Rehearsal # 7: Group Dancing

We’ve been working a lot on partner dancing in the dance portions of the rehearsals. Last night we finally made the leap from partner dancing to big group numbers. The effect was quite amazing.

In the past, when we’ve tried to improvise group numbers, we generally do a diamond dance. In a diamond dance, one person is in the front and everyone behind them is following there lead. Generally the formation looks like a diamond, but not always. The problem with the diamond dance is that it puts all of the onus on one person to come up with the dance moves and do something interesting.

This time, we didn’t use the diamond dance. Instead, it was more of a free style dance with everyone paying attention to what everyone else was doing and riffing on themes of whatever dance moves the other people were doing. This kept everything in the same world. Then, when in doubt, dance with someone.

Often times we naturally found ourselves doing the same things in unison or cascading through moves. Either way, it all looked much more natural than a diamond dance. In one of them, we even had 3 couples doing what looked like a choreographed waltz. Very cool. I can’t wait to try it in a show.

Then we did more improv. We brainstormed names so as not to fall into ruts of naming everyone the same thing all the time. I personally tend to name everyone Carl, Bob, or Mary. Christian’s a big Becky fan and Bryce leans towards Jacob.

We also worked on romance scenes. These went very well and are quite fun. I did two large wacky side characters in two scenes, which somehow lend themselves to romance scenes so easily, and then was a protagonist in another.

In other news, we may be losing one of our cast members. This would be horrible, but may be unavoidable. More on that story as it develops.

Rehearsal #2: Toe Bruises and Confidence

The first year we did Let It Snow, I was so terrified of the idea of having to do a full run of improvised musicals, that I took voice lessons for months leading up to the show. I still confess I consider improvising songs to be one of my weakest skills.

Yesterday at rehearsal we started by dancing. As Mandy was giving us a rundown on how to fake like you know ballet, we learned that most of it is just committing to the confidence that you know ballet. Of course you need to stand right, point your toes, and hold your arms a certain way, but as long as you don’t show that you don’t know what you’re doing, it’ll sell.

Throughout the rest of the dancing, I tried to keep that as my mantra. I’m a good dancer dammit. I know what I’m doing. Fred Astaire didn’t look like an idiot moving around and all, so neither will I. It’s amazing how much it helped. I worked with Molly on the cross-step waltz, and soon we were waltzing in circles around the room quite well. Of course, it helps that she’s such a good dancer, but I still had to have the footwork. Now that I have that down I need to work on the rest of my body (arms, expression) while dancing and work on adding some flair.

For the first part of the dancing, my big toe on my right foot kept hurting. Then at some point during the waltz it mostly stopped. This morning I discovered the side of my toe was almost black with a giant bruise. It looks far worse than it feels.

Then we moved on to singing. The wonderful David Norfleet led us in some warm-ups and I tried to adjust my dance mantra to my singing. I’m a good singer, dammit. It’s amazing how much it helped. I could feel my throat relaxing and the sound came out much cleaner. But I thought to myself, well, I can sing the notes, but can I make up the words? But I pushed that thought out of my head too. I’m a good improvisor, dammit.

Sure enough, as we practiced opening numbers, I didn’t let myself hesitate at all. I jumped in to sing a verse when no one else was stepping up and did a reasonable job. I mean, none of it was brilliant, but an audience would have enjoyed it all.

And towards the end of the rehearsal, Tara, the director said something that stuck with me. She said “You’re all here because you’re good singers,” and I thought…

Wow, I guess I am.

Rehearsal #1: Dancing with the Stars

We had our first rehearsal for Let It Snow! last night. Having not been able to attend the auditions, I had no idea what the cast would be like. I’d heard names bandied about as possible cast members, but due to my being bad with names, I had no idea who was being considered, really, except for such old friends as Scot and Derek. I must say I was thrilled to meet everyone. We have a great cast, with a wide range of ages and types that should bring a wonderful richness and breadth of characters to the show.

It’s great to finally have Derek in this show. Of all the show’s we do, this always seemed the one he was made for. And Scott finally joins the cast after narrowly missing in years past. I didn’t realize the “Dave” that was cast was the same Dave I had played with during the BATS Company auditions earlier in the year, so that’s exciting. We have two wonderful new women in the cast who’ve never played with us before. I’m looking forward to playing with both Karen and Molly. They bring a wonderful energy to the show and were a dream to dance with. And of course there’s the lovely Trish, returning after playing in the run of Shakespeare. I can’t wait to hear her sing.

But we did not sing last night. No, we danced. We went over the basic dance vocabulary which I talked about during the Great Puppet Musical, and added some work in partner dancing. Even though we’re forbidden from having proms or holiday dances in the show, after an over-reliance on the convention back in 2004 (thanks to Christian), partner dancing can be brilliant as back-up dancing or in dream ballets.

We learned the two step (one two three, one two three), the foxtrot (long long side step), and the cross-step waltz (long short short, long short short) which for some reason I have a fondness for crossing backwards (a perfectly common variation). I’ve always wanted to get better at partner dancing and hope we practice it more. I can already feel myself getting better even after last night, but I have a long way to go if I’m ever to be like Derek, who was immediately flinging Molly around the stage like he should be winning Dancing With the Stars.

All I can say, is dancing is a workout, and I need to get in shape and make sure I practice my dance moves outside of rehearsals. I may only be in three shows, but I’m going to go all out for those three shows.