Oriel's Journal

The performance is getting closer but we have become dancers, community dancers… the error count gets less but now we need to focus on the artistic impression & what we are still not very good at- smiling amid all the intense concentration!

I find myself mostly upstage throughout the dance... it’s funny that, contrary to the way we use the term ‘to be upstaged’, this actually means at the back of the stage ie away from the audience…I begin to wonder if it actually means to do something weird & distracting at the back?!  It gives me a good view of the overall shape of the dance but, even after all my lurking at the back throughout auditions & rehearsals - while Zoobin was pointing out there is no hiding place on the Playhouse stage- I regret it a little bit now…

The strange thing about the dress rehearsal is everyone looking the same! I know that’s obvious but I have to relearn & adapt some of my markers for my stage position…but the uniformity, team effect is great…

I was thinking today of the last time I was on a stage- at the National Theatre with Sir Ian McKellan no less! It was the end of an AIDs benefit when Sir Ian invited some audience participation and I hesitated but then ran all the way down from the very top at the back when he said ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t!’ The main thing we had to do then was fall to the floor when he said ‘Chateauneuf-du-Pape’…the rehearsal was pretty brief but the performance quite effective as I recall! That was more than 25 years ago- before many of my fellow community dancers were born…! I think this will be a more fulfilling stage appearance & at this rate I hope I have at least one more performance in me after Ooh La La its Bollywood!

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