performance angst – resolved

So I finally went to the performance-group‘s rehearsal. Last Tuesday. I had been indecisive for the whole 15 days. Should I go, or not? But since my mother was visiting us and could babysit, I called and went.

This time it was much easier to prepare. I already had a babysitter, my toenails were painted, I didn’t care about my outfit, or about the rehearsal at all, because I already knew that I’d probably not be part of this group anyway. But, apart from being real curious about the group, I wanted to give it a chance, and – maybe my biggest reason – I wanted to know how I’d fare in such surroundings. Improvised dancing and singing.

Not to leave you hanging – I was rather pleased with myself. I went there, even on time. When I left the train I set off in the wrong direction, but the performer who had called me spotted me and gave me a lift. The other interested singer was there. I already know her and like her a lot. So I felt quite comfortable. (Here, I might add that I spent the whole afternoon before in stage fright, eating and reading blogs while avoiding to warm me up.)

I put on my quite-stylish-jazz-pants that are probably six years old, and my really cool legwarmers. Nobody else wore legwarmers of course, but at least I had the right shoes – none. There’s a teacher to this group, one of the reasons why it’s not exactly cheap. He started off doing body-percussion-exercises. Despite his nervousness about the two not-used-to-dancing-singers, we had no problems with that. He didn’t know that we both had been taken drumming lessons years ago. Then we had some exercises like walking through the room all at once, connecting with the others, partner exercises where you react, mirror or contrast the other person’s movements, and then the finale, free improvisation with dancing, singing, and sounds all mixed together.

At first I was a little shy with the moving. The dancers are quite good. But then I remembered the old days of jazz dance class. I just went with the flow, and it was big fun. So I’m really happy, because I don’t have issues with this performing, moving and singing at the same time anymore! It’s just gone!

The reason for this is that I don’t mind anymore. I shut my brain down. I stop thinking, “Oh, how I look! Oh, how stiff I am! Look at her, how elegant and fluent her motions! I could never do that!”. I just go with the flow, and sometimes I stumble because I once was strong enough to do a move like that, but I’m not anymore. And I don’t strive to become a dancer anyway.

So I still have to tell them that I won’t be coming back. I feel bad about it. They are nice girls, but I can’t be spending so much time and energy on a project like that. It’s not my sole project. Not by far. What I want to do with this experience is: a) incorporate more movement into my singing warm-up, b) maybe take a modern dance class once in a while, and c) maybe pick up strength training again. Or not.