We start with a change as Lauren has a paying gig, which obviously takes precedence over teaching us sorry lot how to dance. Consequently, rather than the original scheduled song, we begin with a sing through of the Finale song, which is different words to a familiar tune. Until it changes.... We did reasonably well until that point.
Now to Song Seven, an instrumental, and in Lauren's absence, Kim takes us through the steps again. Lauren taught Kim all the steps yesterday but just in case, Kim has filmed them too. The musicians start, the guitar is strumming, the dancers... just stand there. A brief review of what has to be done by checking the camera, and then try again. Beauty is not on stage at this point, so she offers to watch the camera and tell Kim what is needed. This will be an excellent suggestion once Beauty works out how to operate the camera. (She has given me permission to mention that she is blonde, though I'm sure this has nothing to do with her excellence or otherwise.) There's also the difficulty of who partnered who last time, but between us we will probably remember.
And off we go. Eventually, the step-count is worked out for group one and they manage to get through their first section. At which point, group two are supposed to start dancing, an opportunity of which some of them are aware. There's a certain amount of hilarity and scuttling as people catch up and then disintegrate because they've forgotten what comes next. To be entirely fair, most people remember some of it, so the collective memory can reconstruct it. There's quite a lot of debate now and then some dancing props are produced and Martin asks the chorus to take it from the beginning again. He's going to count the four beats and warns us not to get ahead of ourselves, because we have more time than we think. We get to the end relatively successfully this time though Martin has had to tell a few people to slow down and one dance step was left out altogether (sorry, Lauren!). Once more for good luck or measure, with feeling. Martin's verdict: it's getting better. As consultations take place over the order of various steps, Martin asks if they'd like to do it once more. There's no answer which he takes as a yes, so we go again. There's a brief moment of distress as two people go in opposite directions, but at least they're going, so surely that's more important?
Now it's time for the teenagers to learn the dance that goes with their song. We do a sing through of the words first, though the actual teenagers stand in the middle of the floor while everyone sings along. Is this because everyone else will be singing from the wings, or is there some other reason? Watch this space and you might find out.... Martin sings this song with such gusto, I think he's discovered a hidden longing, but for now we'll just say he's showing the others how he wants it done. Now Kim explains how the dance is going to work. Mostly it seems that Daisy has to learn the whole thing and the others need to copy what she's done. So no pressure, Daisy! It's quite entertaining watching Kim doing a 'teenager with attitude' dance when she was more recently seen as a Hot Box Girl, strutting her stuff rather more elegantly. She kicks off here shoes to show the teens the second verse - it's more memories of Hot Box girls, but with Take Back Your Script - and promptly demonstrates some street dancing that may owe something to the Cossacks. Round of applause after Kim has demonstrated, though the teens are not convinced they can do it (and sing, as Celia quietly observes). A bit of practice and some more shoes removed and they make progress. It's a tricky sequence and no one expects them to get it straight off, though a couple of them are worried that they'll never get it. We have faith, teenagers, you'll be fine!
After every few bars, Kim consults the camera, runs through the moves quickly by herself and then shows the teens, at which point they try to do the steps. Several steps later, they try to do it from the beginning again. It's mostly in place now but Martin thinks it's time some of the rest of us do some work, so the teens are told to go elsewhere and rehearse and we assemble for Song Eight. Though, the teens are now told they need to be in Song Eight, so the rehearsing will have to happen some other time.
The tune of Song Eight is apparently familiar to the chorus but you would have thought that most of the dancers had never been shown steps for it. Not our finest performance! It was getting there by the end, so Martin uses logic to deduce that more of it will be there if we do it again. Turns out that Martin was sort of right as it is much better the second time, so the decision is made to leave that dance on a high and move on to Song Nine.
Song Nine starts once everyone has worked out which group they will ultimately be in, though the groups then have trouble remembering their dance steps (come back, Lauren, please!) and there is a debrief at the end to remind us what we're doing when and a short rehearsal of one step that is staggered across the groups. Then it's time to practise the song again, but just from the chorus so that we can demonstrate our staggering skills. Martin wants to do the verse part too and fortunately Dan knows how it goes, so he ends up standing in the middle of the room trying to show everyone how the dance goes, even within our groups. There's a box step and some nodding, but again, it's staggered. Good job we're all experienced at staggering. Dan is again brought in to demonstrate the steps and he looks as though he's regretting admitting he knows what to do. But, astonishingly, it seems to have worked! We get to the end of the song with a certain amount of confidence and accuracy! Time for coffee and cake before we jinx it.
Some extremely delicious home-made cake later, a few announcements about carols, costumes and sets, and it's back to work. One of the teens has had to leave, so Mark kindly stands in for her as they rehearse Song Twelve again. I say kindly, because it's so entertaining for the rest of us. And for some of the dancers, unfortunately, which I say as it's hard to concentrate on dancing when you're collapsed in a fit of giggles. Mark exacerbates this by following Kim when she goes to check on the lyrics and moves - anyone would think he was in a pantomime! Poor Kim continues trying to show them what they're doing while Mark appears to have joined the cast of Karate Kid, but I suppose he's only standing in for someone, so perhaps it doesn't matter as much. They're still worried after going through it a couple of times quite successfully, but as Celia points out, Lauren can go through the end with them next time.
Now it's time to sing the Finale song. We'll sing it through a couple of times from our chairs before getting up and trying to work out some dance steps. Everyone will be on stage for it so it will be quite a squish. Martin has worked out an arrangement of fours rows so we're called out in order to take up position in the correct row. The good news is that with so many people on stage, the opportunity for complicated dance steps is considerably reduced. Undaunted, Martin proceeds to instruct his four lines in some frankly quite complicated dance steps... It doesn't take long for the cast to simplify them and we attempt to sing and dance at the same time. At a critical moment, the Beast arrives and is immediately directed to his position in the finale song.
We have a go at the combination with our almost complete cast on stage, at which point a number of the words appear to be 'la'. Oh well, we've got nearly 200 days until performance, plenty of time to learn the words (I am indebted to Chris Cook for this calculation, so if it's wrong, you can blame him. But I suspect he's right.). The adulation for the hero isn't quite up to the required level yet but hey, we're still learning the words. The choreography has led to something that Mark calls a Mexican bow, but it works. Martin thinks we should know it by now, so it's on to Song Three.
Teni is helping refresh memories of the steps for Song Three and it goes relatively smoothly. It helps that some people have now been able to go home, not being needed for Song Three, so it's less crowded. This dance is one in which the dance partners are not necessarily going in the same direction all the time, which explains the confusion in the earlier song. Song Three is quite a bit slower than the finale so walking in time is key - it's much more leisurely, so dancers need to be more laid back. Despite the slower tempo, the steps prove to be quite challenging, necessitating lots of chat, and Martin is reduced to saying sssh! quite a bit. Not everyone has remembered the steps and others are standing in for missing cast members, so it's all very complicated. Talking it through only works to a certain extent, so Martin asks us to go from the top and go as long as we can. We appear to get to the end, but there are definitely some muddy areas in the middle, mostly involving the rotating circles.
Because it's not complicated enough yet, props are issued and we go from the top again. Despite this added excitement, it mostly goes okay, though the mathematical amongst you will be unsurprised to learn that the hardest part appears to be changing a circle to a straight line.
After all this, Martin decides that we've all worked hard enough so we pack up to go home or elsewhere, and the chats continue down at the pub - what a wonderful way to spend a Sunday evening!
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