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DowntownDancer.com
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My other film debut

This one is from my work with Daria Fain/Human Behavior Explorers. Daria choreographs using the principles of Qi Gong. Some of you may remember this work, Clocks & Clouds, from the performance at Movement Research in March. Earlier this summer we developed the work some more and filmed it. (That is me and Arturo in the photo.) This film will be showing at the benefit party for the company on September 17th. Hope to see you there.

Sigh

So this "nice" production person never called me back. I called the casting agency and ultimately, no, I'm not in the scene because of the one Saturday. Supposedly I will be called when they want me for another scene but I don't think its going to work. Too many holidays in October.
Sigh.
If I had auditioned and not gotten it, fine.
If I had found out on Day 1 that there was a Saturday conflict, fine.
But to have gotten it, rehearsed, signed a contract, met the director, been asked for costume measurements, and then have to give it up--this one sucks.

While I'm waiting...

How does something like this happen? (last paragraph, 4th line)
It's not a common name. It's not a cool, deserving-to-be-the-name-of-a-character-in-a-book name. How does it happen? (Don't mind me trying to distract myself.)

Waiting, waiting...

...to hear if I can still be in the big, Hollywood movie I was cast in.
Background info: I went to an open audition (a rare occurence for reasons to be explained below) with about 240 other female dancers. I made two cuts that day and got brought back the next day where there were about 50 women--some of whom weren't at the audition the day before. I made one more cut and those of us who were left--about 15--were told to wait and see if we got a phone call.
Last week I received the call. I went to rehearsal on Thursday (I'd say there were maybe 3 of us who came from the open audition) and had a grand old time all the while hoping I could find out more about the production schedule. Unfortunately there wasn't much information nor any one person to speak to. At the end of the rehearsal we were told we would receive a phone call when they wanted us to come in again.
Today I received that phone call. (3 seconds after I finished teaching class. Just caught it.) So the production manager? supervisor? started asking me about dates of availability. Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the next Monday... And I keep answering yes, yes, yes, no problem. And then...Saturday. I say no. She says, "Well you have to be available for all the dates in order to be cast for this part. Are you sure you can't switch what you have on Saturday?" And I say, "It's not a working conflict, it's a religious one. I can't work on Saturdays."
And there you have it. I am an Orthodox Jewish professional dancer. I don't perform Friday nights or Saturday days. Never have.
Has this screwed me in the past? Yep. But I've been lucky. I've had enough people work around the issues. (Costumes being another--covering the knees and shoulders; basically a short-sleeved shirt and pants/skirt are fine. For me. Don't get started on the nitpicking.) There are a lot of Saturday night/Sunday performances, even Monday and Wednesday performances. Sometimes the choreographer decides to put a piece in concert for only Saturday night and skip the Friday night performance. Other times, I've been doubled. Still other times the piece has been rechoreographed around my absence for one night. Like I said, I've been fortunate enough to have people want to work with me and therefore accomodate. I've definitely lost some work in the past--due to both schedule and costume reasons. But right now I'm part of two, small, pick-up companies that do really incredible work, I choreograph my own work, and I teach.
This explains why I don't audition much. I get most of my work by being asked or by being recommended at which point I can say that I would love to but here are the issues and if we can work it out then great but if you don't think it will work then I understand. At least I'm not wasting their time. I don't see much point in auditioning for large, touring companies when I know I'm going to have these conflicts. But every once in a while I audition if it seems like I might be able to make it work and this was one of those times. Maybe they wouldn't have anything on Saturdays. It's possible, right?
Well...
So the production person was actually very kind and when she heard that it was a religious conflict she actually said she would go back to the choreographer to find out if it was at all possible to be excused for that rehearsal. So now I'm waiting....

Well, 4 coffees haven't done it yet so...

I went to my friend's wedding last night and then had trouble sleeping in the middle of the night. Boy could I use this today. I have to choreograph a combination for my class tomorrow, take class tonight, and then rehearse until 10:30. Maybe it'll be a sleepy combination.

Downtown Dancer acting uptown-like

So I've been cast in a film--a Hollywood musical (details later). I went to the first rehearsal yesterday and...got paid. For rehearsal. My system is in shock. I'm usually happy with (or resigned to) performance pay. But here, I showed up, danced all day, and will receive a nice check because of it. Wow.

No, I was just concentrating really hard...

My Pilates instructor (and good friend) forwarded this to me with a message: "Apparently we've started a trend."
That's right. We did it first, rather, I did. I would come to Pilates (a private session no less) and I would be OK for a little while but when she started to do release work on some muscles that were holding crazy amounts of tension, I would begin to drift off....
The nice thing is that she lets me nap. Some of the best sleep I ever get.

Chutzpah

So I was randomly roaming around the Internet looking at dance auditions when I found:

Ballet Deviare- NYC Open Auditions
Ballet Deviare will hold auditions at City Center in New York City for professional female and male dancers, accomplished in ballet and contemporary techniques. Project will be in January 2006. Dancers must be available during mid-Summer until performance date. Performance experience required. Performance pay only.

Please e-mail info@balletdeviare.org in order to pre-register.

* Non US citizens must have green cards.
Please bring RESUME and PHOTO to the audition.
Audition fee- $10.00 cash. (emphasis added)
When: Saturday, July 9th, 2005 from 1-3 PM
Where: City Center - 130 West 56th Street (Studio 4) (Between 6th & 7th Avenues)

For more information on the company visit www.balletdeviare.org

I think its reprehensible to make a dancer pay for an audition. Some might say that the fee is negligible and weeds out the people who audition for a lark. I can’t begin to express how much it turns my stomach. Dancers are the poorest artists out there. There is no “strike it rich” possibility even at the highest professional level (many, many more comments to come on that topic.) Most dancers do not get paid for rehearsals and quite often do not get paid for performances. To then charge them for the opportunity to dance… I’m appalled.

Enter stage left...

Dipping my toe in...seems ok.