As it's getting towards the end of tour all members of the company are getting tired and run down with a few illnesses and injuries circulating. Everyone is getting excited about going home for Christmas and the festivities ahead.
Unfortunately yesterday during our warm up ballet class one of the male dancers went over on his ankle and had to be rushed to hospital 25 minutes before the show. Being such a small company all of the dancers have many roles to play in each ballet and we have no understudies that come on tour with us. This, of course caused mayhem as the roles were reassigned to other company members at the 15 minute call. Dancers were manically watching recorded choreography on laptops before the curtain went up. The first role (Fritz in Nutcracker) ended up being played by a girl in a wig!!! We all worked together and the show actually looked 'quite good' in the words of our ballet mistress. It turns out our inured dancer has a sprained ankle, so unfortunatley with a week left of tour it looks unlikely he will be able to do any more performances.
Although yesterday was completely frantic it actually showed us that even when we are tired/ill/injured we can work collectively as a team and put on an enjoyable show.
In terms of my inquiry it is interesting for me to look how people are behaving differently now compared to the beginning of tour. Are less people completing a full ballet class? More people doing exercises to get rid of injuries? Less people warming up? People tired? How has the mental attitude of the company altered? This are some things I have been writing about in my journal so it will be interesting for me to be able to look back at these notes.
Hey Maddy,
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to this! People get run down as it is at this time of year, combine it with the busiest of schedules and the start of the end - I feel we go into shut down mode. Both physically and mentally sometimes. It's like as soon as one person goes, everyone drops like flies. As dancers we try and fight it but you just have to listen to your body and take the rest sometimes!
Hey Megan! Yes, I think as dancers we are very critical of ourselves and are conscious about being perceived as 'lazy'. But it is important to listen to your body and rest when needed. Yes you're right! In such a small close knit environment it is very easy for one person's illness or attitude to spread!
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