July 29 – Performance Day

Yes- there was an Elephant! Lionel in costume

An action packed performance day! This morning we were at the theatre before lunch for our tech spacing and rehearsal – the festival operates on some pretty tight deadlines. Only 30 minutes for all of it -yikes! During the tech the lights need to be altered more than we anticipated, but we jumped into high gear and in the expert hands of our technical crew; Godzilla (really!) and Shee Hoe we manage to correct things. After this the other artists from our “Out of America” program have their 30 minutes of tech madness.  It is nice to be able to watch a bit of everyone’s work. I must mention Lionel Popkin who dons a full body elephant costume for his piece. He does one run in tech, one run in dress and then the show.  

 For our performance we were fortunate to enjoy a full- house with an enthusiastic audience. Fading Shadows/Returning Echoes was very well received. Though we know and love the piece, it is always heartening to know that the audience has enjoyed themselves as well. We were especially delighted to have two Canadian Consular officials attend; Consul General Francois Rivest and Gloria Han. They provided a good deal of support on our journey to the festival. It was wonderful to have the chance to meet them in person.  

After the show we just had enough time to pack up head back to the hotel for a bite to eat and then it was time to head off to the Guangdong Modern Dance Company’s evening performance.  Following the performance the festival staff shuttled all of us performers to a local restaurant for a late dinner.  We were able to sit with Lap who programs the festival as well as Willy Tsao, the founder of the festival as well as, Lionel Popkin and David Liu from our Springboard program and Members of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. Willy spoke a bit about the regional food as each dish came out. All of the artists and festival staff all had a great time eating, sharing stories and getting to know each other.

Tomorrow is my last day at the festival. I will teach another workshop in the morning and it is already very late, so I will simply say goodnight!