There's a great moment in the documentary "A Wink and a Smile" in which Miss Indigo Blue talks to her Burlesque 101 class about things that could potentially go wrong onstage. As a lifetime performer, believe me, I'm well aware of how easily things can go wrong.
Well, Thursday night, we experienced this firsthand. First off, during my solo, I couldn't get my first glove removed and finally resorted to using my teeth, leaving black lipstick on part of my white costume. Not bad, not too noticeable (well, it was to me), but could have been an omen of things to come. When we debuted our new group number, it seems the burlesque gods smote us with a plague of technical glitches: tear away pants that didn't tear away, missed choreography, costumes ALMOST revealing more than they were meant to, bras catching on fishnets, and so on. Afterwards, we all said "WTF??" But we had fun and we all hit the ending choreography just fine. Afterwards, people told us how much they loved the new number. Yep, we MEANT to do it that way. :)
All you can do is just keep going and hope for the best the next time around.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Burly-q Pimping Ain't Easy
This has been a CRAZY weekend, burly-wise. Ever have a show that just sneaked up behind you and bonked you on the head? It wasn't until halfway through the week that it sank in that I have a show on the 13th, and I'm nowhere near finished with my costuming, nor do I have my final choreography set. Normally, I'm done waaaay ahead of time, but that pesky day job is sucking my will to get anything done. ::sigh::
And so, I finally sat down Thursday night and sewed and glued until my poor shoulders and neck were stiff. Managed to get a few more touches done today at practice (more on that later), and still have a pair of shimmy panties to finish tomorrow after day-job time. On the drive from rehearsal on Friday, I listened to my music over and over until I had the choreography set in my brain, then walked through it at home and again at today's rehearsal. Still need to practice with ALL of my costume elements, now that the costume for that number is finished.
So, costume-wise, I have my solo costume finished, my duet costume finished, and my group costume almost finished. And I realized today that I will be changing into three separate pairs of pasties through the course of the show. Ouch!
Here's a quick rundown of our weekend pimping our show with Super Happy Funtime on the 13th (at Juanita's! on the River Market! Come see us!):
Friday: Rehearsal for our new group number!
Saturday: Spent the entire late morning into the afternoon running burlesque errands (i.e., shopping for supplies to finish costuming) and visiting the venue to discuss setting up dressing areas and seeing the overall stage size. Then, made ourselves all sparkly and headed to LittleRocktoberfest (free beer!) to serve root beer floats and hand out handbills for the show all night. We were pretty wiped out by the end of the day.
Sunday: Slept in a bit, then off to more rehearsal! To make it easier and more efficient, decided not to make it a dress rehearsal. Afterwards, spent an hour getting interviewed about burlesque on the Pow Wow with Amy Pannell show.
We're taking the day off tomorrow from rehearsing, but I'll still be costuming! Then we're rehearsing every night until show. Never let it be said that burlesque is not a major investment, both time-wise and money-wise. Oh, and I still have to go to that pesky day job.
Exhausted burly girl signing off for the night.
And so, I finally sat down Thursday night and sewed and glued until my poor shoulders and neck were stiff. Managed to get a few more touches done today at practice (more on that later), and still have a pair of shimmy panties to finish tomorrow after day-job time. On the drive from rehearsal on Friday, I listened to my music over and over until I had the choreography set in my brain, then walked through it at home and again at today's rehearsal. Still need to practice with ALL of my costume elements, now that the costume for that number is finished.
So, costume-wise, I have my solo costume finished, my duet costume finished, and my group costume almost finished. And I realized today that I will be changing into three separate pairs of pasties through the course of the show. Ouch!
Here's a quick rundown of our weekend pimping our show with Super Happy Funtime on the 13th (at Juanita's! on the River Market! Come see us!):
Friday: Rehearsal for our new group number!
Saturday: Spent the entire late morning into the afternoon running burlesque errands (i.e., shopping for supplies to finish costuming) and visiting the venue to discuss setting up dressing areas and seeing the overall stage size. Then, made ourselves all sparkly and headed to LittleRocktoberfest (free beer!) to serve root beer floats and hand out handbills for the show all night. We were pretty wiped out by the end of the day.
Sunday: Slept in a bit, then off to more rehearsal! To make it easier and more efficient, decided not to make it a dress rehearsal. Afterwards, spent an hour getting interviewed about burlesque on the Pow Wow with Amy Pannell show.
We're taking the day off tomorrow from rehearsing, but I'll still be costuming! Then we're rehearsing every night until show. Never let it be said that burlesque is not a major investment, both time-wise and money-wise. Oh, and I still have to go to that pesky day job.
Exhausted burly girl signing off for the night.
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