GI Alliance on Tour!

The tour to Livonia. I was counting down the days for the trip, not sure if I was so excited about another performance opportunity or just a chance to get out of town. Definitely performing...plus, getting to spend about 12 hours being very close with my fellow dancers.

We left on Thursday. I work from 9-2 at the office, then commute for 45 minutes to Visceral Dance studio on the west side of town for rehearsal with members of Dance Crash for the Matter show. Left rehearsal less than half-way through, after an hour and a half. Commute for an hour to GI Alliance director's house to load into the tour van--shiny white and new with foam covers on the seat belts. However, before leaving, a handful of us held a last minute rehearsal for emergency changes to one piece (we were informed that morning that one dancer would not be joining us). Just after 6, all 11 of us are in our seats and ready to go. We all knew it would be about a six-hour trip, but I think we expected to be in bed by midnight.

Michigan is in Eastern time. When I hit the pillow, the clock read 1:45.

I was definitely selfish, the first one to pick out a bed and plop down, ready to sleep. Not everyone got a bed right away. Judging by the two Greyhound buses full of pubescent hockey players that showed up when we did, we weren't even sure if the hotel had any open rooms. Luckily our host company, locals Allure Dance Company, was very generous and provided another room. No one had to sleep on the floor. I thought that was pretty fancy for my first tour.

For some reason, the 3 ladies in my room decided to entrust me and my little phone to set an alarm for the entire room. 6:45 am came and went, and we awoke to our director knocking on the door at 7:15. We were due in the van to go to tech at 7:30. Apparently, I set the alarm for PM. Obviously, no showers were had, breakfast ended up at the bottom of my dance bag (apple, English muffin), and coffee was consumed en route.

8:00: Tech rehearsal scheduled to start. We arrive at the high school, and students were still laying the floor. During the course of the day, we learned that the high school students held an important role that day. Or making that day run off-schedule. Not sure which.

It felt awesome to stand on a stage in an auditorium that holds about 300 people, with real light equipment, real wings (what a luxury!!)...I realized that I haven't performed on a real stage in 5 years. Not since No Small Parts was on the main stage at UF. After all of my pieces teched, I sat in the empty auditorium with the rest of the company, listing to our director call light cues. So much goes into making the performance, not just the dancers and the choreography. I really started to appreciate the 15 year old boys and girls that were working backstage (one whose job was to apparently to hold onto a set of ropes for the entire show as if to prevent them from flying away).

After tech, Allure arrived for their tech. For GIA: lunch and showers.

We came back to the theatre at our scheduled time to start a 3:00 dress run. Allure was still in tech...until about 4. No harm, I may have even appreciated the extra warm-up time. Dress rehearsal was over by 6, then we ran to get a quick dinner before company warm-up at 7. We were still on degages when the house manager shooed us off stage, but Bill (Allure's co-director)did a great job and I amazingly felt ready for performance.

Waiting in the wings, dancing goof-ball moves with my friends before morphing into a balletic swan, seeing my friend who could barely walk during rehearsal due to injury give a champ's performance on stage, feeling so much energy and emotion pouring out of my fingers, my gut, my eyes... truly an awesome experience.

I love to perform. It doesn't matter how many mishaps during rehearsal, how little sleep we got, how imperfect the stage, or that the audience was only 50 people in such a large auditorium. Those 50 people saw a great performance, we gave them everything that we had.

I missed my husband, my dog and my cat, and I was told I tried to snuggle with my bedmate...but it's so worth it.
This is what I do. And this is why I do it.