Oh my god has anyone seen Bangarra's tour schedule for 2006? I knew it was going to be a hard year next year but this is bloody ridiculous! On the plus side, we're in Darwin at the end of May, it'll be our second tour destination so the show will still be fresh. But by the time we get to, say, Lismore, I'm going to be a nervous wreck. And what about JPB??? Did anyone at Bangarra consider the consequences this tour will have on my relationship with JPB? Not to mention the two months we'll be spending in Melbourne trying to get the Gathering program together with the Australian Ballet. Or the month that we'll be overseas for the UK tour.

Six months away from Sydney...

In truth, it's not beyond asking, a schedule like this. 2004 was almost as full-on as well. But back then I wasn't leaving anyone behind. This is going to be a problem.

Meanwhile, even though we only have a few more performances left this year, rehearsals have been pretty good. We're re-mounting Rites using a very obscure archive video of a performance from 1999. I guess the best thing about it is that it's NEW (at least for me) after touring a show that we've done for over two-and-a-half years. It's also fast and has alot of movement, alot of which is already familiar, stylistically. Questions oft asked in a Bangarra rehearsal like "is the foot flexed?" are easily answered and taken on ("of course the foot is flexed!") How's that for progress? It's been three years and now I've learnt that feet are usually flexed by default.

and you're probably gonna wanna *knock-knee* as well...

Of course it's not always that simple. But at the very least it no longer seems all that foreign to me anymore.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, tour, travel.