Last Monday rehearsal before Ailey Citigroup Theater

Tonight, we had our last Monday night rehearsal for our West Coast Swing and Hustle Medley. Although we still have one more rehearsal before arriving to the Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City, this was the main rehearsal to answer questions and add some character to our showcase.

Everybody Jump

We started our rehearsal with a "attempt to be creative" photograph of our cast. Personally, I wanted to get the look that is sometimes captured of the brides-maids and grooms-men at a wedding, where people are captured jumping in mid-air. I have to admit that this might have been a little overzealous.

After multiple attempts at the perfect shot, I took a regular cast picture which I think looked better.

Steam Heat / Sexual Energy

We ran our entire Showcase performance multiple times. Anna and I watched most of the initial runs to look for issues and see the overall attitude of the dancers. We noticed that although the dancers all seemed to be having fun and were not having significant problems with the choreography, something was lacking.

Since the song is extremely suggestive (we are using the radio-appropriate version of Tonight (I'm Lovin You) by Enrique Iglesias), we needed people to do more than smile while they were dancing. We needed some sexual heat from both the leaders and the followers.

We asked the dancers to look into each other eyes to engage each other in the lyrics of the song. After all, the song's opening line is "I know you want me". We told the leaders to act a little bold/arrogant during the line "Here's the situation, you know my reputation..." and told the followers to let their hips do the talking during the main chorus line of "Cause, tonight I'm lovin you" (which is the radio version of the original version).

I indicated in a prior rehearsal that even though we are using the radio edit of the song, we still need to move our bodies to the intent of the original, rated "R" lyrics.

Run, Run, Run

It's incredible to think that this is our last couple of rehearsals before putting this choreography on a New York stage. We originally taught this choreography to the students in June as a class routine once a week. They continued perfecting this routine in July with Monday rehearsals and refining the movements in class in July. The class performed this routine in Norwalk at the end of July and have continued running this routine as part of their Monday rehearsals in August.

It's hard to appreciate the nuanced changes that have occurred during this final "run" period. New dancers find it hard to appreciate how executing a routine over and over helps perfect movement, solidify timing, develop character and squeeze every last detail out of the movement.

By the end of this week, I can't wait to see the results of all the commitment to hard work, sacrifice, and detail that it takes to make a dance performance audience ready...especially New York audience ready.