Choreographing Scene 5a

As we all know, I am not a ballroom dancer. I have never trained in ballroom, except for two or three Latin classes when I was a preteen. However, the courses only ballroom dancer has disappeared, and as I said before the choreography for the dancing scene in the Christmas play came into my command. The script hints towards a foxtrot.Foxtrot. Ok, it is not my genre, I never trained, but the minute they gave me this post, I knew what to do, and I did it, a very simplified version of it. As simple as it was my dancers, who are actually actors, could not get it, they could not get "slow, slow, quick, quick, slow" my interpretation "Step, cross, step and turn, line drop step". A child could do that! Then we went on to other pieces, so I decided I‘d go even easier. I gave them jazz squares, sixteen bloody counts of jazz squares, and it would look great! It would look great, if they could do it. Moreover, if they could dance in sync with a little coordination! No, they each randomly stumble and flail as if they were flounders lined up on a ship deck!

Tuesday: Today rehearsals went great! None of the losers who gave me trouble showed up so I was happy. Some parts were changed, not majorly, and I improved what they were doing wrong. Everything went great and I was very happy.

Wednesday: Lord help me please. Back stage I tried to run through the dance but the costume mistress was more concerned about getting they're mustashes on rather than them learnin the dance so I had to give in, 3 of the six dancers on the stage didn't know the rutine. When about to correct what they did wrong the director (My tutor) spoke at the same time, I didn't notice but that didn't stop her from shouting at me. I stopped talking and she went on to explain so then when she finished I went on to explain what happened but one of the dancers who never attened any of my rehersals started to back talk to me and the director yelled "shut up". SO I turned around and said "don't speak to me like that", she said sorry but one of the actors said "She is the teacher she can speak to you how she likes" (I hate country people. So I left the rehearsal then and there, I sent a text message to my director saying sorry and that I am sick of having to work with such disrespectful students. She replied asking me to come in at 3:00 for a meeting. So I did and we had a quick chat, and sorted things out, afterwards my dance partner approached me and said "You should not have been such a brat, and your fucking up the dance" I replied saying "right so you can be the choreogrpher then, I'll quit" she replied something like "No, I..." but I walked away and went up to resign. The director asked me not to resign and to choreograph the rehearsals on thursday. I am wary and don't have the energy to work with these people but I have to.

Thursday: Only one dancer shows up. I am alienated from the others in my course and I can't wait for university next year.

PS. Sorry this is late.
Love S

Dance Partners'...

My newest dance partner is nice. However, she seems to care about what her little clique think about her more than being my dance partner. Even though I proposed the idea of us being partners, as we are both very tall and it would be very hard for her to get a male counterpart, I am beginning to regret it. I took a risk, the major one being she is a trained Irish dancer. Irish dancers are very stiff and even though she has had some ballet, she can be quite stiff. Also she isn’t putting as much energy into the relationship as I am, I believe that partnering is 65% trust, how can she let me do lifts when she doesn’t trust me and how can I let her mount my back when I don’t trust her? I have tried to spend time with her but she seems to only want to do this when her clique are not around. In her clique, there is one other girl, a singer and a boy, an actor, the actor does not particularly like me and so neither does the singer so my partner’s loyalty is split, well it should be but it is clear where it lies. This feeds into more distrust. The funny part to me is that if I walked out of the partnership I would be on smooth sailing to another partner. However, my partner would be screwed, as I said before she is very tall for a dancer and most male dancers would look ridiculous beside her and find her impossible to carry. I however do not. Therefore, her snubbing really is not doing her any favours, except she is the only dancer I can be paired with in my college course. There is another female dancer in the year but she is strictly solo and hates partnering as she can’t handle lifts, mounts or even dips, so if I am stuck until September too. Is it worth risking it by telling her that if she keeps up her rudeness I will quite? Will she realize that loosing me will hinder her more than it will affect me? On the other hand, could I be reading into the whole thing and blowing it out of purporting in my mind? Is there anything I can do to make her want to work on our personal relationship?

Help!

Love,

S