Axis ... I/D tonight
Nov. 17th, 2005 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiWell... tonight's the night. Flying out the door with bag o' clothing, bag o' makeup and hangers of clothing feels almost normal now. Status:
- Jump, Jive -n- Wail is appropriately jumping, jiving and wailing. I wish I had gotten it to gel by Sunday, so Pinky and I could have worked on partner stuff and abhinaya then, but at least I don't have any "uh.. what next?" moments going into the show.
- Cuban Pete - working, after dress was fitted, had much more hip-compatibility. A few things have been changed, but that's all good.
I wish, for both of them, that I'd had more time to put in. The moves to Burlesque are not complicated - this is not like Indian dance where I'm simply shaking with fatigue after the newest, hardest peice and it takes weeks to be able to do it without it being huge tons of work... and so, the challenge is not stamina, but precision and attitude. I have to - 100% of the time - be selling the idea that I am incredibly sexy, incredibly happy to be dancing, and that isn't the audience lucky, lucky, lucky that sexy me is dancing for them? Now... doing that 75% of the time is not so hard... but my brain doesn't stay on topic for 3 minutes straight. On a regular basis my self image slithers between - I'm sexy, I'm smart, I'm creative, I'm funny, I'm clumsy, I'm bored, I'm horny, I'm sexy, I'm... - and alot of those are not Burlesque-y. I want to keep up that overwhelming sexy charisma vibe, and I want it to just grow and grow and grow.
Secondmost, I want to be *clean* - the really, really good dancers (of any genre) that I've seen are distingushed by having interesting moves done Right.On.The.Beat. It's a beautiful thing. That snap of a perfect lock between dance move and musical sound. And when it happens over and over and over - you know it's not "better lucky than good" - it's being just plain *good*. Done with the charisma mentioned above, it shows this flawless control that looks easy, but making it look easy couldn't be harder!
In a way, I find Middle Eastern and Indian far easier to do this with. Probably because I know those well, and I take lessons with fabulous teachers, who are now teaching at the advanced level - where it's not about doing the moves in the right sequence, but doing them precisely and on time as well... The mushiness and simplicity of Burlesque actually makes staying nice and clean a little harder. But I think it is still something that distingushes the best dancers from those who are simply pretty and fairly good.
I think the Baby Dolls right now offer me two interesting challenges:
- always be preparing something - with a gig a month, it means that most peices get a month lead time at best. Figure that I also do other things with my life, and the actual choreography time shrinks impressively.
- develop that technical stuff in a Burlesque way - take a loose choreographical approach, and ratchet it down to allow the freedom of focus on charisma, while maintaining clean, on-time moves.
The two are each pretty cool challenges - doing them simultaneously really throws down the gauntlet. I hope that after a while of doing this, I get both a spiffy repertoire and some interesting insight in how to choreograph quickly and still do a clean performance.
I think for next month I want to make sure I spend minimal time on costuming, and lots of time on this dance-y stuff. I want a wintry dress, but I think I will focus on some closet raiding. Maybe Filene's Basement and the Garment District will come through for me again...
- Jump, Jive -n- Wail is appropriately jumping, jiving and wailing. I wish I had gotten it to gel by Sunday, so Pinky and I could have worked on partner stuff and abhinaya then, but at least I don't have any "uh.. what next?" moments going into the show.
- Cuban Pete - working, after dress was fitted, had much more hip-compatibility. A few things have been changed, but that's all good.
I wish, for both of them, that I'd had more time to put in. The moves to Burlesque are not complicated - this is not like Indian dance where I'm simply shaking with fatigue after the newest, hardest peice and it takes weeks to be able to do it without it being huge tons of work... and so, the challenge is not stamina, but precision and attitude. I have to - 100% of the time - be selling the idea that I am incredibly sexy, incredibly happy to be dancing, and that isn't the audience lucky, lucky, lucky that sexy me is dancing for them? Now... doing that 75% of the time is not so hard... but my brain doesn't stay on topic for 3 minutes straight. On a regular basis my self image slithers between - I'm sexy, I'm smart, I'm creative, I'm funny, I'm clumsy, I'm bored, I'm horny, I'm sexy, I'm... - and alot of those are not Burlesque-y. I want to keep up that overwhelming sexy charisma vibe, and I want it to just grow and grow and grow.
Secondmost, I want to be *clean* - the really, really good dancers (of any genre) that I've seen are distingushed by having interesting moves done Right.On.The.Beat. It's a beautiful thing. That snap of a perfect lock between dance move and musical sound. And when it happens over and over and over - you know it's not "better lucky than good" - it's being just plain *good*. Done with the charisma mentioned above, it shows this flawless control that looks easy, but making it look easy couldn't be harder!
In a way, I find Middle Eastern and Indian far easier to do this with. Probably because I know those well, and I take lessons with fabulous teachers, who are now teaching at the advanced level - where it's not about doing the moves in the right sequence, but doing them precisely and on time as well... The mushiness and simplicity of Burlesque actually makes staying nice and clean a little harder. But I think it is still something that distingushes the best dancers from those who are simply pretty and fairly good.
I think the Baby Dolls right now offer me two interesting challenges:
- always be preparing something - with a gig a month, it means that most peices get a month lead time at best. Figure that I also do other things with my life, and the actual choreography time shrinks impressively.
- develop that technical stuff in a Burlesque way - take a loose choreographical approach, and ratchet it down to allow the freedom of focus on charisma, while maintaining clean, on-time moves.
The two are each pretty cool challenges - doing them simultaneously really throws down the gauntlet. I hope that after a while of doing this, I get both a spiffy repertoire and some interesting insight in how to choreograph quickly and still do a clean performance.
I think for next month I want to make sure I spend minimal time on costuming, and lots of time on this dance-y stuff. I want a wintry dress, but I think I will focus on some closet raiding. Maybe Filene's Basement and the Garment District will come through for me again...
