Archive - May 2006

A couple of the other dancers had made the trek up Anzac Hill in Alice Springs to see the sun rise over the Alice. Although I have only a limited role in the current Bangarra tour I still didn't think it was a good idea to head off when we're doing full days in the theatre. The morning of our travel day to Darwin seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a trek. As with Castle Hill in Townsville, it seems like the only reasonable reaction to a big lump of rock is to climb it so at six in the morning I found myself rugged up and bleary-eyed walking in the pre-dawn darkness along the barren Todd River, racing to beat the Sun. Fingers frozen because I had neglected to pack my gloves and because I was holding my icy cold tripod in one hand.

But the effort was worth it. The streets of the Alice were slowly waking up and the sky was growing bluer and brighter. Three of the other dancers finally made it up the hill after me just in time to get front row seats for the daily spectacle, my tripod already set up and capturing the view and there were already a handful of random people also waiting around. A band of pink slowly swept across the sky to herald in the Sun, which finally emerged above the horizon as a piercing and brilliant glow. Several cameras suddenly went into action, including mine.

About an hour later we were back at the Alice Springs Resort tucking into a well-deserved hot breakfast, feeling energised from seeing such a glorious view. It was a good way to top off a pretty exhilarating few days in the Alice. The night before the company was receiving rapturous applause from an almost packed house at the Araluen Arts Centre. We even got a second curtain call, which is pretty special for a regional show. It was especially good because an hour prior to that there was serious drama going on backstage as the directors were trying to work out how to replace one of the dancers who had just received a blow to the nose and was off to get it checked out by a doctor. Conveniently enough DB has quite a big role in the second half including a solo that nobody else in the company had gotten around to understudying. None of this applied to me as I have such a reduced role in the show already but when the second half commenced there was quite a bit of anxiety as to how the show was going to go.

Half way through "String" there were a couple of strings in the wrong place. We were all able to work around them but it was clear that we were all on edge.

But once it was time for DB's solo, the anxiety started to lift as PT took to the stage. He had volunteered to improvise to fill in the time. It was both amazing and funny to watch from side stage, with the knowledge of the extremely late "casting change", just about the entire company were watching on the sides cheering him on as he proceeded to twist and turn to the music. The energy onstage had changed, it was another one of those amazing electric moments that I hadn't seen since Ground Force in Melbourne. And no one in the audience besides the directors were none the wiser.

In the space of half a day I had been blown away twice.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Alice Springs, Anzac Hill, Sunrise, Northern Territory, Clan

Sorry for not blogging for so long. I've been taking my time with a revamp of the whole thing. It's hopefully coming in the not too distant future...

Wikipedia

Does it mean that you're famous when you have your very own entry in Wikipedia? That you didn't create yourself? Meanwhile, I didn't realise that she was Latina; fancy that, and after having lived with her for all that time!

How exciting!

tags: Angie Diaz, Wikipedia.