The first year students at Circomedia hold a Christmas show each year, as their first performance at St. Paul's church. This comprises final presentations of each specialization, carefully selected to ensure everyone has a chance to perform and put together in a simple cabaret style. Two abstract movement pieces are also included, at the beginning and end of the show, utilizing mixed random and planned choreography from the material of our Creative Movement class. The result is a kind of sampling of what is developed in three months, and a preview of where talents can grow in the coming year.
Most of the day we spent warming up and practicing our own routines. Each of us was in at most 2-3 routines in the show, so there wasn't much to worry about. We had a quick tech run to check the light/sound cues, then a dress run, then went out for some Jamaican food before the show started.
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| Warming up on the stage. |
This is a group of students with performance background, each with particular pre-show traditions. Some joined me in tongue twisters, which I did despite having no lines in the show, others seemed to fidget obsessively with their props. A couple guys were eager to try some makeup, having an excuse to do so. There was a great deal of cuddling on the dressing room floor, taking pictures and videos in costume. Following the TOOP/Todd tradition at the UR, we all linked hands and passed a pulse around the circle while breathing together and saying positive things, before bringing hands in for a (silent) group cheer. It was nice to see a piece of home come through, and though few of us were ever on stage at the same time we all got a sense of this being a group show.
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| Backstage, some juggling and rola bola. |
And so the show began. Each student brought three months' work out for a casual audience. All three of the E&M class's pieces, each with three performers, were selected to be in the show. Each was distinct and professional, devised with the very open instruction to use 'nonconventional and noncontinuous juggling,' and to use only balls, clubs, and/or rings. This meant we could use any numbers of objects, any combinations of them, any music, any style of costume – skill was the only limit.
The couple other pieces I saw from the wings took on a new quality when lights, audience, and additional rehearsal were added. Something about warming up in a professional space brings about a proper concentration and fresh energy to each performer. Though I'd seen all the acts before in Friday performances, during the show itself each seemed new. My group's piece ran much more cleanly than it had the Friday before, probably because we'd practiced it to death the previous day. All went well, and the audience seemed to follow closely, until the last trick – a five-ring separate to the three of us, where Aiden and I each caught two and Dan caught one on his foot. We took three tries, each time only dropping one of the five, and could hear the audience longing for it each time. I looked to the others, realizing that this was possibly the last juggling trick I would perform at this school. Despite the sacred "rule of threes," we took one extra try and landed the trick, to applause greater than I heard the rest of the night. After the show, I'm told, several audience members approached Rod and Seb and complimented them on the quality of the juggling in the show.
