We know what you did last summer

So what happened after we got the "team" together?

One of the first things Khalida and Artemisia decided was to get some guest choreographers on board. Yeah, we like our own choreo's plenty, but they are still... our choreographies. To make the whole project more exciting for ourselves, the dancers, the audience, variation was key!

So we devised a summer of rehearsals and workshops, including workshops with guest choreographers Queenie (Khaleegy) and Razia (Drumsolo). we also included a theatre and stage skills workshop with Artemisia, which nicely doubled as a team building day and a wings workshops with Khalida.

The big "intro" choreo, Khalida and Artemisia were going to make together. Our original plan of each choreographing sections individually, and then throwing it all together, simply didnt work, so we ended up with a lot of extra meetings, to really create a joint choreo. It was one of the most fun, and artistically rewarding things we've both done. Artemisia loves creating formations and troupe transitions, and Khalida has the best ideas on poses, arms and combo's! We both hear the music differently at times, but that turned out to be a plus, rather than holding us back. Whenever we got stuck, one of us would come up with something!!! I don't think we really know by now who put together what. Well, apart from the wings, that's alllll Khalida!

The choreographies Razia and Queenie came up with for the troupe were wonderfull! And those also ended up being joint projects somehow, as they needed some adapting to working well with a large group of bodies. Which is great to do if the material to work with is so amazing. Both "commissioned" dances turned out so well... and the dancers had a lot of fun learning them. The challenge here, after the choreographers had left, especially in the case of our long distance working relationship with Razia, was to polish all the last details (arms, hands, heads, etc), in the abscence of the original choreographer. We really hope we've done her proud. For the Khaleegy we had Queenies ongoing support! And boy, did she drill the troupe into getting the "feel" of it right! It's not just the steps, Khaleegy is a mood!

So, we had our start up meeting, followed by about 5 all day rehearsals this summer, and a few more spread over september and october, to learn and rehearse three brand new "big group" numbers: a six minute oriental opening (wings, veil, formation crazyness!), a looooong drumsolo, and a compilation-khaleegy.

Finding rehearsal times for such a large group of dancers, who mostly teach weekly classes themselves was NOT easy. that is why we ended up with an intensive summerprogram, of mostly weekend day rehearsals. At least people were free then, though many really sacrificed (part of) their family holiday time for this. Finding rehearsal time in the middle of the year, is going to be the next challenge.

Come and read us next week for more on the joint choreography proces and on getting costuming togehter for a professional troupe...