Dancy Dancy continues

[bethlakshmi]

Another night with my charming dancing ladies


We are now at the point were you get to learn a little to get the large reward of a major hunk of choreography, time-wise. We've hit our first repeated material. Of course, this being Indian dance, the repeated material is the hardest material.... but this just gives us more opportunity to work on it. We spent a fair amount of time reviewing. It's really noticeable the difference between stuff I have sent out written text for, and stuff I haven't. Granted, I'm getting busier as we go, and the material is getting harder. So the rate of published choreography is diminishing with hardness of choreography - not a good combo. Bad Lakshmi!!!

And (sigh) I still haven't gotten a web page for the class up. It's so stinking close... maybe I will risk not doing homework at lunch and try to get the sucker out there online. This won't benefit my dancers much, but it would be nice for the general Pennsic populace.

But... on written notes v. memorization - it is really interesting to me the difference between my class class of Western students and the general (Eastern) expectations of my teacher. She expects memorization. Writing things down is an option that I can take advantage of, but I don't think she cares too much if I don't take notes, if I have the pieces memorized. She is certainly more than happy to review an adavu (practice step), I've forgotten, so she doesn't seem to expect and auxilary memory aide. Being a little overacheivement monkey, I seem to rise to the bait, and I memorize choreography like a little sponge now. But I didn't at first. I remember struggling through the first few.

Still missing Aparna. Really want her to be back, even if I'm not sure where I'll get the time to go to classes.


And... I sure did mean to write about the Palio


Loved the Palio - I think I've have loved it more if I wasn't running stuff. Apparently I am not a natural competition runner. Perhaps I dislike having to pick a winner - I like to like all pieces. Perhaps I dislike being MC. I'm not so great with names, and I'm very shy of the whole thing. Interesting - I don't think of myself as shy. In fact, I think I can hear everyone reading this chortling at the very thought of shy being a descriptor for me. I'll readly gab away at small groups, or massive audiences - regardless of our respective ranks, or being in a professional sphere, or social, or SCA sphere... But... somehow the being a Herald or being an MC is very scary to me. Must figure out why. Not sure sure I need to be less shy (perhaps the worlds doesn't need that), but would be nice to know how those gears in my head work.

Competition was a little slow to start, due to lack of entrants. But, we did get going - which was satisfying. We eventually had 7 performers, and 5 entrants. And, I can honestly, truly say - I thought all of them gave really good performances, and I was very glad they all entered. The audience was also great - very attentive and plentiful. And the competition ended in a timely enough manner that we were back on track for 5:00 court, even though the competition started at 3:30/3:45 ish.

Leaving this title was bittersweet. Sweet to be done with running the competition, with no major crises - and sweet to hand off to a good performer who is as enthusiastic to perform regularly as I was. Bitter because, well, I really liked doing it. I'll miss it.

And - mermaid_lady nailed it - as a performing arts champ, you do this flurry of work at the end of an otherwise fun and easy term - writing rules, planning logistics, checking in a million times with the ruler you serve, keeping on track with the autocrat, talking with performers, talking with people who just like to be involved in SCA happenings... it's not a HUGE time commitment, but it's work, and some of the work is not so energizing. And at the end, someone else wins the cookie and you slink off into the distance. And, being a natural ham, you squelch your natural inclination to leave in a dramatic fashion, so as to leave the spotlight on the new champ. That is right and proper and as it should be.

The "low" was generally fixed by getting to perform a last peice at the feast, and then handing off to Cristovau for his first peice. That gave the general "performing high", and doing a "last" piece is a very low-stress thing - if they don't like it, screw 'em, I'm a-leavin' anyhoo.

One really nice thing about being a "Baronial Devadasi" and not a "Kingdom Devadasi", from what I intuit from Royal Performing Arts Champion friends, is that a Baronial Champ is a continuation of a spirit of a community. In Carolingia, we are around each other enough to be a real community. So picking a champion is also picking a leader in the community. The baron will be the baron all year, Vishnu willing, and the champ will be around all year, and we'll see them at periodic events. It's much easier to get lost in the shuffle, I think, as a Royal Champ, and you have to change modes every 6 months - one Royal Champ will serve 3 kings, so you never develop the year-of-service vibe with any of them... Of course, on the other hand, if you serve one you hate - wait 6 months... it'll change. :)

Comments

Last performance

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I thought that you giving a last performance and Christovau doing his first one was a great idea. It balanced nicely/ritually. And I was glad, personally, because I've been hearing about your dancing for several years, and I finally got to see you do it! Which is partly why I've 'friended' you. Thank you for the dancing!

Re: Last performance

[lakshmi-amman.livejournal.com]

*blush* thank you.