Travelling to another country, rehearsing in unfamiliar spaces, participating in a new creation, ploughing through the cold cold wind. In my innocence I never realised that performing life and cultural outreach is a much huger world outside the work I've known in Singapore.
This is pretty much my first full time production - daily rehearsals in an isolated space, living day in day out with the same collaborators, touring in our choreographer's beat-up little car. Minus so many of the daily distractions - other technique classes, part time jobs to pay the bills, additional projects, social life - that fill the air when I am working at home. Instead I am really dancing day to night - with preparations focused on a single project instead of the scattered repertoire as I knew it in school.
This degree of concentration is a luxury as well as a challenge. We have three weeks to go to the premiere of Focus by Kham Company at les Hivernales dance festival in Avignon. Some days I can hardly believe my luck to be here - and on other days I wonder if he chose the right dancer and if I'm actually up to this. If I can grow enough in these six weeks so that I'm not wasting all these fantastic facilities and arrangements where everything is taken care of.
