wasn't on purpose and it showed. I tested out some different gazes to see the difference and, yeah, it would have been better to just not look at the crowd on purpose. Now I know. lol I also realized last night that the way that Rachel did look at the crowd in her pieces was generally from afar, making her tilt her head less.
Oh and I made it a point not to point at the crowd. Tempest will be happy about that. What I did do instead was that I shifted my gaze from the right to the left then my head followed, then the rest of the body. The effect was VERY successful.
I realized that I need to consider my eyes and my gaze like another body part. That is, just like I pay attention (generally speaking) of where my arms are, what patterns they are doing, and I sometimes use them as an isolation, I can do the same with my gaze and head placement. Live and learn, eh? ;)
The Saturday workshop with Rachel was super interesting. It was about confident improvisation (ironic that I did it the night before on stage, eh?). She had some great tips and tricks. I especially liked drilling moves with a foot pattern. Great tool! I had an 'aha!' moment when we did some improv without music. My moves were darker and more flowy and stuff came out that I didn't even know I had in me. Something to ponder. She also had some great book recommendations that I need to find time to read. ;) She also definitely figured out that this whole improv workshop actually needs to be a weekend workshop. She just has too much material to share in 4 hours!
The Sunday workshop was a tad disappointing for me as I had seen the material a few years back. That being said, the yoga warmup was fun and definitely loosened my muscles. We did some nice breathing and going up on the ball and slowly back down that I felt strengthened my ankle so I will keep that. Also, she expanded a little on the description of the 16 ways of modifying a motif, which helped. Since my ankle was definitely NOT happy with me and I had seen the material, I left the workshop and joined hubby at BW3.
We came back to say goodbye to everyone and pick up Jae to bring her back home in Cincy. She graciously took pictures of me with Rachel and with Lecca. Thank you so much! Oh and she took some fabulous pictures of me at the show!
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