Dance Around the World

At 5:45 this morning the fire alarm went of in the hotel. My roommate apparently thought the world was ending and started yelling "oh my GOD! what's happening?!" and then proceeded into the hallway to wake everyone in our cast up by knocking on their doors. Poor girl just wanted to save our friends. All of us meandered into the hallway to stare at each other for a minute before registering what was going on. My mentality reverted back to my school days of filling out in a single line for the fire drill and meeting out in the parking lot, but luckily for me my fellow cast members weren't about to run outside in the early morning. One of the music advisors who happened to be staying in out hallway a few doors down hopped down to the lobby to see if there was a need for any real concern, besides the fact that we had all just been violently woken up. He then came back upstairs to inform us that it was indeed a false alarm and that we could go to bed, to bad the deafening alarm was still buzzing away. I tried to block out the sound with headphones, but this was unsuccessful. After screaming at the alarm a few times, my roommate tried to call the front desk just and reached no one. Just before she got together enough anger to storm down stairs to end the torture, the alarm stopped. Unfortunate for us we had to be up in a hour by the time this wee fiasco ended, due to our new rehearsal schedule. By the time I fell back asleep, my alarm went off. It's just a good thing everyone went through the same thing, because if you took a look at one of us during breakfast, you would have thought that we stayed up all night, 5 inches away from a television screen.

We started getting into more of the numbers for 'Dance Around the World', which has twice the dancing that our previous show has. We learned the dance for Italy, and the Can-Can for France. The Italy dance is just around 3 minutes so it's fast and fairly simple, with some bouncing and jumping around in character shoes that should prove to be amazing for my calves. The Can-Can however is a different story...It is super fast, with crazy kicks and jump splits. Yes, jump splits, as in jumping into a split from a split in the air. Though it is danced at hyper speed, I'm told we get to wear authentic can-can skirts with ruffles, and we are to dance with the skirts in hand most of the time. Call me crazy, but I have always wanted to do that, so it almost makes the pace worth it. I'll let you know if that is true when I actually get to put on the costume.

We ended today at 4, so we now have more time to ourselves in the evening. This means more boredom, and more time occupying the conference rooms in the hotel lobby for 'after-hours' rehearsals with our dance captain, Marina.

I don't mind running things again in the hotel, or even having more time to sit around and do nothing because our cast is getting closer and closer by the day. We have started to share the more serious stories about previous relationships and possibly emotional times over a drink or two, and the boundaries of personal privacy are swiftly becoming obsolete. I am learning about the drama that has gone down in the past on other contracts, and the areas that are sensitive to talk about and/or bring up in the group.

On the flip side, my cast is getting to know me. My roommate Kate and I have way too much in common in our lives. We are both the oldest of 3 with a younger sister thats 20 and a younger brother that's 15. Our brothers are both following the sport of our fathers, and both our fathers almost went pro in said sport. Both our sisters danced with us for a few years and then realized that it just wasn't for them, and both of our mothers were professional dancers. We have most of the same music, coincidentally put up the same picture as our laptop backgrounds...both white macbooks, and both of us were Wonder Woman for Halloween last year. It gets so bad that occasionally we say the same things. We even have matching water bottles, also by accident.

21 days until we fly to Miami to board the ship, and I am already falling in love with my cast. This gig can be tough at times, but it's perfect for me right now. I love that I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, and that I am completely at the mercy of someone else's' plans. I love waking up in the morning to dance, and knowing that I will be performing on a stage for paying costumers for 7 straight months. I love that I have no idea what Europe is going to be like, and that I am going to see more of the world then I would have ever dreamed I would be able to.

This thing gets more and more exciting every day. I'm tired, and I am stuffing choreography in my head like I'm stocking up for winter, but not once have I wished I was somewhere else.