Royal Albert Hall

Yesterday I had the great excitement of dancing in the Royal Albert Hall.  Early on in the year, an email went round the Scottish Dancing Uni mailing list asking if people wanted to dance in the Royal Albert Hall in September.  I had heard in my early days of dancing about people doing this.  I thought it sounded rather exciting, and when else would I get a chance to perform at the Hall?

I rather forgot about it for a while and it wasn't until recently that I looked up just what the event was.  It was called On Show and is a collection of dance groups performing their own number.  Apparently 25 different dance groups and over 900 performers.  There were 2 Sunday rehearsals for us in London in September and then the actual day yesterday taken up.  As I was putting the dates into my new school diary I was slightly regretting it as it was reducing my weekend time.  And then during rehearsals and right up to the actual performance I was alternating between enjoying the whole experience and wanting to get out of it.

Yesterday involved getting the 7am train to Paddington.  I was fairly stressed on Friday night thinking of all the things I had to remember in the morning.  In fact on Friday morning I leapt out of bed with my alarm thinking I had overslept for my 6am Saturday alarm (for once being pleased to realise it was a school day and not the weekend!).  I decided to treat myself to a taxi from Paddington to the Royal Albert Hall, rather than go some complicated route on the tube due to weekend engineering work. It was a gorgeous early morning drive through Hyde Park and almost made me wish I was walking.

Made it to our dressing room under ground in the Hall.  Finished doing my getting ready - hair and contacts!  I was quite pleased to arrive relatively early when the changing room was quite empty so able to put my dress on a peg.

When everyone was there we went upstairs to outside the Hall to do a walk through of the whole thing.  I rather liked the square we found to dance in.  We did get quite a lot of strange looks from people walking past at 9.30 in the morning.  It was good to get the practise in as I didn't have it all clearly in my mind yet!

Dress was the biggest uncomfortableness of the day.  I had put the drees on that I had borrowed from someone in oxford, ready for the dress rehearsal when we came back inside and gone off to the bathroom to do make up (we had been encouraged to wear make-up, more than normal because of the lights, so I had been practising all week applying a bit more each day and feeling highly unnatural) when the producer/teacher of our number came in and to be fair to her, in a kind way, said my dress was too short and went off to borrow another from someone else for me.  I just felt like a loser but managed to hold myself together and deal with it without too much gut wrenching dismay.  The other one fitted and I managed to forget about it pretty much.

Then it was our dress rehearsal slot in the hall.  We were all taken through the corridors and kitchens (?) underground to get to our appropriate starting entrance doors.  Though actually for this rehearsal we just waited in the seats watching other groups which was fascinating.  It was great seeing people in costumes and there was such a variety of dancers and dances.  The ladies fitness league (on the right) particularly amused me, though in the real thing they actually looked quite good!  Our rehearsal was a little stressful and we didn't actually get to run through the whole thing. So there was some uncomfortable comments about that.  Then it was group shots from the professional photographers.  And back changed out of our dresses.

Then we headed outside into actual Hyde Park to run through the dance plenty of times.  Again the day was looking absolutely gorgeous and I quite enjoyed this bit - even the bit when all the dancers laughed at me because I went back to my walk on position when no one else did!  I feel we really managed to nail the dances here but it was still going to be anyone's guess how it was going to work out in the hall!  Definitely lots of passers by stopping to watch us here and take photos.  And a few dogs running amongst us!!
We were then allowed time to go and eat lunch so I ate the things I had bought at the station, in the spot by the hall we had done our morning walk through.  It was here I got the wonderful phone call that John was coming to watch me - he made a spur of the minute decision to go get the train.  It was very exciting and I was very touched.  Lizzie had always said she was coming to watch which was very touching.  Walking back I passed some other Scottish Dancers eating lunch, and they offered me a glass of red wine, so I thought, why not, totally adds to the surrealness of it all!!!

Time to change again into white dresses and I was definitely starting to feel nervous by this point!  Went up with some of the others in the end to watch the first half from the circle.  Ended up seeing Lizzie walk in further round the circle.  Was sure it was her when she got out the hand sanitiser!!  Managed to attract her attention just as it was starting which was nice.  First up were cheerleaders.


Here are some photos of other groups.

Dancing with cloth (?) and 18th Centrury dance.  Both second half so I didn't see those.

Ladies dancing in formation again.  I enjoyed the Irish dancing.

I actually fell asleep during the Indian Dancing somehow??  Interesting-ish Eastern European dancing.

Some peculiar Tai Chi representing Ying and Yang.  Then a nerve wracking one with balls and wood blocks - just on edge waiting for them to drop them!!


At the interval managed to meet up with Lizzie and John which was lovely :-)

Didn't return to the circle for the second half.  Just tensely got more ready in the changing room and watched a little of the show on the tv in our room.  Headed round to our starting door with a few dances to go - through the maze of kitchens and all sorts.  Was probably the most nervous hanging down there.  I spent some quiet time by myself running through the moves for the whole dance.  There were some young ballerinas chattering comically who were going on before us.

When it came time for us to walk on, I did, still feeling nervous.  But as the music started everyone started clapping along which instantly made me feel good and smile and I didn't feel nervous again and totally enjoyed it!  Such a delight!!! Even my dash between the first strathspey and into joie de vivre went ok and looks fine on the video!

I'm the second form the left facingish the camera.

First dance.

A ceildh dance that begins with a C!

The grand finale was rather chaotic - as it had been during the rehearsal at lunchtime!  It involved some West End actor singing the Lambeth Walk and then all the dancers joining in dancing it.  I was over the moon to be learning it, though I am not quite sure I fully got it!  We put on sparkly baseball hats and then a surprise to us as well, silver 'confetti' came down from the ceiling!

What an experience!

More photos, taken by another dancer's brother, can be found here. 










12/2/11  And not sure why I didn't put it up before, but here is the tremendous video that Lizzie took - so you can really see I did it - well except you can't tell it's me, although some of my kids spotted me when I showed them at school!!  There is also a video up on the OUSDS website taken from a different angle.  Also to be found there is a video of me doing the whiskey dance from an engagement dance I went to in the summer.