Tuesday 9 September 2008

Amsterdam 1-2 July

Leaving for Amsterdam we all managed to meet at the station to board our train to Holland, except for our Greek guy Elais who overslept and had to catch the next train!! Poor Helen, just what she needed on the first day of tour!! There are so many of us – all the dancers plus our brilliant musicians including Nell who plays the Viola and brought her wee lad Otis - our little traveller.


I turned up with (1) an oversized suitcase for so few days and (2) a lovely cold. Typical… I had one day off resting after a week of rehearsals and a cold caught up with me. I felt like death. Any way, Amsterdam is a beautiful place to be going to.


The theatre is all ready for us to do a tech rehearsal except that the lighting cues aren’t set up due to some ancient equipment which can’t deal with the sophistication of Hofesh’s design. Uprising and In Your Rooms together have at least 130 cues so there is a lot of lighting preparation to do. Hofesh, though under pressure as we are on tomorrow premiering the show in Holland and opening the Julidans Festival, manages to be so calm and chilled about it all – maybe he is just a good actor but either way he has a very calming, relaxed energy about him which really helps in these situations.

While everyone else makes the most of the evenings, I take to my hotel room to steam and have a cup of tea and watch some Wimbledon. On tour we each share a room with one other person. In A’dam I shared with Ino. The poor girl had to try to sleep while I was coughing and moaning in the bed next to hers. Thankfully she seemed to sleep through it all. Back at the theatre things had progressed well. This was my first show and considering I had no air though my nasel cavities I think it was alright. I was purple after the shows but if I can handle that then next week in America will be a breeze!!? Well the audience loved us, so that’s what matters. The following night was brilliant - we were given flowers on stage and afterwards had free drinks and I finished off my Chinese walk in wok meal, yummy. Then we had a proper dinner with drinks on a boat floating past houses and barges, ducking under the bridges and having a jolly old time!

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