A day in the life of an aspiring dancer
My auditioning techniques haven’t been getting me too far lately so I’ve
decided to take steps in a different direction that I’ve been thinking of for a
while – the direction of commercial dance i.e getting an agent. And before I
can do this I need a new dance portfolio – and more skills for my C.V.
Thursday
20th March, the day of my portfolio photo shoot, turned out to be
one of those surreal days in which you go to new areas, try new activities and
meet so many interesting people along the way that you feel like a completely
different person. It started with a rush-hour underground trip to Victoria for
a 9.15am hairdresser appointment – a surreal event in itself for me as I loathe
both early mornings and haircuts. I arrived twenty minutes early in nervous
anticipation, chatting to the manager for a while before my stylist arrived. My
stylist, although lovely, got rather annoyed at my insisting to see her
blow-dry curling efforts before she had finished. I just wanted to be sure I
liked it before she painstakingly curled my whole abundant head of hair.
Thankfully, she was not only lovely but very skilled and I walked out of the
shop quietly confident that my hair looked better than it ever had before.
I
travelled positively to my next stop of the day – which happened to be the
final stop on the district line – Ealing Broadway – in other words, blooming
far away! I navigated my way through the tree-lined rows of million-pound
houses to find my photographer’s studio-come-apartment. I expected Titus to be
either overly camp or overly American, owing to his name alone, but he was
neither. A genuinely friendly guy, he guided me through the process of taking a
good headshot – smiling with the eyes and leaving the rest to his highly
technical camera and lighting. I commandeered his sofa as my temporary wardrobe
as I had brought an array of outfits with which to create a portfolio that
showed versatility, as I had been told was the aim. Titus had warned me that
any movement shots may take hours to get right but the few I had planned seemed
to work pretty well first time and after a couple of attempts with different
camera angles I was very happy with them – maybe I’m just not much of a
perfectionist. However, the two hours I had booked seemed to whizz by and so
when Titus offered me an extra hour, for a fraction of what I paid for the
first two, in order to finish the list of looks I had planned, I couldn’t
resist. I’m very glad I didn’t as the final set of images taken outside have
now become my favourites and were the most fun to shoot. Walking down the
middle of the street in a floaty dress and giant sunhat with a photographer in
front of me, I had a momentary sense of idealized stardom.
On
a photographic high, I rushed back to Greenwich, as much as one can rush on an
extended tube journey, for a two hour rehearsal that should have brought me
back down to reality as I had these rehearsals twice a week. Instead my
colleagues showered me with compliments on my unusually made up appearance and
we danced for the first time with a projection of sunrise that we made earlier
that month.
So
with my hold-all of outfits still in tow I met a friend from work, took a train
to another unfamiliar destination and went in search of one more new experience
to round the day off nicely. I wanted to gain some new skills to my dance
repertoire, to aid my chances of getting work in the commercial world, and to
simply try something new. I had recently applied to a casting looking for Lindy
Hop dancers, despite my closest encounter with the dance form being watching
professionals perform it on Strictly, but this had encouraged me to seek out a
class to give it a whirl. My friend agreed to come with me, an actress with
experience in Jive dancing, I thought she’d be the perfect dance partner. We
reached the Royston club feeling rather glad of each other’s company as there
was no sign of a class and only a couple of men playing darts in one corner of
an expansive stale-smoke-smelling bar. I asked at the bar and we were informed
that the class was upstairs but it didn’t start for an hour – a classic case of
a) allowing far too much time for the journey to unknown destination and b)
believing what you read on a neglected website. The ballroom upstairs was much
more airy and reminded me of my old town festival hall with white drapes
covering the ceiling and a small stage at one end. The teacher was lovely, although
I found his teaching style rather slow but apparently it was week one of a 10
week beginner programme so perhaps that was to be expected. Throughout the
class we rotated partners, having been separated into men and women at the
beginning, a surprising amount of old men meant that the men outnumbered the
women, another rarity in my experience of any dance event. Some were had more
rhythm than others but were all hilarious to watch as my friend negotiated the
steps with them.
At the end of the class the disco lights were turned on and
swing music played, at which point the men came up and asked the ladies to
dance – it was like stepping back in time to an era of male chivalry. I learnt
a lot from a more experienced member of the group as he improvised with me
although the alien concept of letting the man lead was rather difficult to
stick to, especially when some over-enthusiastic partners felt the need to spin
me quite forcefully no matter what part of the step pattern I was on. It was
definitely a lot of fun dancing to such jolly music and I can imagine with the
right partner I would love it – it’s a shame my friend and I never got to dance
together due to our common gender.
So
from celebrity lifestyle to old-fashioned values, today I’d got a sneak peek into
lives from the past and hopefully my future in the world of show business.
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