The Wandering Monkey

First Dance Troupe Show
Last weekend we had our first dance troupe performance. It was a roller-coaster for me. We had seven people total including myself and our newest star member, Andrea, who is a champion dancer from Germany. Andrea's presence has been a godsend. She's very organized, motivated, kind, helpful, and in addition she's also very, very talented. I always enjoy spending time with her and working with her.
We had five other people, all our students (one was Andrea's boyfriend!) We were dressed in the Shanghai Swings team bowling shirts and the girls had blue poodle skirts and black shirts. We had two performances which we had been rehearsing for three weeks or so. And here's how the day went:
I arrived at about 6pm and previewed the location. We were sharing a dressing room with the only other 'rival' dance organization in the city. It was ironic. I had met with the organizer of that other dance company in my first month in Shanghai. And now for the first time we were both performing at the same show together.
I must admit I was very nervous, and intimidated. Their organization is much more organized! At 6pm their entire staff was there changing into their outfits. Their girls each had a makeup kit which looked like an unfolding fishing tackle box. They had little lit-up makeup mirrors and everyone was wearing the same clothes and they had custom leather bags with the team logo on them. Dang. And I was just sitting there alone in the room with them, waiting for my team to arrive. Eventually it was 7pm and only one person from my team had shown up. I started my typical internal panic. I began calling each person, and everyone gave a response back. Except for one. We could not get ahold of one our our leaders (males). He's normally very responsible, too. His phone just rang and rang.
We go downstairs for dinner, and every five minutes I am calling our missing lead. Then Andrea calls him, too, and our other dancers, too. Finally it is approaching 8pm and our show is at 9:30. It is beginning to cross my mind that he has been in a serious accident and is unable to answer his phone. Eventually Andrea actually begins to voice the same concern aloud.
I try to keep people from thinking about this and focus on a contingency plan should he not arrive. Jun Li will take over as a leader and we'll have to go through the steps with her in the time we have left. As we are just about to do this, our missing leader finally shows up, walking into dinner holding a martini glass.
"Hey, there are you guys! I was wondereeng where you all were! I am on my second martini already now..." (He's French).
Ai you. (Chinese way of saying roughly, "Oh my god.")
So we gather together and head up to the dressing room. Everyone prepares, and I was thrilled with the girls all on costume. Our outfits were all very simple, but they were charmingly so. Andrea helped me go to the fabric market and have the dresses tailored, and I had designed (or copied) the men's shirts myself.
The other dancers had already done their show. Now I'm going through my own head: What are you doing here? You are a compter programmer! You are leading a bunch of people into a charity ball attended by about 300. These are your students! We are not ready for this show! We should have practiced a few more weeks. We've never had a completely satisfactory run through!
Fortunately the rest of the troupe are not as prone to worry as I. They kept the mood light and I never betrayed my misgivings.
We did our first show, and I was a bit dissapointed. The crowd did not react much, and I didn't personally feel I had given my best performance. I felt fog-headed, moving slowly, not sharp. You just can't really dance unless you have electricity in your veins. We just did our little show and the response was, "Hmm. Oh... yes."
So I had a half hour again to stew in my insecurity before the next performance. Again I'm going nuts. I actually wished I could turn my emotions off, because they were not serving me and I could not seem to break out of them.
Finally the second performance came about. Dancing has always been a haven for me. No matter what negative or bad emotions I might be experiencing, I can always take that energy and turn it into a positive energy through dance. And fortunately I accomplished this the second time.
In the second performance I danced with Andrea, and she's the type of dancer that whatever you can imagine in your head, you can pull it off with her. It's marvellous. I just think about what I want to do and she's there following it even before I do my actual move. She's the type of girl you always hope to meet on the floor.
We finished our number with a choreographed ending involving six people moving crazily on the floor, then finishing with flamboyant dip placing the girls on the floor.
The crowd loved it, at least enough to bring me back into a positive frame of mind. We passed the test!
Now that the performance was over, we were free to mingle and enjoy the open bar, and we all did. We hung out together getting tanked until 4am. I took home an eight-foot pink Cadillac display that they had used for the show. Jun Li got a 5-foot tall jukebox display. They were just going to throw it all out!
So the Caddy is now parked at my house, and we all have our first dance troupe success.
Peace,
-J