Celebrating Dance

So it's done. My first time back on stage in over a year; the first time professionally presenting work of my own (that isn't in an opera) in three years. It's hard to take that first leap, but it felt good afterwards.

Celebrate Dance is an odd venue to present work no matter how experienced and easy going you are about performing and watching your work performed. It's loud and chaotic and the backstage area is small and filled with kids running back and forth and a backstage crew that doesn't exactly know what's going on. We had a short tech rehearsal the other day and I was still being asked questions seconds before I went on stage about whether the music or the lights come first. The stage is dirty from all of those feet tramping across it, and my spike marks were hopelessly gone by the time I got out there with my chair, but being on stage is being on stage; once you're out there it doesn't matter where you are: the adrenalin is just as high, the lights are just as blinding, and the applause feels just as good.

I stood in the wings during my duet and watched my girls amp up the energy as the piece went on. I had no idea that one of my dancers had given the other a bloody nose at the very top of the piece. They covered it well, and I was smiling by the end. I'm not sure how my piece went other than the fact that people laughed at the beginning and clapped at the end. Matt, the man doing the cameo appearance as my father, sat in a chair and read his newspaper as I danced around him, and disappeared at exactly the right time, and I crawled into the chair and feigned sleep to make the end of the piece.

The one snafu (besides the unfortunate bloody nose) was at the end of my solo when I finished and was still in silence and the lights were supposed to come down and they didn't. They stayed hot and hopelessly bright and I opened my eyes back up and realized that they weren't coming down. I made a split executive decision to stand and bow and bring out my dancers, and there we go. The lights started to come down as I stood up and popped right back up to the bow lights. No harm no foul. Our applause was terrific. It was all I needed at the end of the day.

Yesterday I got word that I could get space at the Arts and Entertainment Center to do my concert in December. Finally, stuff is beginning to happen in the direction of my own work.

Now I have time and room in my brain for wedding work.