Here We Go Again! Let's Dance!

This has been an absolutely absorbing week if you've been in South Africa. Especially the last two days, what with the ANC finally deciding enough is enough with Julius "Juju" Malema, and the unforgettable, inexplicable, and historical cricket Test match that just concluded at Newlands.

At the forefront of all that, on a personal level, has been the "Let's Dance!" Competition we're dancing at. We won't be competing, but doing a piece inbetween the competing dances. We were supposed to do 3 dances, but after the original novelty had worn off and reality put a firm boot in, it was decided to cut it down to one. The one we know the least. Typical.

We've been at panic stations the whole week, and the shit will literally hit the fan at 6pm when we arrive at the venue. Literally. The nerves really activate the bowels to uncontrollable levels for some, and the amount of liquids lost due to the constant need to urinate must creep close to body weight (at least my measly body weight).

You would think the more we dance the better we would be at handling these nerves, especially considering we did City of Dance, as close to a professional show as I have ever come. The truth is, we have gotten better at dealing with those demons. No longer do we worry about fucking up because of nerves. We put it aside and perform, and we enjoy our performance. From that enjoyment, comes the character that has always been missing and is so essential on stage.

But it is before we hit the stage that nerves become a problem. Luckily, we are something of a tight-knit group, so we always make sure the nerves do not become debilitating for any of the dancers. We all deal with our nerves in pretty much the same way. It comes in stages. There's the original nervous energy, calmed down with a cigarette (a surprising amount of dancers smoke), accompanied with continuous chatter and nervous laughter. Then comes the make-up, and reality hits that this is about to happen, and the chatter dies down, and we start to wonder if we can do this. We start going through the dances in our heads, a big mistake, and panic ensues should a step be forgotten. Then comes the silence, when we are properly kakking ourselves, sitting in corners and wondering what the fuck we were thinking. Then 10 minutes or so before the dance begins, come the bathroom trips, which can be difficult according to how elaborate the costume is, accompanied by farts on the way.

The worst is standing in the wings, grief stricken with fear, sweating profusely from balls to armpits, and all you want to do is run away and abandon ship. But then you pull your shit together, and its showtime. And everything beforehand is all forgotten, and the focus is wherever you choose your focal point to be.

Afterwards, you're so gripped by excitement, you want to do it all again! Forgetting how excruciating it all was before. During City of Dance, it was four nights of going through all that, 9 dances each night, in front of 60+ people. Another night, and I would have died of some cardiac malfunction it was so stressful. I certainly lost a number of years of my life, bringing down my life expectancy from the expected and intended 60.

Tonight, it's just one dance, but an expected crowd of 300! It certainly doesn't make it any less stressful. In the case of City of Dance, apart from the Intro, we had rehearsed everything to death (not that it made us feel any more prepared). This time around, we've had to whip a dance together in 3 weeks, had an awful practice run at a social, and a handful of rehearsals. Masochists, we are.

Hopefully this time tomorrow, I'll be crowing about how great it was. Otherwise, I will have sufficiently drowned my sorrows.