Ballet Central Diary

Richard's May Diary

Hello, it’s that time again! Well, it’s not so long since I last wrote so this entry should be pretty short and sweet.

Continuing where I left off…when we got back from Abergavenny, I then travelled back to my home in Theydon Bois because it was the start of the Jewish festival of Pass Over, it was really nice to see my whole family again.

Our next tour date was a week away so we had plenty of time to change around the casts and polish up the pieces for Bracknell. Bracknell was a great venue, it had a big auditorium and a good size stage plus we had a sell out audience. I had a bit of a surprise when an old friend of mine turned up out of the blue. I’d worked with this guy about seven years ago with English National Opera. By chance, Annie, our costume designer had done an opera project with him and invited him to see Ballet Central. It’s a small world, isn’t it!! It was great to see an old friend and talk about the different paths we’d both taken.

Later that morning I was one of five dancers chosen to lead a workshop with a group of kids from the local dance school. We had a great time teaching them some of our rep’ and helping them create some of their own movement material. The performance that night went really well – there was a great atmosphere both on stage and back stage plus we got a fantastic response from the audience.

We had a couple of days off and then we were on the road again, this time heading for Chesterfield. We stayed in a Travel Lodge and I was a bit annoyed because I ended up sleeping in this pull-out thing on the floor which we called the ‘dog bed’. The Pomegranate Theatre had a major rake, which was fun, and we heard that it was haunted!!!! The night before the show one of the girls hurt her wrist and went to hospital to get it checked out. Luckily it wasn’t broken but we had to recast a number of pieces, this meant I had to quickly learn a section of ‘The Numbers Game’ so I could fill in while one of the girls was doing a quick change. It was quite nerve-racking for me, but the audience were none the wiser and we gave another great show.

I said this entry would be short but it turns out I had quite a lot to say. So the next tour takes us back to Wales, to Newtown on Thursday. I’m sure there will be plenty to write about next time.

Richard.

Posted by at May 27, 2005 05:12 PM