| December
Diary 2002
by Cassa Pancho
Well.
This has been one hell of a few of months. If beginning a
dance company can be compared to literature, then I would
have to liken Ballet Black to the work of Sophocles. Greek
Tragedy a-go-go (d’ya think he would’ve put it
like that?)
Paper-Pushing
In October, I was at such a weird level of stress that I actually
developed a slight sta-a-a-a-a-mmer whenever I got frustrated
or nervous and had a continuous tremor in my hands. The sheer
amount of work that goes into just the administrational side
of things – combined with the late nights (or early
mornings) to get everything done left me absolutely wrecked.
We had put together a fabulous information pack about the
fundraiser with all the details of our December show, full-colour
pictures, mission statement, biographies and current sponsors
to send out to more potential supporters, but it was such
a PAIN!
No sooner would we finish one version, than the computer we
were working on would crash and all of our work would be lost.
The formatting for the pictures wasn’t quite right,
the text needed continual re-writes and our entire website
went completely AWOL. My life became one long, ending-at-3am-in-the-morning
night, day after day, after day... We finally got the computer
to hold together - and the disk wouldn’t work on the
PC in the print shop! Then we discovered that the cost of
printing the packs was so high that we probably wouldn’t
be able to afford it anyway, especially once you added the
bloody VAT. D’oh! I found this out whilst waiting for
the quote in the print shop and managed to remain surprisingly
calm. So calm that it prompted the bloke behind the counter
to ask me why I as a female (or “bird” as I believe
he put it) wasn’t crying about it. That was when I lost
my rag and let rip with a stream of curses. He was so impressed
that he knocked the cost of the VAT off AND a further 50 quid!
Ha! It was a bloody bargain after that! Whoever said that
swearing doesn’t become young ladies can take a long
walk off a f****** short pier.
photograph by William Potter ©
That was really just the beginning of the tedium. Because
each information pack had cost around £9 to produce,
we had to be extremely careful as to who we sent them to.
I won’t go into too much detail about all this, as it
would be as interesting to read about as it was to actually
do it, but whilst all this letter-writing was going on, I
was working full-time at a nine to five job, spending Sundays
in Kent for the KYB - and my ballet for the fundraiser had
barely seen a glimmer of daylight as it seemed to get left
behind while we worked on the other two pieces. We had little
to no money to even think about costumes, ticket sales hadn’t
even begun and our drinks sponsor for the after-show party
had just dropped us, deciding not to support any more arts
events. Add to that one of our male dancers thinking he might
have to drop out of the Company as he had been offered work
elsewhere. We didn’t blame him. How could no wages ever
compare to actual wages?
Midgets
Somewhere in the midst of all of this, October blurred into
November…
Sleeping and eating were things that I simply stopped doing
in order to find the time to cram everything in. It was time
to begin my ballet for real. There were four weeks until the
performance, so the other two dances were put on hold. As
mentioned in the last diary, I had musicians from the Trinity
College of Music playing for my piece. Whilst I waited for
them to send me their recording of the music (Midgets by Count
Basie) I worked to the original CD. When the new version finally
arrived (extended by six minutes and slowed down a touch)
I couldn’t believe it. It was completely different to
what we had worked with and was slow to a point where I could
hardly recognize it. None of the choreography seemed to fit
and I was ready to pull the entire show. Not their fault in
the slightest – just a communication mix up –
but I really couldn’t see any way of making everything
work. Denzil was completely unruffled by what I thought was
a huge disaster, so I had a chat with the head of Jazz at
Trinity, Issie Barratt. She was chilled about the whole thing
and explained that all I had to do was choose the order of
the music and the tempo, talk to the musicians (or my “Jazz
Boys” as they are now known) and all would be cool.
Why didn’t anybody say so? Panic over…NOT!
01732
In between this, I went to Kent to see my children’s
version of Coppélia go on stage. Went well (ask Bruce,
who paid a surprise visit) with some hysterical moments involving
dead legs (short, fabulous story) and long white tutus that
kept falling down to reveal one poor girls bottom (not in
my ballet, of course). The kids were great and I doled out
enough chocolate to ensure that I have 34 new, bestest-buddies
for life. Aaaaaaah…
Back to Black
Back to London, reality and my impending sense of doom about
the fundraiser… Three weeks to go and costumes had been
delegated to Denzil to deal with. It was absolutely amazing.
He would call one designer who wanted between £500 and
a £1000 PER COSTUME. He would tell them we couldn’t
afford that so they would give him the number of another designer/maker
who “might be cheaper”. Cheaper, yes, but he was
then told that to make ONE SHIRT could take two to three months.
Where’s your friendly, neighborhood sweatshop when you
need it? This went on and on until Denz happened across the
number of a young woman by the name of Stina Gärdek,
a curtain maker by day with a head full of ideas for designing
by night. She agreed to do the whole lot (costumes for both
mine and Denzil’s ballets) for a fabulously reasonable
price AND knock them out in two weeks time. It was amazing!
She came to one rehearsal, went off material shopping with
Denz and came back a week and a half later with perfect stuff.
Meanwhile, my gorgeous mum, Trish made all the women’s
costumes for my ballet in about three days. Would you Adam
and Eve it?
Ballet Block
Unfortunately for me, I was suffering from severe choreographic
block. I was so bogged down in the administrational stuff,
trying to sell tickets, organise rehearsals, musicians and
money that any artistic bit of me was completely buried. There
were now two weeks to go until the fundraiser. My ballet was
only half done and I still hadn’t heard what the finished
music might sound like. I was also in the middle of a private
beef with one or two other people that didn’t help my
mental state. Then, the amazing happened. Richard, (our Company
physio, ticket sales dude, therapist and friend) told me that
90% of the tickets were sold and he had sorted a load of free
champagne for the reception (try to imagine golden rays of
light shining out of your screen right now and gospel choirs
singing). The last information pack had been sent out, the
last letter written. Joan White, Dean of Faculty and Director
of Education at the RAD had agreed to be our guest-speaker.
Maison Blanc were giving us something like 800 mini food-things
and chocolates for our after-show reception and that male
dancer mentioned at the beginning of this diary was sticking
with us 100%.
And relax…
(I know what you’re thinking, “is this diary over
YET?” No. Keep reading.)
Cue Thunder, Lightning & the Greek
Chorus
So, one week to go and things were actually ticking along
quite well.
Upside: found a brilliant stage crew in the form of ENB dancer
Chun-Yen Chia, ex ENB dancer John Cavalli and ANOTHER dancer
Graham Woodward. Tickets now sold out and we were even selling
standing room! We finally met the Trinity Jazz Band, and had
rehearsals with Celloman (Ivan Hussey and Oli Savill) and
it was all sounding incredible.
Downside: money was running out, 50% of the Company (yeah
alright, three of them) were consistently late for class,
making everything run behind schedule, one of our dancers
became quite ill and I developed a horrible pain in my ankle,
only to be told that there was a ligament missing! Every time
I went on pointe for Devil’s Blues it felt like something
in my ankle would snap. Denzil had weird moment and blacked
out, gashing his forehead and chipping his front tooth off,
two more of our dancers developed ankle problems and I fell
down the stairs at Bond Street tube station! AAAARGH!!!
The Day Before the Thing…
Saturday was our last day before the event. It went amazingly
well (which is supposed to be bad luck isn’t it?) The
day had been timetabled within an inch of my life and I found
myself stopping every now and then and looking around the
room in amazement. We began with rehearsing my ballet. I originally
thought of using the name The Boom Boom Room for this ballet,
but a quick internet search changed that. The sheer volume
of porn sites it brought forth was remarkable (much to Denzil’s
delight). I wanted a name that might bring to mind the old
Harlem nightclubs. Jake Nwogu, one of our dancers suggested
The Boogaloo Room and it just seemed to fit. Anyway…
We ran the ballet several times in costume. It was too cool
and the musicians were fabulous. The gorgeous Ivan Hussey
and Oli Savill from Celloman arrived with what seemed like
endless cases of sound equipment and instruments and proceeded
to set up as quietly as possible on the other side of the
studio. Stina appeared with the costumes for Denzil's ballet,
so he took over to rehearse his piece, A New Beginning, while
I doled out Ballet Black t-shirts to my Jazz boys.
The Celloman music sounded fantastic. We had been working
to the CD for so long that it was brilliant to finally hear
and see what it would look like with the real deal. After
a couple of technical hitches, Denzil's ballet was well on
its way, when Murray Gould and Jason James Bradshaw (from
The Sneakers) arrived to rehearse Devil's Blues. Phew! More
t-shirts to Ivan and Oli while myself and the rest of the
cast of DB's got ready to run the ballet. This was all captured
on tape by John Cavalli, who was put in charge of Denzil's
video camera. William was there snapping away, Richard was
treating dancers and my Mum and Stina were busy with last
minute stitching. Also present was choreographer, Michael
Rolnick who came to lend his support and offer last minute
coaching which was very much appreciated. All in all it was
a hectic but inspiring day.
Downside: Joan White (guest speaker) had hurt her ankle and
couldn’t come to the show! - I was going to have to
do the opening speech!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
The Thing
Sunday the 8th of December was a very strange time. We began
with class at 3pm, which was a very subdued affair. Nobody
seemed too excited by the whole thing, Denz and I included
and I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach that
something would go horribly wrong.
At 5pm, the studio we were going to be performing in finally
became available. We had exactly one hour to get the lighting
rig set up, seating put out, wings and back curtain hung up,
instruments and sound equipment arranged and checked and programmes
and chocolates on the chairs. It was truly one of the most
amazing times of my life. The Jazz boys were playing bits
and pieces from their set and helping to move the grand piano
to the right spot, John and Chun were up a ladder adjusting
the lights, Graham was doing my bidding, Denzil was helping
Ivan and Oli lug their equipment in, students from the Academy
were hanging up the curtains for the wings, Richard and my
Mum were arranging front of house and the after-show reception
and Murray and his band were practising one of their songs.
The dancers were warming up and getting into makeup/costume
for the full run-through that was due to start at 6pm. There
had been no opportunity to write any kind of stage cue sheet,
so while this hustle and bustle was going on, I sat in the
middle of it all, writing every stage, lighting, speech, music
and set cue I could think of. Once I'd added all of the cues
I completely forgot about, I looked around and tried to take
it all in. For once, I was absolutely speechless. I wanted
to go up to each person in the room and hug them for being
so wonderful. It’s a time I will never forget.
photograph by William Potter ©
Anyway - enough with the mushy stuff. The final (and only)
full fun through in makeup, lights and costume - with complete
bands finally began a little behind schedule. It was dreadful.
The dancers went wrong (me included) and half of my ballet
didn't even happen! Uh-oh! There was no time to worry about
it though, as about half of the audience had begun to show
up. UH-OH! I had exactly three seconds thinking time, between
putting my makeup on, fixing my hair with some ridiculous
hairclips and very unattractive pants (part of the costume
I hasten to add) and finding myself being pushed very gently
onto stage by John, Chun and Graham, to give the opening speech.
For some insane reason, I explained to the audience that I
would have my notes with me as this was an unplanned talk,
then every time I looked down at the paper I read absolutely
nothing from it. I rambled for a few minutes then ran away
very gratefully. It was only when I was off stage that I realized
I had forgotten to introduce the fist musical act (Celloman)
and Denzil's ballet. Ooops! Luckily, Denz got up and did it
for me. Thank you!
The rest of the night was a blur. Apply more lipstick for
Devil's Blues, get onstage, dance, run off, come back, bow,
run off again, change dress, remove lipstick, take out ridiculous
clips, take off unattractive pants, try and look like a grown
up, slip out the wings in the blackout with Denzil, watch
my own ballet, run back on stage, take another bow, make another
speech, thank everyone you can remember to, go to after-show
party and make sure everyone is having a great time. Denz
and I kept meeting up in the middle, checking notes and that
we'd thanked everyone who'd helped in some way, check on the
dancers, and away we were again.
By the end of the night (about midnight) every guest had gone.
The only people left were Murray and his band, Ivan and Oli,
Richard and my parents and Eivind and Audun, the two Norwegian's
from the Trinity band, who were playing the piano and trumpet
in the corner of the room. Every drop of champagne had been
drunk and every cake eaten. We finished clearing up, and while
Denzil loaded our car with stuff to take home, I physically
ejected the musicians who seemed to have taken root. There's
something about musicians…they're always the last to
leave!
After the Thing…
All in all, I am quite ready to retire. Just kidding! Hopefully
this is only the beginning. I feel that the performance went
so much better than I could have hoped for, and I think the
dancers and Denzil are pleased with how it went. So far, this
whole thing has been bumpy to say the least, but it’s
been a great mix of good and difficult stuff.
Personally, I have learnt so much from all of this. Never
believe anything til you see it or have it in writing; never
promise something til you know you can deliver; get contracts
where necessary; always shop around; remember those who help
you out and try to do the same; appreciate what others do
for you; listen to everything but know that everyone else
isn’t necessarily right even if you value their opinion;
pay your bills on time; stand up for yourself and don’t
take crap from anyone.
Merry Christmas!
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