Showcase

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OK!  I will finally be posting the results of all the hard work my dancers and I put into "Liberarse" for the fall Ballet Student Showcase.  It was actually quite a stressful time, and a long story, so I've been putting it off until I had a bit of time to spare.

Tech week began for us on Sept. 22 with spacing rehearsal.  Lighting for the show was spread out over three days to give each of the sixteen pieces a large enough chunk of time to work with Cole, our resident lighting designer and Stage Manager.  Lighting for my piece was scheduled for Mon. the 27th, because we were last on the program, so I was able to use the weekend to make the costumes for my piece.

Don Quixote

Usually, ballet students are allowed to borrow from the costume shop rent-free provided they cover the cleaning expenses ($25 of which is reimbursed by the dept.).  I had visited the shop and put some Latin-y red and black dresses on hold, but ballet dresses that might work great for Don Quitxote, don't really do it for a contemporary salsa number.  In classic "me" fashion, I decided to make my own, rather than settle for something so-so. 

I designed some simple accent-type garments that could be tied over a leotard and that wouldn't require any sewing (I do have limited amounts of time and $!), spent about $80 on sparkly gold fabric and sequin trim, and five or six hours creating them.  Lighting on Monday went really well.  Cole was incredibly patient with me and all my demands.  We lit the sic with bright red fading to a rich blue throughout the piece and a flashy light show at the end.  It really accented the gold costumes well, I thought.

Incidentally, a photographer from The Daily Utah Chronicle, affectionately known as the "Chrony", was there taking pictures of me and my dancers for an article that was being run on "Liberarse" for the Wednesday edition.  I was a little disconcerted by the attention, but flattered nonetheless.

On the way home I got a call from the erratic and capricious Chair of the Ballet Dept.  She had a suggestion for my piece: just black leotards and black skirts.  After spending 30 minutes lighting the piece for gold costumes, I told her I didn't think that was such a good idea.

"Alright then," she says, "we're just going to have to change the order then, because I can't have it closing the show looking the way it does."

Stunned, I spent the next fifteen minutes dragging out of her what it was - exactly - about the piece that looked so bad.  Basically, it was her opinion that the costumes lacked style and the choreography was "getting lost" in the sloppiness.  It was almost all I could do to not get angry with her.  Mustering whatever powers of patience and tact I had, I asked her to give me a chance to fix the problem.  She gave me 'til tech rehearsal the next night.

Tuesday morning was spent buying out the valley's fabric stores of every last yard of the same kind of fabric I'd already purchased (an additional $80).  Tuesday afternoon I was on the floor of the AV room cutting out twelve new dance dresses.  I am incredibly grateful to the guys in there for letting me "glitter up" their floor and for putting up with my ranting and moaning while I desperately tried to squeeze six dresses out of three and 1/2 yards of fabric.  (I did it! with some very creative patterning that would have made Star Trek's costumer proud).  Tuesday evening was spent sewing on sequins in between running rehearsal and distributing shoes.  By 7:45 all sixteen of my dancers had dresses that fit, and at 7:55 we were on-stage for the tech run-through.

I am ashamed to say, through this whole process I was pretty upset at Bene', and I made no secret of it.  I was angry at the words she had used to describe my work and her nihilistic approach to the whole thing; deciding immediately to move the piece from it's position because it wasn't good enough rather than giving me feedback and helping me fix it.  After 22 hours I'd gotten myself pretty worked up.

The girls went on, danced splendidly, looked incredibly chique and sparkly, and banged out a sharp ending.  From the audience was heard a single half-cawed "great!" and the lights came up.  Bene' turned to me (I was sitting one row behind her) and said, "That looks good." and walked out.

It was a late night, I didn't take offense at her walking out so quickly, but I was still upset.  As I mulled it over through the run of the show, I realized that I really had no cause to be upset at all.  Bene' is a strange bird; always has been, and she knows it.  I know what her communication style is like (it's quite similar to my own -- which has a tendency toward tactless insensitivity) and I should not have taken offense when all she was trying to do was her job.  She did me a big favor by calling me the night of lighting rehearsal and honestly telling me how my piece looked.  I had been too stressed and too close to the project to see it.  The costumes I had designed really did take away from the effect of the piece.  They were too mixed, too haphazard, and they didn't match the tightness the choreography sought to convey.  The new costumes really looked so much better.  If Bene' was less than the brutally honest yet very experienced artist that she is, I would not have learned this lesson, and my piece would not have looked nearly as good as it eventually did.  I realized I really did owe her a lot.

This last Tuesday I was able to catch her and make a sort of an apology, and I think we're back on common ground.  I just have to remember that she is as imperfect as I, and I need to make an effort to understand her shortcomings, just like I hope other people do for me.

(tried to publish my video of this, but I think it's too big a file.  Ideas?)