Any dancer will understand the preparation needed for a show, any show, be it a musical, a full length ballet.... even a short ballet needs rehearsal (time to both learn and get the piece of work to a standard so that all concerned are happy with their performance and can give it their best).
This is a short little tale, for those who are dancers, and also for those of you reading who are not dancers, so you can begin to understand the dedication and hard work that i and many of my colleagues and fellow ballet dancers across the land , put into a single Ballet.
Not that I'm complaining!
I am now dancing with Ballet Russe, The Uk's Only Russian Ballet Company, and i must say that i am loving every second of it. It's the kind of job most ballet dancers dream of, hard work and performing!
We started learning Coppelia first . This was great news as this was the ballet i had the lead role, Franz, and i was also dancing with Principal dancer Chika Temma (A wonderfully versitile Ballerina who also trained at The Royal Ballet School before training in Russia and dancing as a Principal over there for many years). I was determined not to let her or the company down!
Rehearsals where tough, the work load was hard and after we finished our days work, off we would go home to sit in front of the tv and watch the Ballet DVD's again to learn more for the next day. We had only one week to learn these three ballets.
Annoyingly the days went in , far to quick! It was already Friday when we had just started piecing Nutcracker together. It was hard work, but i loved it, we all did. We may have complained but in the end, we wouldn't do anything else , and i get a real buzz from the frenzy of it all not to mention the pressure which is just so exhilarating.
We left for London the next morning in the company bus. Boy did we look a state! Knackered from a weeks worth of craming three ballets into our heads and the lack of sleep. We remained like this for most of the journey, a mob of ballet zombies... untill ... we see the theatre in site.
There it is again, that buzz, that exhileration , that urgent desire to get off the bus after 5 hours and use the toilet!
Its like opening presents at christmas, we are so eager to get in, look at the stage, see what we are workin with, check out the dressing rooms, start sorting out our costumes... (this tends to be quite a prevalent one, there is nothing worse than being miles away at a theatre and discovering you haven't got something important for the show)
Right well, things seem to be in order.. except! The stage crew very cleverly left the scene dock open all day. Mmmmm, did no-one tell them this was winter?? Perhaps they would like to wear next to nothing on a freezing cold stage and do a full length ballet and see how many muscles they manage not to pul, rip or tear!
First up.... Giselle. We have a matinee and an evening show. Both go really well! Relief!
We head to the hotel were we are stayin over night in after a very, very long day.
Ah! a bar!! And a pool table!? Great.
We stay up for about two hours and just relax , have a few glasses of wine, play some pretty shocking rounds of pool (we all had a go at playing doubles, naturely we thought we would change the rules and see how long we couldn't pot balls for , just move them round the table and pot the black to begin with ... why not pot the white a few times too)
We did have fun, the rest of the on-looking bar certainly enjoyed our games.
Next up!! Nutcracker and Coppelia. Nutcracker went without a hitch, just some very cautious snow flakes dancing over a broken sword, which was snapped from an enthusiastic battle scene earlier between the Rat King and Prince. Full audience , nothing greater than being sold out!!
Coppelia.... My big moment. I love this ballet. its fun, lovely dancing and i get to act. The ballet starts well. I dance my first solo and pas de deux, both go well! Chika goes off stage and waits for her next entrance in the coda (ending ) of the first act, she comes over and asks me ;
'Ok, would you like to come and dance with me now?'
- My face drops and feel all colour drain from my face!
'Oh God' i think to myself 'have i forgotten what im supposed to do? Has my mind gone blank?! '
to which i then quickly reply to her 'No' - shaking my head in absolute fear.
She Laughs and walks center stage to dance.
- 'Am i supposed to be behind her right now partnering her??' im still thinking.
The act finally ends and i run up to her in the wings and ask her...
'Oh my Gosh! What did i forget??'
Chika laughs again 'Nothing . Darling, acting, i was only acting with you! Although i have never seen your eyes so wide!'
So we did it, one week to learn three ballets, do four shows of them in just two days.
And i wouldn't have it any other way.....
