Post Number 8 - Paris/London

I don’t like to make excuses, but the reason for my infrequent (or nonexistent) updates is that I have been very busy and that is the honest to goodness truth. In the time between now (I’m on the train to Brussels) and when I last blogged, I have been stalked, almost hit by a garbage truck, done a private audition and spent a good two weeks with Ms. Natalie ‘Scribbly Gum’ Allen. I should probably start where I left off, back in Paris.

Paris

I had just moved from Philippe’s apartment to Olivier’s house in Courbevoie. A few of the French crew from Sunny Et L’Elephant came over to have dinner. Even Jean-Pierre was there. It was really lovely seeing them all again. Everyone was the same, and it didn’t feel like we hadn’t seen each other in two years.

I agreed to meet Noodle at the airport. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 6am on the Monday, which meant I would have to catch the train at 5am to get to the airport on time. Luckily Raphael (Olivier’s son) advised me to check the airport website to see if her flight had been delayed. Turns out it had (by an hour and a half) so at least I could have an extra hour of sleep.

I arrived at the airport about 5 minutes before Noodle walked out, stressing out of my mind in the train because I thought I was going to be late. The trains from Courbevoie are very inconsistent and even more unpredictable, so I didn’t actually start moving until 6:30am, knowing I still had 3 other trains to catch. Anyway, after 4 stressful train journeys I got there right on the nose. Noodle walked out of the arrival gate looking a little disheveled, but alive.

I always knew that Noodle would have a large impact on the world of dance, but I never expected her to bring the largest amount of snow Paris has had for 20 years with her. It snowed the whole entire day. By the end of the day, Olivier’s back yard looked like it had just been doused in icing sugar. “Very rare,” said Olivier in his lovely French accent.

I took Natalie for a walk in the city, and showed her as much as I could. It wasn’t so cold but the snow kept getting in our eyes as we walked. She had never seen snow before this, so she chose the best day to arrive. The very next day we felt the chill radiating of the snow on the ground which had now gone hard and incredibly slippery (or ‘slippy’ as the French describe it). It was probably the coldest I have ever felt in my life. The wind was so icy and it caused our faces and fingers to go numb. Several times we had to duck into cafes just to feel our fingers again. Apparently it has been the coldest winters Europe has had for a very long time.

Pina Bausch

We had made arrangements to spend some time with Danstheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch when they performed at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris. We were to spend three days with them, doing their warm up class and watching rehearsals. The classes were taken by Ernesta Corvino, from New York. I was expecting to do classes somewhat like Michael’s (our teacher at WAAPA who helped us organize this secondment), but they did a ballet class every morning while we were there.

On the night of our first day, the company was doing a formal dress rehearsal. People were invited and given free tickets. Naturally, we asked for two tickets. One for Natalie, one for me. “We’ll see what we can do,” was the initial reply. We ended up with six tickets! If we had friends to give the four extra tickets to, it would have been fine. I tried to ask my film friends, but all of them were busy.

In the end, Rapahel and his mum, Corine (an award winning costume designer for movies) decided to come with us, so at least only two of the tickets would go to waste. Or so we thought. When we were standing in the crowd outside the entrance to the theatre, a man asked if we had a spare ticket. He was very pleased when we laughed and gave him two. The performance was thoroughly enjoyable. I was mesmerized the entire time, and to my surprise Raphael and Corine loved it. Natalie was still severely jet-lagged, so she was unable to comment unless she had at least ten hours of sleep.

The three days passed like a sneeze. Before we knew it, we were on a flight to London. The only thing Pina Bausch said to me was ‘hello’, and not even in English. I wasn’t disappointed, though. How could I be? I was in Paris dancing in the studios at the Theatre de la Ville with amazing professionals! I left Paris feeling very satisfied and motivated.

London – Retina Dance Company audition

We were in London literally for the weekend. We arrived at the Greenwich Dance Agency to register for the audition at about 10am. Nat was able to change her audition time to 11.45am instead of the 1.30pm one. There was no real space to warm up, so we took some yoga mats and just waited outside the studio. There we met Helen Duncan, who was in third year when we were in first year at WAAPA. She is now living in London, also trying to find dance work. When we finally got in, there were just over 50 of us. We did a warm-up, a traveling phrase and then we learned some material from their work, Antipode. I didn’t manage to get a callback, but Natalie did. We went to watch English National Ballet that night. They were performing Manon. It was beautiful, but it went for too long and we had to leave at the second interval because Noodle had to be in Sadler’s Wells the next morning.

When she came out of the callback audition (she got cut after the third round) she said she wouldn’t have been able to fit into the company because the dancers they were looking for were very rough and raw. I figured I may have been too polished and clean for them, because I noticed the people they called back (apart from Noodle) didn’t look like they had a lot of training. I suppose every company is different, and they all want different things. Whatever works best. It just wasn’t the company for either of us.

When Nat went to do the callback, I tried to get in to do the technique class, so that I could just do a bit of dancing. As expected, they said no so I went to go and sort some things out. As I was walking innocently along, I noticed this guy seemed to be following me. He got quite close to me at one stage. Close enough to stab me or grab my bag. He did nothing. He just kept walking. When I stopped, so did he. I was a little disturbed and scared even though I was on the main street full of people. I knew he was following me because he kept trying to make eye contact. I tried walking faster, but he did the same. Then like a miracle I walked to Trafalgar Square, where there was a protest going on. It had something to do with Jewish people, but I was thankful for them and it didn’t really matter who they were at this point. I lost my stalker.

I picked Nat up from Waterloo station and we had lunch at Southbank before heading home and preparing to go to the Netherlands. Let’s go Dutch.