Ballet Central Diary

A Welcome Break!

Since Ilford the tour has been hectic but brilliant! Now I am home in Wokingham, enjoying a few days of hot baths, massages and icing my swollen feet before its back to the grindstone on Wednesday! It is definately a welcome break!
Well, we made it through the ten day tour, all in one piece except for poor Katherine. I had such a fantastic time! It was tough and it was tiring, but mainly it was great fun and I feel so lucky to have been able to perform every night to enthusiastic audiences - I had such withdrawal symptoms when it came to going back to ordinary rehearsals at school.
Our first stop was Liverpool, a mere six hour bus journey from London - thankfully our bus is comfortable. The hotel was rather posh - 'The Royal' and the theatre the next day was an even nicer suprise - a really big stage and excellent wing space, which we were not so lucky to have in Colwyn Bay the following evening.The show in Liverpool was great, and I had some friends in the audience which always makes it more exciting. The journey to Colwyn Bay took hours, but I am blessed with the ability to sleep anywhere in any position so I didn't mind too much! We are getting much better at the ''get-in' now. I'm almost starting to feel like a proper sound technition now, due to Russ and Rob's excellent guidance - I think it's about time I got myself a multi-tool to hang on my belt so I really look the part! Colwyn Bay was not only tiny, but also raked so my upstage pirouettes in St Pauls Suite were a bit of a nightmare, but as they say it's all part of the training and experience.
Awoke at the unearthly hour of 4.45 the next day, but against all odds of tiredness, the show in Abergavenny was my best of the ten days. I was really pleased with how Corsaire went in particular and the Welsh audience were so appreciative - clapping and whooping and shouting Bravo! (I think it was my Uncle Wynford). It really gave everyone a lift.
The travel day gave everyone a chance to recover and rest, and Kendal is the cutest place ever. We stayed in a hostel, with all the girls in one room together which was really fun. Kendal was a studio theatre and bigger than we expected, and being there for two nights meant we could really get used to the space, so it was great. First night was good, second night disaster struck (how melodramatic!) At 4pm, as I'm sure you have read in her diary, Katherine sprained her ankle too badly to continue, and we were thrown into chaos trying to cover her parts. For Coppelia it was fairly straight forward, but for Birds, Jazz and St Paul's we had Eriko, Kozue and myself in parts we had never done before and we had to change the order of the show. It was really stressful, especially as the rythyms and directions in St Pauls are really complicated and were opposite to the place that I knew. Right until the show started I felt unsure, but somehow once I got going it was fine. However much we tried though, it definitely put a dampner on the show that Katherine could not be there with us and none of us could enjoy it.
Last but not least we went to Hexham. A lovely modern theatre and a full audience. The show was not the best, which I was disappointed about, as I had wanted to end on a high note. However, I think that it is something I will just have to get used to, because there will always be little things in every show that you wish you could go back and fix. I guess that if you were always happy with your performance you would not be pushing to get better and you would not improve. If you want every performance to be better than your last one, I suppose you have to put up with being disappointed sometimes! Had a hilarious last night in Hexham, including getting locked out of our hotel until Darren kindly scaled a 6 foot wall, then on Tuesday had the horrendously long journey home. I cannot wait to be off on tour again - the busy lifestyle really suits me and I enjoyed it so much.
Chelmsford (now there's a nice theatre) was another good show. I danced Giselle pas de deux which I enjoyed and my parents were there to watch again. I think that they are trying to win a prize for the biggest fans of the tour, although they are being strongly contested by Leonne's family who are for the moment in the lead. I'll keep you updated! Anyway, shall be off for now, I'll write again soon. xxx

Goodbye Daz!

Today deserved a special mention as one of the saddest days of my time at Central so far. One of our company members, Darren Smith had his last day in school today. Soon he starts rehearsals for dancing on a cruise that will show him the whole world. It's a wonderful opportunity for him and he's going to have a wonderful time, but from a purely selfish point of view I (and everyone else) will miss him terribly.

I can still remember meeting him for the first time at our Central audition, wearing RAD uniform and with his luminous red hair (he he) and Yorkshire accent. Throughout the 3 years, some things have changed and some have stayed the same. The red hair's still gleaming and the accent's still there, but in the meantime I have seen him grow into a hilarious and brilliant human being who goes out of his way to help and who you can rely on when you need him. Additionally, he's a wonderfully natural mover with a gift for comedy which I hope he gets to show off to the maximum.
So if you're lucky enough to see him bouncing around on the ship or on a stage somewhere give him an extra cheer from me.

Good luck Daz, enjoy the world and keep that little bit of Central with you.
We won't forget you.

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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Nearly Easter

Dear Readers,
I come to you on the eve of our show in Chelmsford when I should really be either sleeping or doing some work on my degree. Oh well.
We recently completed the first and longest stretch of the tour, 10 days away visiting 5 venues (Liverpool, Colwyn Bay, Abergavenny, Kendal and Hexham). Each theatre and town had their own special charms- some had very individual charms- which we discovered on the few hours off we had.

If you are a regular reader of these diaries, you probably know the schedule by now, 9am get in- carrying and setting up all the lighting and sound equipment, 1pm class, rehearsals until 6ish, then free until about 7 for the show, get-out after the show. Not so bad until it begins to build up with about 3 days of it (with no sleep, but that's my own fault).
Things change when you're on stage. There's less time to agonise about how things are going. In my case there was less time to worry about how out of my depth I was, doing parts that I'd only just started performing in. There's a lot to be said for just getting on with it though. Do now, worry later.
It was quite fun in the end. The worst parts were probably having to go straight from one piece into another, missing the bow to do a quick change that was like a formula 1 tyre change (tie off, shirt off, t-shirt on, trousers off, trousers on, coat on, GO!). The best bit was all the other stuff: get in's, rehearsing, performing (despite the fear) and travelling about; and pubs.
We have also had the privelige of getting to know our wonderful stage crew of Russ our stage manager and Rob (it gets confusing, believe me) our production electrician. Two wonderful professionals who are always willing to help you out, or give assistance on the quiz machines (I fear addiction taking hold- Wayne Rooney II). I have also been introduced to Bill Hicks, but the less said about that on here, the better. It's a wonderful sight to see how they organise an entire herd of students into a crack team of focussed stage crew.
The tour already has an unofficial mascot in the form of David the stress Pig (think stress ball, then mix it with a cute little porker) who rides in the van (named Henry-who knows why, but it suits him) on all dates. He assists on difficult get-ins: when you want to scream just get David, look into his little porcine eyes and crush him into a tiny sphere. He'll bounce right back.
Abergavenny was an experience in itself, we were up at 4.30 to travel from north Wales, to the venue and found a stage that was reminiscent of an olympic ski jump. 'Concerned' describes my state of mind at the time, but in the end the show was great, with a wonderful crowd and lots of fun. On leaving the venue, we went to the evening's accommodation and found that it was a converted convent and as such the rooms were tiny and a little spooky. We had to bust out. Once we had escaped and wandered around in the rain we finally found somewhere to relax and eat. Unfortunately they didn't have lettuce leaves and a glass of water, so I had to compromise and eat sausages.
Once we got back to the hostel it was imperative that we investigated the reports of a ghost in the convent- how could we possibly have slept otherwise? We steadied ourselves and looked, although we found nothing in the end- they did have a laboratory though and a chocolate machine, as every hostel should. When we awoke and went down to a very pleasant breakfast there were reports of some mysterious events including: ghostly voices, the running of what sonded like lots of feet and in the morning a stick was found outside the door of our company manager Lucy's door. We don't know if she was in a significant room, but what we can be pretty sure of is that the ghost must be some kind of giant talking caterpillar, crossed with a dog. Scary thought isn't it?
On that note I shall depart. Please don't have nightmares about the caterpillar-dog-ghost. I'm sure it's a nice ghost deep down.
Farewell,
Robert