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April 13, 2006
The Journey North...and home!
I was really looking forward to going back up north and performing to friends and family, alongside seeing some greenery and breathing in some fresh air again! One of the most difficult parts of this trip was most definitely the packing... we were told that we were allowed one medium sized suitcase and a bag to keep with us, however I ended up with one massive suitcase and a rucksack! For 10 days away that included 6 performances I had 11 pairs of pointe shoes in my bag (just in case), 8 pairs of tights (just in case) and enough food to feed a starving family of 10!! On top of this I needed my stage makeup, clothes, and toiletries so before I knew it I was sat on my suitcase trying to shut it. Then followed the problem of trying to carry it! Luckily my flatmates all had a lot of stuff too and we figured that they couldn't tell us to go and pack again. The Japanese girls all had tiny suitcases, we don't quite understand how they did it and one boy thought he'd pack light but ended up carrying about 5 plastic bags (mentioning no names... Rob!)
Any way enough about the packing, we all managed to get the bags in the bus, and set off for our first destination, Liverpool. The bus was really nice and we had our own on tour driver Alan who stayed with us for the whole trip. Once people had gotten over the initial excitement of the trip people gradually started to fall asleep, until I was the only person at my end of the bus awake, we eventually arrived in Liverpool and were staying in a really nice hotel.
Charlotte, Leonne and Julia on the bus! (taken from my own photos)
The next day at the theatre was fun, the get-in wasn't too bad and our excitement powered us through. Rob's given an idea of the get-in so I won't bother boring you with more information on that! The theatre at Liverpool was a civic hall so the audience was all on one level below us, I found it a bit confusing to know where to focus my eye-level, but other than that it was a nice stage to perform on. My Mum, Dad and some of their work friends came to watch and really enjoyed the show which was nice! I always know where my parents are sat as during the curtain calls Dad's head is always above everyone else’s with his glasses reflecting back at me!
All the bus journeys that followed were incredibly dull times for me, being the only person who, despite being very tired, can’t sleep when I’m travelling. Thank God for ipods and other snoring, twitching and sleep-talking passengers to keep me amused along the way! The stage at Colwyn Bay, much to our horror, was raked (on a slope)… as a result St. Paul’s, which on a good day can make you wonder where you are and what you’re doing, was not a top notch performance. At one point in the dance the four burgundy girls (on this tour they were Leonne, Charlotte, Laura and me) do a tricky step that happens in a little square in the middle of the stage. This is difficult at the best of times but the added hill made it more like a cat fight in the middle of the stage with Leonne and me hitting each other a few times and Charlotte falling down the hill! The 4th movement was then a constant up hill struggle for me.
As Rob told you the journey to Abergavenny was an early one, we set off at 5.30 and only I experienced the journey in its full glory! Our bus driver, Alan seemed to think that to get from Colwyn Bay to Abergavenny we needed to go via Worcester, travelling at one point something that seemed like 130 mph in the outside lane. Now I’m not one of a nervous disposition, but this led me to hold on the seat in front and hope that a member of staff would wake up soon and tell him to slow down…that never happened. Despite the extreme driving conditions, it took 5 HOURS to get to Abergavenny, (Russ and Rob managed to beat us by an hour even though they got stuck behind a crane travelling at 20 mph for ages) making the get-in extremely rushed and everyone very stressed! Upon arrival the amount of stairs was not a nice sight however the discovery of a microwave excited a lot of company members!! We were also delighted to discover that it was another raked stage, however the day at Colwyn Bay seemed to cure my fear of them and it wasn’t too bad! For those of you that have seen the show you’ll know that during Coppelia at the times when we’re not dancing we have to ‘decorate’ the stage by acting and pretending to chat around the sides. We performed this piece for the end of year show last year, and its taken a lot of hard work to be able to do this naturally, however now we sometimes get a little over excited so much so that in Abergavenny, Eriko and I banged our heads together quite hard just before we had to carry on dancing. I spent the whole of the next step trying not to laugh, and I’m sure Eriko did too! It was this night that my sound queue for the 4th movement of St Paul’s suite started before I was even on stage so I had to improvise a little which we all found very funny when watching the video, plus the wing space here was really difficult to work around so in Birds there were some major collisions backstage one of them causing me to run on stage a little late… but it all works out in the end!! It was a really good show though and the audience were brilliant… thanks Abergavenny!!
Our next stop was Kendal and we luckily got to stay here for two nights which meant we didn’t have to do a get-out/in on the Friday night/Saturday morning- woo hoo, by this point I was getting very sick of ironing and steaming!! My Mum and Dad came to watch on the Friday night along with my form tutor and his wife and my head of year from high school, which was really nice of them! Thank you. The show went really well; it was helped by the fact that the stage was much bigger than we had planned for, so we could spread out a bit! Mum and Dad stayed after the show and chilled out with all of us in the bar, which was cool. Mum also dropped off extra food supplies for everyone, including some fresh fruit which was much appreciated…what would you do without them?!
The next day we had workshops in the morning, which I was quite scared about because although we’ve had tutorials in them you can only be so prepared. However, it went really well, Lucy B, Darren, Rob, Jools, Charlotte B and I did the first one with the 7-13 year olds and they were absolutely brilliant. I don’t think I have ever met so many well-behaved, intelligent kids in my life. We all enjoyed it so much (I think we might have even had more fun than them!) and by the end of the hour and a half they had all choreographed their own dances based on ‘Going South for the Winter’, with a little (and I mean little) help from us. We then had class again, and it was time to focus for that evening’s performance, we had a rehearsal for ‘Moving On’, which I was doing for the first time that night and it went much better than it had the previous times. I was really looking forward to that night as all of my family were coming to watch and it was the first time a lot of them would see me dance. However, during the ‘Moving On’ rehearsal I went over on my ankle and there was the most horrendous crack. At first it didn’t feel too bad, but then it surged with pain, Julia looked like she was going to be sick and I felt pretty faint! It was immediately surrounded by ice and had everyone fussing over me and once I was settled rehearsals began again. I was ok, and at first thought that I’d be fine to dance…Bill had to sort out the programme in case I couldn’t and when he started to do this I realised that I probably wouldn’t be able to dance. That day of all days and what a performance to miss…I was really disappointed. I watched the show out front, and really enjoyed it! Plus I got to catch up with the family, which I probably wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, every cloud…
It did make it all quite exciting though, as Becca was called and had to get the train up to Hexham the next day for the performance there on the Monday, I on the other hand got a lift home with Mum and Dad!
When I woke up the next day my ankle was pretty fat and stiff, so my time at home was spent icing and elevating my ankle. I went back down to London to see Anna, our Physiotherapist at school and it turns out I’ve damaged two of the ligaments down the side of my ankle. So its lots of rest for me, along with some icing and a good lot of Pilates to try and get me back dancing as soon as possible. It’s been really strange not taking part in the rehearsals, and then missing the show at Chelmsford on Wednesday night. I’m hoping to start dancing again after the Easter break and then to be back on stage for the Linbury performance! I’ll keep you updated though.
Katherine xx
P.S Sorry the entry is so long!!
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