On the First Weekend of December...

I dove into the Christmas happenings.

Saturday morning was rehearsal for BRBC's Christmas play. I think this is the 11th year they've done the play. This will be the first year that it won't be outside in the breezeway of shopping center. They had expected to be able to perform the play in the new church building. Unfortunately, that won't happen this year. So, the performance has been moved to PHC's Town Hall. I'm only involved with the technical side of the play, but as I'm probably the only one on the cast or crew (including directors) who has helped with a play in this location, I was feeling very expert on Saturday. Part of it was just never having performed this piece indoors, part of it was performing in this location. I made several suggestions--using glow tape, using radios, blacking out the windows, working with the specially-built wings, backstage, and stage extensions (which have not been erected, yet). Only two rehearsals until opening performance on the 16th.

Sunday afternoon was BRTC's performances in DC as part of the Pageant of Peace festivities. Despite being in the area, I don't make it into DC very often at all. (Something I'd like to change, but never quite happens.) I was riding with someone else and as we drove into the city, I was reminded all over again why it's worth the effort to go into DC, at least once in a while. It is a city of history, of memorials and memory, of importance. The Pageant of Peace itself was it's own world of community and reminders of unity. The Washington memorial in one direction, the White House in another, and the national Christmas tree just a few feet away. And surrounding the national Christmas tree, the state trees lined up and decorated both uniformly (each was the same height and hung with clear plastic balls) and uniquely (the plastic balls were filled or painted by a group with-in the state with their own theme or ideas). The only exception was the State of Louisiana. The art museum that was responsible for the decorations was in New Orleans and was unable to make their ornaments due to damage from Katrina. So, each state had donated one ball from their own tree to decorate Louisiana's tree.

The performances themselves were great. The clogging itself wasn't perfect (it never is), but we had good-sized audiences that were enthusiastically cheering--sharing with us dancers their energy and excitement. Who has time to worry about a missed step or the amount of energy spent when you have fans screaming and waiting expectantly for the next dance?

Things didn't go perfectly for me during the performances, but nothing bad enough to worry about or cause problems. I had to re-tie one of my shoes no less than three times during the two performances--which meant I was dancing at least three dances half-thinking about the possibility of my shoe coming off. I was in one dance that I felt like I barely knew, but I managed to keep moving and recalled most of the steps in time. There was sand painted into the surface of the stage--great for traction, but it also kept accumulating on the bottom of our shoes, which left us feeling like we were walking and dancing around with clumps of concrete stuck to the bottom of our shoes. We had an hour between our two performances. I spent 5-10 minutes of that time laying on the floor of the warming tent soaking up the heat, conserving energy, and generally just being introverted.

Probably the funniest mistake that involved me was at the end of one of the dances, We were supposed to turn around two times and strike a pose with arms out. Whether I wandered too far toward my neighbor or whether he wandered toward me, I'm not sure (I suspect the former), but when he threw out his arms in the pose, he smacked me right in the ribs. After a moment of surprise, I practically collapsed laughing. What a sight it must've been--us trying to be all professional and dramatic hitting our poses, but then someone is in the wrong place and SMACK! the whole picture is ruined. :)