act of God

Monday, February 26, 2007
well it was an act of God
sorry to keep you all hanging. i know everyone wants to know about this performance. i still have a tired hangover from the event and would like to take a break, but have plunged back into class. there is so much to learn and so little time!!!!
the day of the performance was crazy. not just crazy, but really fucking crazy. let me back up a little. so we had a test run on this incrediable awful stage, if you read my last blog then you know that there was no way possible to dance...or at least dance well. thankfully that got taken care of. the support system was the same, tables on top of piles of rocks, but they got large sheets of ply-wood and put it on top of the rickity tables with carpet inbetween and then a weird felty astro turf on top of that. not my dream stage but tears fell a second time because i knew i could dance on it. biggest disaster avoided right? huh yeah right!
so i wake up on saturday and go to morning class, do a quick run through and the run home to shower and then run back to the studio to get ready. usually the skies are blue and the wind is still, typical rajastani weather, hot dessert stuff right? well the morning looked grim and felt windy, a little afternoon rain was on the bill, but we had faith that it would clear up.
i started getting ready at 1.30, we had a photo shoot schedualed for 4pm and then the show at 7pm. sounds like a mad amount of time yeah? but somehow time always runs out when you have 12 girls, maybe 5 mirrors, and only 1 Guruji to help us. everything in odissi dance is very spcific. the order of getting ready down to the shape of the eyebrows. i caught a little bit of shit for having dreadlocks, the ball (bun) on the back of my head was large, and Guruji spent several minutes twisting it around my head making as small as could be. odissi dancers just don't have dreadlocks, colleena had some for many years but fell to the pressure and finally got rid of them a year ago. the orissa dancers told me they were worried about what i would do with my hair, they don't like the dreads either. and of course while all the frantic getting ready is going on the wind is getting stronger and the rain starts falling. not a small light friendly rain, but more like the wind storm of the centruy with hard showers. a tarp was quickly thrown onto the stage, and people kept working, but i wondered how it would go. the school is open in parts of the wall and ceiling and rain was pouring in, there were no lights, and anything you set down blew across the room. the situation was so hopless that really we could only laugh at it. the weather was completely out of control, and so unusual for this time of year.
our photographer sucked. a point i am very sensetive to, and i unfortunatly didn't get to take as many photos as i wanted to. with the storm the light went fast and everyone was slow in getting ready.
the show was supposed to start at 7pm, at that time there was about 12 people in the audience (this was a free show). but with the rain and wind who can blame people for not coming out. so we are ready and we wait. wait for the storm to stop, (oh did i mention the lightning going on) and people to show up.
so we started about an hour and a half to two hours late. the people, bless their hearts, came, and they stayed even the show wasn't starting. the wind was so crazy strong i knew we would be blown off the stage, and as soon as colleena went out to give her speech the power died. all the power. the place was plunged into darkness, and the wind was still going (the rain stopped). it took another 10 mins to get the lights up, colleena gave her speech and i lined the dancers up on the side of the building. because of my height i find myself constantly in the front, and it was up to me to hit the music perfectly and lead the first dance out. i was around the side of the building, straining my ears. i couldn't hear anything because of the wind. i started to panic, and then i stopped. i focused and i listened. i heard what i was looking for and started the entrance for the dance. then it was the act of God. somewhere in the beginning of the dance the wind stopped, and the night became calm, and remained calm till the very end of the program, when it started to pour with a vengance.
my performance was that of a beginner. i gave it my best, but definitly came up short. i had no huge mistakes in the first number, but my skill level is not as good as i would like it to be. the stage, even though covered during the rain was soaked, and the lights were so bright i could hardly see where i was placing my feet. but i made it through with a smile on my face, and i didn't fall.
the second dance i was in, and the last of the night, was much more challanging. it is the last dance you learn as an odissi dancer, and it is considered "pure dance" because you are dancing for enlightenment. this shit was FAST, like really fast. i was on the other side of the stage, in the front, from where i had previously danced, and i was standing in an actuall puddle. there was tape under my feet that started lifting, and in the middle of my dance by bracelet flew off! i tried to idnore it, but i'm sure the "oh shit" look was aparent on my face. the bracelet didn't land far away from my feet and i started to sweat thinking in my head "please God don't let me step on it, don't let me step on it!". some wonderful person, i still don't know who, snuck up to the stage and pulled it out of my way, thankfully. after that i just had to keep up and keep smiling. all else seemed pretty well, but at the very end there is a crazy set of 5 turns. i find this normally to be a challange, and had only aced it about half the time in practice. the first three were good, but the puddle and the tape were messing me up and with the forth turn i knew i'd loss it if i did one more, so i tried to drag it out and stopped the same time the other dancers stopped. i thought it was better than eating shit on the stage, but it really bummed me out.
this show was broadcasted live on televison. there was literally hundreds of people that came. tv crews and newspapers snuck into our green room to interveiw us and were kicked out by the police. at the end of the show we came out onto the stage and the people went mad. the screamed, they cheered, the took crazy amounts of photos. the show was a sucess, we are now crazy rockstars in pushkar.
the next day all our friends from Orissa left early in the morning. getting to bed at 2am i got up at 8am and ran to see them off. the dancers want me to come and study in Orissa, the hub of Odissi dance, they don't like my locks but they like my dancing...so maybe next year.
now i can hardly make it through the market without at least 5 offers of chai. we were in 4 different news papers and on the front page of one. it was a crazy wonderful experience.
talking with the other girls, and the locals we all believe that the night really was magical, a miracle that everything pulled through. odissi dance in its original form was danced only in temples, for the gods, never for entertainment. that has changed but the dedication and sincerity of the dancers hasn't that much. and i think that was our saving grace. our devotion to this form, our sincerity, and the pure determination to bring this to the community, for free, really brought us through. ugh that's all. i'll post some pics soon!!!