These days, it's sunny and hot at the Beach House. Gotta wear lots of sunblock, try to find the shady spots to talk with the dancers, take lots of water breaks and wear big brimmed hats! Though it ends up taking a lot more energy out of the dancers, the beautiful Santa Monica weather is fabulous to work with!!
And, we have been working! This past Thursday, the fine Louie Cornejo came back to rehearsal after straining his back a week ago. He learned much of the surfer-on-a-chair dance while Klyda and Ken kept good track of their porch duet--ballroom, disco, dirty dancing, Charleston moves and all. Everyone worked really hard into the darkness on their outdoor variations.
The following day, costumer Marcus Kuiland-Nazario came to rehearsal and watched as the dancers and I explored animal imagery on the second floor porch (WR Hearst collected exotic animals in his other estates). We talked a lot about costumes for this, tried some Bing Crosby 1930s music as accompaniment and ran a few improvisations that I videotaped.
Then, the dancers changed into their bathing suits and all hell broke loose! Actually, things were pretty staid. Though the water spurting up from the jets at the Splash Pool was warm and the sun felt strong, the breeze was pretty chilling. We tried a few ideas with the water jets, but we needed to break quickly and wrap up in towels. We alternated being on the jets with a very cute 3 year old and her dad, empathetically noticing the little girl's hesitance to jump into the water fray ;-)
With only a few minutes left in rehearsal, we returned to the Garden Terrace and reviewed the sequence of movement we had established the week before. Ooops, correction. Security staff advised us that there was a private party coming in at this moment and we no longer had access to the big open space in front of the Guest House ;-( We moved over to the Event House frontage and marked through the choreography. We definitely need more time to fine tune this section--make the slow movement weighty and powerful, allow the runs to envelope the large open space and more.
After this and though they were definitely tired, Gloria and Carmen joined me in the artist-in-residence's office on the second floor of the Guest House to review the surf/chair material. All in all, a very productive and exhausting day (I think we're all smiling.)!
Side note: I went to the performance of Faith by the Pat Graney Company at REDCAT that evening and ran into two of the panelists in the upcoming Dancing Out of the Box event (May 9th @ the Beach House). They are both excited to meet and talk together and with Jean Isaacs and an interested public. Just as interesting to me, however, was that the company of seven Caucasion women (ranging in age--I think--from their 30s to 50s) at one point was wearing a variation of the costume choice I had been talking about earlier in the day. It's a timeless option and I think will look different on everyone that wears it.
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