The dance audition.
THURSDAY: My First Ever Real Audition, Continued:
The Feet
Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow. 3:30pm
I'm back in this waiting area again (which looks like it moonlights as a bar. Wow. Beer. What a good plan). The last group of singers are only just finishing their auditions, and it looks like there are maybe about 15 other guys here. Loads of girls, but who the hell cares about them? They're only doing this because they never worked out how to use an icing piping bag properly.
Other Girl has shifted from meowing to stretching in front of everyone else. I decide to do the same. When Ally and I meow out loud, I swear her eyes are burning into me (she's probably summoning the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bast, to smite me. Here come the locusts. Though why a cat goddess wouldn't just send a plague of cats is anyone's guess. Plague of cats. Nightmare.).
I get in with the dancers and warm up with them. I'm slightly less nervous about this. I can do this. Dancing is something I know I can do. More sure of it than my singing. This is going to be fiiiiiine.
Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow. 4:30pm. Main stage.
This is not fine.
This is a DISASTER.
For one thing, I'm not picking this up very quickly, which I didn't really expect. Pride, then fall. Pride, then fall. Stupid true-to-life clichés, always messing things up. Who comes up with these things anyway?! Trying to screw the rest of us over. If you're reading, inventor-of-that-phrase: screw you!
For another, I've made some really bad clothing decisions. My West Side Story rehearsal the night before means my usual dance-stuff is unusable (I hadn't expected it to get anywhere near that sweaty, but the masochism involved in singing and dancing the Jet Song at the same time made my skin pee). Instead, I thought I'd be fine with a pair of 3/4-length khakis and the shoes and t-shirt I had on, but a stupid vanity thing made me ditch the t-shirt, and just have my zip-hoody on.
Bad.
Plan.
Dude.
Once I started learning this dance, I got really hot. So now I'm sweaty, in a tight hoody and shorts, and small shoes that do NOT look or feel good with these shorts. I don't look like a star. I need to look like a star. I look like an idiot.
I know! Take off the shoes! Barefoot! That'll look better. Nothing I can do about the hoody, so may as well just feel more like a dancer, and take off the damn shoes.
Except this stage is painted, and it's giving my feet more drag than if I had Choos on. Crud. Work through it, I'm thinking. Work through. Keep going.
Five minutes later, I have glass in my foot. There's broken glass on the painted stage. The stage is painted, and there's broken glass on it. Know what else has broken glass on it now? Some veins in my mother-effing heel. There's no way I'm going to tell them, because that's just going to sound like an excuse, and no one else has bare feet (why did I think this would make me look like a dancer?).
So I've put my shoes back on, which has taken too long and too much energy, and the choreographer's talking to us and I'm hopping around with one bloody sock on. I'm hopping, shoeless, in front of a West End choreographer. There is no way to tell you how much of a mess this is.
On top of that, we're not going to do it in groups of 6. I haven't actually gotten it -jeez, I'm so distracted, what the hell is going on?- and everytime I do it, this one move is getting worse and worse...
The Knees
We've just been told we'll be doing it in groups of 6, and we'll be doing it twice in a row. Finish the first time and then straight into the second time. This is fine. I can do this. This is not any more complicated than the West Side Story choreography, and that only takes ten minutes to at least know what I'm doing (minus the polish, but right now polish is the least of my problems). There's one move, near the end, where I have to throw myself to my (bare - stupid clothes) knees, and throw my head and left arm backwards, before popping forwards, and then coming up. Every time I do it, I'm banging my knees off this damn stage (and I'm worried about broken glass - who the hell puts broken glass on a stage and leaves it?! This place seriously needs some better health and safety regulations! Wait...did they do this on purpose...?).
So I'm in the middle of my first time through. These clothes are making me so uncomfortable, but I'm just trying to go for it. Just sell it. No matter what. Throw yourself into it, Andi, come on! This is your chance to make something of yourself and finally get somewhere! Now the knees! GO!
F&*$&$*^%*^)"£(*£*£($()")CK!!!!!
Keep going! Smile, for crying out loud! Get back up! Sell the end! Don't fall into the crowd! Stand out!
Ooooh, Christ, that was bad. Owie, owie, OWIE! But it's okay: Chance number two! Just man up. Do it again - you're good enough for this!
You're ready!
The Liver
Paperinos Restaurant, Glasgow. 6:30pm.
God. Thank you for inventing gin.
And dance classes.
And dance classes.
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