I am going to try and follow Megan’s example and blog everynight. I might be bad at this though, because, unlike Megan, I don’t seem to have a penchant for finding fun stories in the monotony of the day to day.
Aha, today though, I get to cheat, because crazy shit went down today.
So… In the AM, I just kinda woke up, took care of some stuff (windexing a line of Ants and then duct-taping thier sneaky entrance into my room shut,) did more wedding to-dos, called Audrey and wasted about an hour of her time being needy and *that* bride… ugh.
So, anyway, I went to the space at about 3:30, and the kids who took the intensive all week were being taught the final movements of the piece they were going to do tonight. Time passes, we all go get food, we talk, we start warming up…
John and I are rehearsing wheel duet since neither of us had done it since St. Louis or so… when suddenly we hear a huge thud, and a scream and…
I look over and the Capture bowl (large, silver fiberglass half-of-a-circle,) has toppled over on Chad, who had been in the bowl, knocking his head into the groud and crushing all of the fingers on his right hand. It was brutal – there was a silver dome, with four fingers sticking out… and that thing is effing heavy. It scared the shit out of me. He is okay, by the way, well, jury’s still out on the status of his head and hand, but he got up and a couple hours later was able to leave on his own.
Without a Chad, we had to change the whole show around and do a last minute scramble to revise all the group pieces to do sans one guy.
For me, more of the reason why I am telling this story is because, it hit me — I’m doing some scary stuff here. I always knew it, but I have gotten to this point where I am comfortable enough with the choreography and the sets, that I had stopped my daily reverence to the unplanned, the unexpected and the dangerous. I am so very glad that something knocked it back into me before I took a tumble by going too far. I don’t think this would have been inevitable or anything – and I find no positive in Chad being hurt – but it really shook me up. It was the first time I was watching as something went wrong in a run… and it re-centere me, for sure.
My subsequent close-call tonight came as John and I were performing wheel duet and the piece hit it’s balance point… and just stayed there. We were up on the very point of a rocker, and about to completely fall. It would have gone towards me, and I would have been crushed, and John would have been thrown… It’s never gone that far, it felt like it looked amazing, but John and I were about. to. crap. our. pants. onstage.
I think on any other day, that type of scary thing, (that was actually pretty awesome in the end because it ended up going alright,) I would have just laughed off. But tonight I was just too anxious and tense to not freak out afterwards. I hope and pray I’m always safe on stage.
Now I am home, in my warm bed. Jerry is in Portland for his Bachelor’s party. It’s funny to me, simply because he so not a typical guy. Sunday morning he flies here to accompany me to the million-dollar party I get to perform at. Now, I need to start concerning myself with what I get to wear!! It is truly going to be one of the coolest things I’ll ever get to attend in my life… I’m so stoked!!