It doesn’t matter how much you rehearse…

It doesn’t matter how much you rehearse because once you get onstage it will never be like it was in the studio.

This past month has been quite busy for my husband and I. As usual one goes from doing absolutely nothing to having not quite enough time to do what needs to be done. Between me working full-time from 9-17, I also had to find to rehearse “A Clown’s Funeral” for the “Evening of New Choreographers” at the St. Petersburg State Conservatoire, to rehearsing “Evening” for the “Festival of Contemporary Choreographers.” My husband meanwhile was rehearsing his “-3 Years Celsius.”

As usual with these things, one fights to find studios available in order to rehearse, but this time we had the added struggle of find dancers who were available to perform. With all the ballet artists St. Petersburg has to offer, most dancers were either on tour or busy performing at their respective theatres. We had to do an interview for the festival and my husband and I both felt like idiots going to give interviews when we hadn’t even found dancers to dance our choreographies. To add to that I get so nervous giving interviews in Russian, and my command of the language seems to disappear when I have to speak to a camera. My husband was as nervous as I was, though whereas I feel like I sound like a silly dumb girl in front of the camera, he becomes very serious, and seems to talk really smart.

In the end I asked a good friend of mine to dance, and my husband didn’t have much choice. I told him, what dancer is going to be available to rehearse only after 17? I had such little choice when it came to rehearsal time, so I needed artists who could understand that. My husband found dancers from Vaganova Ballet Academy.

So we rehearsed. And rehearsed. The truth is that every rehearsal was a fight, and I am not sure how to put it into words. My husband is a ballet artist, choreographer, and my husband. My friend is a ballerina, repetiteur, and a close friend. The three of us together in a studio was a fight with me trying to keep the peace, but making my husband even angrier because of that. He said “you are the choreographer, stop this and tell us what you want.” I choreographed this dance four years ago, so there was a lot I had forgotten, which is not an excuse. I should know every step of my own dances, but it seems my husband knew the dance better than I did. The lifts all took some time, and even the parts I thought wouldn’t cause a problem, and I would say something led to fights. In the end though it came together, and the intensity of the emotions in the room was what I wanted in this dance.

Then comes the day of the Festival. My husband is first to arrive at the theatre and he calls me and says “Annika, the stage is slippery with no linoleum, it’s a small theatre and it’s in a semi-circle, the lights can’t reach the back area, only one wing, and it’s really cold.” Not the thing one wants to hear or inform one’s dancers. I called my ballerina and told her to bring rosin, and dress really warm. Our rehearsal was at 1630, and we had a half hour to rehearse. The lighting technician asked if he could smoke for 3 minutes, and I said yes, as long as it as three minutes. 15 minutes later he came back in, and we delayed that long as well. My dancers rehearsed onstage as we set the lights, but it all came down to the fact that the stage was too slippery for pointe shoes.

After the rehearsal we waited in the open dressing room. I was just sitting exhausted, as I had had very little sleep for the past week. It didn’t matter all the energy we had put into rehearsals as I knew the stage was going to affect the performance.

The time came, and they danced. It started really well, and they did all the lifts. Then came the second half of the dance were my ballerina had some turns, and she couldn’t hold on to them. Still they completed the dance, but it wasn’t in any position to win a prize. I was awarded a diploma as a finalist of the competition. My husband won 2nd place the following day. His dancers were also affected by the slippery floor, but they managed, though weren’t fully satisfied either.

So here’s to my husband and I “Laureates of the Festival of Young Contemporary Choreographies.” Here’s to more rehearsals and hoping they will lead to a magical moment once onstage.

ShahMat, Checkmate, ++

I am not a good chess player. The few times I have won while playing chess is because either my opponent made a mistake, or just by pure dumb luck. While studying at the State Conservatory of Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, I did notice that they had a chess club. On the top floor of the Conservatory there was a dance studio, a gym, and a chess club. I remember climbing the stairs to the sixth floor to head to the dance studio, and there was an old professor climbing those same steps for a game of chess. While I was rehearsing my dance to the sound of the ping pong ball being tossed back and forth, the old man was concentrating on his game. I can say I respect the game, and admire people who can plan 12 move ahead. I can’t even plan my life two steps ahead. So I was never good at playing chess.  The advantages of being a choreographer, however, is that I can make a dance about it without having to play it. 

I first made a dance about chess in my first year of studying at the Conservatory. It was a dance for two young boys, and had them dancing with boards while they slowly made a chessboard on the floor during the dance. My mistake in that dance is that people who sat in parterre of the theatre couldn’t see the chessboard. It’s been 7 years since then and I am choreographing a solo for a young man taking part in The XIII Russian Open Ballet Competition “Arabesque–2014” named after Ekaterina Maximova. I was supposed to choreograph a duet for two young men, but since the other man wasn’t able to get leave to take part in the competition I rethought the chess duet and made it a solo.

In my dance is a serious business man making his deals, competitive, and wanting to win, and his perfect rival is himself, so he plays a game of chess or life with himself. A bit of Jekyll and Hyde, Black vs White, two characters in one man. I have struggled with my dancer as I want him to be an actor as well with this dance. Technically the dance is difficult, and emotionally as well. It’s 3:20 which is rather a long solo. I have struggled to have the dancer understand how the steps should be danced and how he should portray his character. At times during his rehearsal his character has come out, but then his technique has suffered. The most important is that he doesn’t always listen to the music and is either ahead of the music or behind.

Yesterday was the last rehearsal I had, and the dance is now finished though not in a perfect state. He leaves tonight for Perm, and will only dance this dance on the 10th of April, and I arrive in Perm on the 9th. So we will have one day for him to rehearse the dance before he performs it. As with all arts there never seems to be enough time to perfect the dance.

I can only hope it will look decent at the competition. I don’t expect to win the choreographer’s prize, but if I do it will be something to write about in my next blog.

“Night”

For dancers and musicians the workday ends at night. Dancers put on their costumes, do their make-up, warm up, get on stage, dance, take their bows, take off their costumes, make up, take a shower, and leave the theatre. Perhaps they head home, maybe go out for a bite, or head for a drink to wind down.

What about those who when they dance become a different character? Who have to act the emotions of their character? When you have to add feelings to your job it can emotionally drain you. It’s not just about your muscles working, moving to the music, dancing. Sometimes you have to be an actor and feel all the emotions while you are dancing.

My dance “Night” is about that. Some dancers can turn off their emotions like a switch. They leave what happened onstage there on the stage, where it belongs. They can then head off with their friends and talk about normal things.  Other dancers keep reliving it, going through every movement, wondering why some lift didn’t work, why they couldn’t keep their balance during some turn, why they didn’t jump so high. They are the ones who are difficult to talk too. Either they want to be comforted, praised, or just want to be left alone. Difficult to tell.

In my duet, you have a ballerina in a tutu onstage not able to fully realise that the performance has truly ended.

Her partner has already dressed, is in his coat, ready to go home when he sees her having a nervous breakdown. He sees her still onstage, and runs to help her, still being the caring partner, but trying to get her to realise that life is not a stage. Their conflicting characters brings them to the breaking point, when finally he realises he can only help her by helping her fly.