Friday, July 1, 2016

Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 9

Yesterday was our last class and rehearsal at Harbour Dance. After a relatively quick warm-up, the morning was again spent refining specific moves, including the rotation of our heads and torsos on the monkey step, and then the leg lifts (or swings, as Barbara would say) on the sixes that follow. Given how long we spent on each move, I'm guessing we didn't succeed in perfecting anything to either Jay or Barbara's satisfaction.

After an early lunch we talk-walked the piece through once, and then ran it for the first time without music from start to finish. According to Barbara, we were "terrible." In fact, I think there was only one big disaster, and that was when the two circles are meant to cross in the first part of her section--which in this case got a bit chaotic and messy. We went back over that bit, and improved the second time around, but it's likely to be a whole other story on the beach--in part because I'm still a bit unclear of our directional orientation for all the different sections.

I also still don't know for sure how many turns we're supposed to do at different speeds during the picking-up-a-seed bit and whether "Molly going first with the sixes" means we in her quartet in the canon go at the same time, or wait a bit. I'm hoping I can clarify all of this in the car ride to the beach in two hours...

Of course, after all of the brutal criticism, at the end of yesterday's rehearsal Barbara turned into the sweetheart that she secretly is. She told us that we should take pride in all of the hard work that we've put into the process, especially given that the choreography is all new material and, in her words, is a real "Kokoro piece." Then we formed our car pool groups, confirmed our call time for the beach for this morning's "undress rehearsal" (8 a.m.!), and what to bring for supplies and gear.

It's just getting light out as I type this and the forecast is for overcast skies and a coolish 16 degrees for when we're meant to begin the run-through on the beach. At least it looks like the chance of rain has diminished. And we may even have a bit of sun for the performances on Saturday and Sunday.

Frankly, right now my only real concern is how cold the water is going to be!

P

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