Saturday began brighter and earlier than I would have liked.
Before I leave South Africa, I will actually sleep in.
At quarter after 8, I met Gillian and Caitie in
Courtney-Latimer for breakfast before our training session for Community
Engagement.
We spent the morning in the Blue Lecture Theater in the Eden
Grove administrative building learning about the goals and policies of the
Rhodes University Community Engagement (RUCE) program. There are so many places
to volunteer. You can work with preschoolers, with the elderly, students with
special needs, high school students, and people of all ages living with
HIV/AIDs. The RUCE program has a lot of willing partners in need of
enthusiastic volunteers. We were given a break midway through the information
session to get tea and meet some representatives from the various volunteer venues.
We did some workshops and scenario problem solving, as well. By lunch, we were
a bit mentally drained and starving. The meet lasagna was a welcome meal.
Potential recipe to try: carrots and pineapple salad. Actually not that bad.
After lunch I made myself go to the dance auditions.
(Reminder….I DON’T DANCE) I showed up outside the movement room, looking and
feeling totally out of place and silently cursing Sandi’s persuasive powers for
making me sign up in the first place. The audition times had been split into
two groups. One for first and second years and one for third years and honors
students. Technically I’m a third year, but experience wise I’m probably lower than
a first year. So of course…there I was with all these nimble thin muscular
experienced scary beautiful dancer people things, about to enter my first dance
audition ever that wasn’t for a high school musical number.
We file into the Movement Room – a large rectangular room
with a low ceiling, hardwood floors, a dance bar, and giant mirrors to show you
exactly how ridiculous you look – where we are greeted by 6 choreographers.
Each introduces his or her piece and says about how many people they want. 3 of
the girls are looking for a variety of things, including awkward movers
(bingo). The one guy – a bit on the scrawny side, but deceptively muscular –
basically said he was looking for upwards of 15 people who could commit to
getting super buff for a very demanding performance (oh! OH! Pick me!.....NOT)
and the last choreographer I just know I’ll never work with. She is a exactly
what you think of when you hear the word dancer. She was drop dead gorgeous. Every
muscle toned and poised for any degree of movement, wearing loose sweat pants
and a sports bra. And of course a shock of a wild dark mane of black hair magically
incapable of getting in her face. I should have walked out right then.
Let the derping begin. First they warmed us up. (aka…tried
to kill us) I could barely keep up with techniques they had probably learned
their first year and subsequently have done every day since. Knowing I was
going to be awkward and embarrassed the whole time I was there, I decided to go
ahead and try to start embracing it early on.
Next they taught us a quick (VERY QUICK) routine which we
then performed in groups of three so they could devote their full attention to
mentally mocking us a few at a time. The learning process went very quickly. I
figured it out faster than I thought I would, but I over thought it and messed
up the counting when it came time to actually do it. To make sure I sucked,
they made us do the routine twice in a row.
Next we were sent upstairs to the Upper Studio where we were
meant to view the available “inspiration material” and come up with an original
piece incorporating a couple moves from the routine we’d just butchered. After discussing
the pros and cons of leaving the auditions with myself, I decided just to go
for it and come up with some I could actually do to show I wasn’t a total spaz
and to have a bit of fun putting together a little piece that showed a bit of
who I am.
Next thing I knew, I was back downstairs standing in front of
the choreographers struggling to remember steps I had come up with in dead
silence.
Finally they asked us to just dance however we wanted to a
randomly played track from Muscle Man’s ipod and to sing if we could.
Sore beyond belief and completely mortified with myself for
submitting myself to such humiliation, I was released from the audition.
Well, now I can say I have been to a dance audition. And I
don’t even dance!
Take some chances. It could be horrible. It could be great.
You can always say you tried.
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