Hip-Hoppery

May 28, 2009

I'm standing in a ladies room off the hallway from a coffee shop inside the Center. Meticulously, I pull my bangs back onto my head and pin them down, using the rat tail end of my comb to lift the hair to a height an inch above my hand. This is the "poof" my friends used to call. It's reminiscent of a Gwen Stefani or Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson hairdo. Then, I struggle to put each contact in before covering my face in another layer of makeup for the stage.

K. is getting ready next to me. She is approximately 30 years my senior.

"How nice you are wearing stage make-up for rehearsal" she says.

"It's the only way to make sure there's no problems with the lighting and my make up." And she watches as I continue the long process. Even I am fascinated by the application of stage make-up. I take care not to dirty my red spandex tank top and black jazz pants that serve as my costume.

I find a spot in the auditorium, hide my bag, and continue to stretch my cold muscles. There isn't much I can do to increase elasticity but pray. I leave the stage exhausted from 3 minutes and 46 seconds of continuous agony.

***

May 29, 2009

I'm not sure what possessed me to spend 35 minutes on the elliptical at the gym. The lactic acid in my hamstrings and calves ached. At least on this day, my lungs are not so much my enemy. I make time to eat a healthy breakfast and take two naps. I spent the afternoon resting, overcome with a slight fatigue. I also purchased a comb attachment to bulk-up my ponytail for the show, and I affectionately call it my Weave.

I arrive at the Center agitated and late. My Weave is in place, but my make-up is far from begun. For this evening's show, I've moved my make-up process to the dressing room I am sharing with my choreographer and his cast of 8 - 12 year old hip-hop dancers. I start with a mild soap to remove any grime and then prime my face. Again, I slip my contacts in, and then begin the whole stage make-up application as younger girls pop in and out of my peripheral vision. They canvas my supplies, most of which are spilled across the whole of a banquet table. One young girl tells me that her aunt "has the exact same brush. Except hers twists up!" and she presses the pick of my comb into the fluffy blush bristles. She giggles as she changes the brush's shape, creating rifts in the otherwise level surface. After 45 minutes, I am done. I take a minute to change into my costume. A runner delivers flowers to the room, 3 carnations. One is marked for Alissa, and the other two are from Evan and my parents to me. The little girls look at Alissa with envy. "Where's my flower?" one girl asks, and she looks at me. Each time she passes my pair of carnations, she examines the card to make sure they're really for me.

In the hallway, Rich and I review the end of the dance. During the rehearsal, we ended up on different ends of the stage on our exit (wrong) and our synchronized arm motions were two counts apart. Happens when adrenaline is running high. Our review was count by count, motioning ourselves through each step without half the usual energy - called "marking", and even after that, we found ourselves breathless. We took several minutes to stretch before being called down to the stage door. Rich paces around nervously, his energy uncontainable. I am the opposite, I stretch and take deep breaths. I love the stage more than anything in this world and I'm at the deepest level of bliss when I am in the spotlights. One last spot check with hair spray and we are in the wings...

...Afterward, I am not nearly as breathless as I was the night before. I attribute this to the 35 minutes on the elliptical. I take some pictures in costume before running to the ladies room to change into "lay clothes" and venture out for Pizza and Beer. So much for dining like a dancer.