SYTYCD

Watching So You Think You Can Dance and thinking about the clown show.

“That was not good.”  “You didn’t bring it in personality.”  “Prove to the judges that you’re good enough.”  “That was not strong enough”.  “We would like you to fight for you life today.”   “Show the judges that I am here to stay.”  “That wasn’t strong enough.” “You have got to come up to a certain standard.”

That wasn’t strong enough.  He knows he needs the performance of a lifetime to stay in the competition.  (That’s what I thought going into the studio and then I didn’t deliver and expected to get cut in the manner of So You Think You Can Dance.

Ryan said: “I talked to Evan last night:  Yesterday was a little sketchy.  It was not my best day.  I talked to Evan last night and that calmed me down a little bit.  Which was awesome.  He was like just chill out, relax, don’t take it personally.  He was like you’re going to kill it tomorrow.  I was like Yes I am.”

Nigel said:  “Ryan step forward please.  Ryan yesterday in the hip hop I think we gave you an extra chance cause the hip hop was not strong yesterday and we gave you and extra chance because we just adore what you do.  Your solo is outstanding.  And as long as SYTYCD is about people will talk about that solo.  Today it was frighteningly strong.  It was, there was no relaxation down into the hips.  The feel of it was totally wrong.  It looked like you were going to mug her halfway through.  I mean you were going to beat her up.  There was nothing of they style involved in this routine.  So you know what we feel about you Ryan but it’s not happening this season.  I’m sorry.  We’re going to let you go.”

Ryan:  “You never know what’s going to happen, you know, and I believed that coming in.  I never, never once did I expect to just make, make it through.  You know I had to deliver and I didn’t so I’m going home.  So I’m calling Evan, little bro,  Um.  Top 4.  Um.  This is not the phone call I was hoping to make.  I’m disappointed… in myself because I know can do better.  You know.  And I should’ve.  I should’ve.”

Ev

Hey What’s up Dude.

Guess what?

What?

I got the axe.

No Way

I got cut

As the song lyrics plays: “…Through the same mistakes we always make and here’s where it ends..”

3rd in line

Darn!  10:00pm and I still don’t have my NYCMOMS blog post up.  I feel I need The Husband to oversee to make sure I do it right. 

But,

At Target, My Kid saw the game of LIFE and really wanted it…and since she was such a good girl at the doctor’s office and got her flu shot and the doctor pronounced her “Perfect” at the check-up…so we bought the board game LIFE.  And that shaped the rest of the evening.

My Kid wanted family game night.

So…

Pasta is easy…

…with jar sauce…

…and Daddy had his new phone…

…so after dinner he could multi-task…

Play the game of LIFE when we told him it was his turn…

And program his new phone at the same time…

Now…

The new phone is programmed…

Homework is done…

The game of LIFE has been played…

But…

Mommy didn’t get to upload her new blog on the new blogsite…

That’s not impotant…

It’s time for everyone to go to bed…

Good Nite!

Riding the family schedule train

On Friday I took my bags of costumes with me to drop-off at My Kid’s school because from there I went straight to rehearsal.  After rehearsal and went right back to My Kid’s school.  Dismissal was over and the woman with whom I’d made previous arrangements to pick up my kid after school along with her own was already on the way to the park.  I caught up with them there and sat on a bench and talked to the other mother while the girls practiced their cartwheels and walked around the ball field pretending they were unsupervised.

On Saturday I dropped my bags of costumes off at the apartment and went directly to the soccer fields by Prospect Park to stand in the rain and watch my daughter and her soaked to the skin teammates run around on a field of fake grass and ground up bits of rubber.  The fall season is already half over and this was the first game I’ve seen.

It is now Sunday morning. I am preparing to awaken my daughter and take her to church because today is the first day of the new school year of religious education.  I will drop her off on my way to rehearsal and The Husband will pick her up.

working mommyclown nightmare

I dreamed I was at a clown conference at Seattle Center.  There were high profile stage and circus clowns teaching workshops including the man who had been director of clown college when I was there. There were inspirational clowns who worked with sick orphans in Africa.  I was excited to be talking to former CC classmates who had been working in the business for 20 years since I’d last seen them. 

We were walking to a workshop about hospital clowning in Uganda.  I was talking to old friends I hadn’t seen in years.

I had on a full Ringling style agent suit with wig and makeup and big shoes. 

My cell phone rang.

It was from my daughter’s school.

“Your daughter was not picked up fifteen minutes ago at 3 o’clock.  She’s still waiting to be picked up.  This is the third day in a row no-one has been here to pick her up.  Don’t you care about your child?”

I feel so much more comfortable now that the rehearsals have taken the on the shape of theatrical rehearsals.  The goals and hierarchy and priorities are clear.

And… if you have some plastic flowers, strings of fake pearls or rhinestones, overly sweet stuffed animal — or a large ugly Toad — perhaps you could bring it for a Positive/Negative prop.  Or fake legs for the gore fabric…

Hey child of mine do you have any stuffed animals we could use for the…

NO!

…show.

After rehearsal

After rehearsal today I talked to some friends on the way to pick up my kid.

I was remembering a particular workshop when we were improvising from songs and the song I was assigned was; “At Seventeen” and I had felt like such a failure because I didn’t have any impulses for movement or vocalization.  I just had a very strong image of a very sad teenaged girl in her room alone listening to the radio.  It seemed an inauspicious place from which to begin to create some clown magic.

When I got home tonight, I looked up the song on youtube and found out the artist was Janis Ian and she is a fascinating person who still has a career.  I watched about six youtube videos of the song by various artists and they all just stood there and sang as simply as possible holding their bodies almost still (if they weren’t playing a guitar) with eyes downcast part of the time because the music and lyrics are so powerful.  So I was overriding my impulses that night I thought I was failing at improvisation.  The impulse really was to do nothing but just to be still and to be sad.   I fought that impulse and choked.  I thought I had to move and sing gibberish.  The text is strong.  I just wanted to listen to the text and then I wanted to continue the original text, and the image of a sad teenaged girl alone in her room was so strong.  It seemed wrong as a starting point for clown.  I can see using that music and having a piece work.  I love the pathetic clown.  And yet…

What can I say…

…I choked…

It was just an exercise…

Just an improv…

Nothing anyone did from the improvisations that grew out of that song made it into the final show…

Just sayin…

A New Month…Finally

This has been a long month.  The Husband has had major project deadlines at work.  My Kid has begun 4th grade which has been emotional for me because when I began 4th grade it was in a new school, in a new town, in a new state.

The clown show rehearsals have been frequent and sometimes arduous.  Four rehearsals a week is almost 5 days a week.  Five days a week is almost full time work.  I know, I know, it’s part time…

I don’t know why this September has been so stressful, but it has so there it is.

Perhaps it’s just the change of seasons and the shorter days.