auditions this week
this has been a pretty good week for lotta and me. biggest is that her piece got accepted to be in the maryland choreographers showcase in january!!! very, very major–esp since about 60 groups auditioned and only about 7 got in! what’s so funny is that at first i think she was kind of down about it, feeling like the piece wasn’t completely authentic, and that she hadn’t put herself totally into it and couldn’t really stand behind it. but the reality is that she did it almost as a challenge to herself, to see if she could put something together in a month to audition–and she totally did! so that’s a very major victory.
by the way, just for the hell of it, here’s a review of last year’s showcase that my friend the dance critic kate mattingly wrote for dance view times. i just came across it.
so that’s pretty major news. and i had news too, not as impressive but good to me. i auditioned for dance antonini–didn’t know much about them, but loved their description (something about organic movement, release technique and improvisation, all of which are my total cups of tea) and thought i’d go for it. the audition went ok: it started out alright, then went downhill in terms of my performance, then improved again once we did a combination. it’s funny how that can be–i watched myself while we were warming up and doing exercises, and i looked so bad! very stiff and almost unfamiliar with certain basic modern techniques. but once we started really dancing, the rest fell away and i could MOVE, which i’m comfortable doing, and it felt great. anyway, so i got in, which was terrific for my ego and definitely excites me. it’s odd since i know very little about the company, but i got a good vibe from lou antonini himself, and i liked his movement. and they rehearse at night, which is all i can manage, so that’s great. i’m excited to be dancing more soon.
it’s funny how things like these–getting an audition, getting some approval for your work or quality of movement–are so important, even though in part they’re sort of superficial. but ultimately we want to be as good as we can be, and figuring out how far along that path we are right now means asking other people to assess us. it sucks, a lot of the time, but it’s necessary, i guess, and can be a good thing.