Week 4... Paris! (But not really)

It's Week 4 and we're off to Paris! (Not actually though!) But Paris and Newcastle... No big difference, right? Anyway, this week it's a French themed show, full of love songs, beautiful language and some killer dances. At first glance the show looked like it was gonna be a breeze: not as many songs, less lyrics to learn, fewer dance numbers. However, the sneaky dance numbers that sounded really simple, such as the “Waiter's Dance,” turned out to be massive numbers.

When I picture a dance about waiter's, I imagine aprons, drink trays, and tea towels. All correct. What I didn't envisage was two and half minutes of kicks. We have your regular 'grand battement' (your standard straight leg kick), but we also have attitude kicks, swing kicks, spring kicks, hitch kicks, held kicks, twist kicks and a kick line. Now, for someone who attended one dance class in 2010, it is certainly safe to say that this one dance contained more kicks than I have done all year! Lots of fun, though I don't think my hamstrings would really agree...

The morning after we learnt the waiter's dance of death, my legs were stiff as boards. I thought, possibly, we may be granted a little reprieve from hardcore ballistic leg movements that day... No. No such luck. The next dance that we learnt, a charming little can-can, finished with a good ol' jump into the splits. Awesome. I could practically hear my muscles screaming, 'Noooooo!' But by some stroke of fate, I found that once I had warmed up I was as flexy as ever, and loving myself jumping to the floor in a big fat front split! Again, not quite sure whether my hammys had quite as much fun as I did.

My other favourite dance in this week's show, is to 'Vogue' by Madonna. Not quite sure how it fits into the French theme (though I guess Vogue is a French word?) but it's so cool. The only upsetting thing is that it starts with two girls on stage doing some really fierce fan choreography. (As in fans that you fan your face with). Why is this upsetting, you ask? Because I don't get to do it. And yes, I did say that it's just two GIRLS that do it... and isn't that just a little unfair? When do boys ever get to do fan dances? We totally get jibbed in that department. You just can't beat the feeling of flicking that fan open in front of your face, your hair blowing gently in the wind.... Next time I ever have to choreograph anything, it's totally going to involve a fan, no matter how appropriate it is. I'm picturing “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Mis... all those French Revolutionaries marching to glory, flouro-coloured fans in hand....... Bliss.

If there is one thing I'm not a huge fan of (no pun intended) in this show, it is the song “Ah Paris” that I have to sing. I don't actually know where it's from, but it has the worlds ugliest melody. The intervals are so unpredictable and I'm pretty sure the guy who sings the song on the guide CD (which I had to learn from) just makes some of it up. So therefore I do the same. Plus it mentions all these different places, like Cairo, Carlsbad and Constantinople, which sometimes become interchangeable when I sing the song. I probably should be practising it right now........

To change things up a bit this week, instead of having our normal rehearsal time in the boys apartment, we decided to do a run of one of our other shows in the park across the road. We figured some fresh air and a bit more space would serve us well. Which was kind of true, but in the end it was quite unproductive. We all kept forgetting which direction was the front, couldn't hear our music and got itchy from the grass lol... it was still fun though, and I'm sure the passers-by enjoyed it. One (crazy) guy on a bike actually stopped and watched for about 20 min. He even took a video of us on his phone I think... mentioned something about YouTube. I sincerely hope he was joking.

So if, by chance, you stumble upon some footage of a group of crazies dancing around in the park... It's probably me! =)

Cast Pyramid in  the Park