Spring Performance

I just performed with Cleveland School of Dance at the Allen Theatre tonight. We were awesome, as usual! (I took a buttload of pics in the studio last Wednesday, just posted at karint.com.)

Paul is at his 25th reunion at Oberlin, so for the first time, didn't get to come to the performance. Whenever he's out of town, I always sleep pretty badly the first night. I couldn't sleep until at least 2 am last night and couldn't sleep past 8 this morning. I wasn't feeling blue or anything, I'm just so used to having him there and hearing his breathing. I should have been feeling draggy all day, but of course wasn't because of the performance buzz--no caffeine necessary.

During the lunch break after warmup class I thought I'd run my pieces on the piano in the theatre. What a rude awakening--it was so out of tune it sounded like one of those church basement pianos little kids are constantly pounding on, or a honky-tonk piano at a bar. Funky! (And not in a good way--more like moldy-leftovers-funky.) And I am pretty used to out of tune pianos. Yeah, it was bad. But I didn't mention it to Gladisa, figuring 1) She had enough to stress about already and 2) When Lawrence came later, he would surely tune it himself, as he has previous years.

When he did come and play it a little bit, he was livid, yelling at all the tech people, "If I were Karin or Larissa, I would refuse to play this piano! How can you not think to check this before now?" and etc. He was especially pissed because he had left his tuning equipment at home, not thinking he would have to use it. (Truthfully, of course I wouldn't have refused to play--I'm not much of a diva.) So he left and came back with the equipment, still fuming. We ended the tech/dress rehearsal an hour early so he would have time to tune it.

I love performance days. There's a lot of downtime, spent mostly chatting with colleagues and some of the moms, eating, reading Newsweek, and visiting various dressing rooms because some of the girls wanted to take a picture with me. You can feel the adrenaline in the air. I took a long, leisurely time to change into my black performance glamour outfit and add a little more makeup.

I spent the whole performance in the stage right wing, watching the other dances from the side view in the glare of the stage lights, feeling so relaxed I was even yawning, doing finger exercises to warm up since both of my pieces were fast and difficult from the get-go. I only felt the adrenaline when actually on stage, just enough to feel a little fluttery with my hands a little sweaty. Fortunately, my focus has improved enough to keep this from causing me to make noticeable mistakes. Maybe someday I'll be able to let go of self-conciousness enough to really get in a "flow state" on stage, but it only happens a few seconds at a time. At least I can see the colors, which gives me something to grab onto.

Larissa and I both played well (on a beautifully tuned piano), and the dancers looked great and like they were having fun. Afterwards there was much hugging, graduating seniors crying, parents and friends congratulating. I went to find Lawrence to tell him how much I appreciate his hard work on our behalf. I just love performing, but I'm also glad it's over so I can take it a little easy for a while.