Random Wednesday

Grab a coffee or a tea or bevvie of choice, sit back and relax. It’s a long-winded, randomly winding one today.

1. Have any of you seen the latest television ad from “The Gap”? I just saw it last night. It’s Claire Danes and Patrick Wilson dancing to “Anything you can do, I can do Better”. Claire Danes can dance! She’s really, really good. He’s not bad but she dances circles around him – both literally and figuratively. I looked up her bio on IMDB and it claims that she began training in modern dance at the age of 6. Wow .. it shows!
2. You know who can’t dance? Those girls from the latest disaster of a reality show “The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll”. The candidates have to demonstrate sex appeal and confidence while proving their ability to sing and dance. As near as I can tell, the girls are so focused on the first two tasks that they can’t really devote any time to practicing the singing or the dancing. One of the “potentials” is even a dancer for “The Knicks” so her dancing was ok but as soon as she had to sing and dance at the same time, it all fell apart. They are so bad that it actually kind of makes me appreciate the real Pussycat Dolls. I wonder if they sing and dance at the same time or if it’s all lip synced so they only have to do one thing at a time. Well, at least they’re sexy!
3. There wasn’t very much sexy dancing at Trafalgar24 this past weekend. I took Friday off to participate in T24 this year because I had so much bloody fun doing it last year. T24 is a 24 hour play creation event (and in my case, musical creation event) organized as a fundraiser for the Driftwood Theatre Group. A group of 10 writers comes to Trafalgar castle at 8pm on Thursday. They are assigned a location, a cast (well, the number and whether they are male and female), and a sentence. They then have 10 hours to write a 10 minute play that takes place in the assigned setting, with the assigned cast, that includes said sentence. At 8am on Friday morning the cast and director arrives. Each play gets assigned a director and the cast who have 10 hours to rehearse it. At 8pm on Friday the plays are presented to an audience, who moves from location to location around the castle. Some PushPull dancers were invited to participate as the ‘dance talent’ in the musical number. There was a lot more to learn this year so it was kind of tiring. But still tonnes of fun! The musical this year was about a fellow who was so out of touch with technology that he couldn’t get a job anywhere because he couldn’t relate to anyone. It’s sort of ironic. There was a vocal percussion piece that the dancers got to perform. My line was “R.O.T.F.L.O.L.”. All of us dancers were in a lot of the show and were also invited to sing in parts. I noticed how as dancers, it sometimes feels like the actors are just there to fill in the story between the big dance numbers. And I could definitely tell from the ‘leads’ that it was clear to them that the dancers were just there to provide some backdrop for the actors. Ah, how egocentric we are! It was nice to spend the day on my feet instead of on my butt.
4. You should have seen the two butts at my soap making class on Saturday. I learned how to make fair-trade, organic soap using natural fats, essential oils, and lye. I learned all about the whole saponification process and how to make it work for me. I went with my friend Caroline to the class, which was held at Nathalie-Roze’s studio. There were only 4 people allowed in the class. The other two were a mom and daughter team from Uxbridge who are farmers and were really, really, into the fair trade part of the program. I’m all for being a green treehugger whenever possible (hence, attending an organic soap making class) but found it disappointing that these two were directing somewhat condescending and a bit know-it-all-ish comments toward Caroline and I because we’d deigned to bring our Starbucks to class. Also, the mom thought I looked “frightened” at the talk of using dangerous chemicals (12N NaOH) which bugs me only because I don't like people presuming that they know me. Sheesh! Despite the lecture from the farmers the class was a good one. I think once the PushPull rehearsals are over, I’ll give it a try at home.
5. Sunday’s PushPull rehearsal was crazy busy for me. I’m learning 4 new pieces this month. That’s a lot for a slow-learner like me. The creative director had to do some crazy cast shifting around because of a few exciting turns-of-events which meant the duet I was choreographing got cut and a modern piece I was in is also gone. To make it up to me, she put me in two new pieces .. the end result being that I’m in 11 pieces this year plus the finale. That works out to be about half the show. I’m ecstatic that I can be as involved as all that but it will be a lot of work. I suspect endurance training through ultimate will be a big help this year too. I’m afraid of getting to the end of the show and not performing as well as I could because I’ll be tired. I’m going to spend the next 2.5 months trying to make sure I take extra good care of myself so that I can be ready to dance my feet off for the June show.
6. First order of business in taking care of myself is to go to see the doctor about my feet and my hip. I’ve had this recurring hip and foot problem for about a year and a half. It’s not terrible or anything, which is why I’ve ignored it and I’m still not clear whether the two are related or all. Anyway, I sometimes get a pain in the first metatarsal on my left foot. I get it after every ultimate game in the summer and usually when rehearsals get busy in the spring. So far, ice and the occasional anti-inflammatory keep it in check but after all the dancing this weekend, I had pain even walking on Monday. The hip problem never goes away. I’ve lost some of the movement in my left hip. It kind of locks and clicks and won’t rotate the way it should but it’s not painful. I’m guessing that I’ll need orthotics for the feet and a regime of massage therapy and exercises for the hip. I have an appointment with a chiropractor/sports medicine doctor tonight to get the scoop and just hope that I haven’t left it too late.
7. I also wonder what effect going to see the doctor tonight will have on my mild phobia/hypochondria. I think it’s a very mild form of monopathophobia: I have a fear of developing arthritis. Somewhere inside there’s this little irrational voice that is convinced that any day now I'm going to go to the doctor and they're going to look at me and say, "Yep. You've got arthritis. No more dancing for you." It’s kind of funny that this is one of my biggest fears. It used to freak me out if I crossed the street and a car stopped “too last-minute” – not that I’d die but that the bumper would take out my knees and I’d have to have artificial joints put in and not be able to dance anymore. In the summer, I crunched my toe pretty badly and cried to Rob for a good 30 minutes out of fear that this was it – this was the stupid thing that would mark the beginning of the end. Entirely ridiculous, I realize but there you have it. Let’s just hope the saner part of me will prevail and this sports medicine guru can fix me all up and have my joints working well by June!

Talk to you soon,

B.