dress rehearsal

Day 10: It's been five days now since we returned from Guizhou. We've been working for four and at night we already have a dress rehearsal for the show. Everyone's feeling a bit pushed and pulled as we go from the intimate environment of our groups, where it feels like the work has only just begun, to putting things onto the stage. Choreographer Susan Buirge, one of our artistic advisers, takes the role of commander in chief, getting the group together and getting our work into form for the presentation tomorrow. The two other groups have been working more choreographically and, as we were all asked at some point to think about including the whole group in our work, they have been teaching us steps for the sections where we will join in. It's amazing that everyone has come up with so much material in such a short time!

Our group does a run though of our 'initiation ritual' in the lobby and auditorium. The others dancers and musicians join in. It looks a bit chaotic, but the advisers seems to have accepted that this will be our part of the event. The music of Young-Gyu get's us all into the mood. It's around 11pm when we finish and head back to the hotel. We stay talking until late in the hotel lobby. I fall into bed near comatose and wake up in the morning with my clothes on.