Edinburgh wrap up

Its now the 17th Sept and so its been nearly 3 weeks since we completed our season in Edinburgh.

The thing that stands out for us in the European context is that New Zealand need have no cultural cringe!
It is seen as a credible source of contemporary culture and creative originality.
Indeed there seems to be a surprising number of references to New Zealand – its narratives, artists and ideas as part of an overall conversation on global culture in the media.

Looking at our own self image from offshore – we often seem to wish to re-affirm negative stereotypes about ourselves, defer to often expat or offshore ‘experts’ to explain ourselves to ourselves and reinforce our own insecurities.
For instance – we note in spite of several excellent and publication credible reviews in the UK media on our show, it was panned by a commissioned expat kiwi academic reviewer living in Edinburgh for theatreview.org.nz and given a prominent negative headline to that effect. To be fair, the editor of the site added links to our UK based reviews, once we pointed them out, but it just seemed so typically New Zealand.
Note to reviewer in this case – we do satire not moral propaganda….. don’t quit your day job!

Our next performances of the whole show are now going to be March 2014.

A Southland tour ending up at the Dunedin Fringe in March is in place.  November just seemed way too soon to get good houses, which are needed for the amount of financial risk level we have to make to do this tour.

In the meantime hopefully we will get some smaller gigs at parties or Xmas do’s over the next few months….and Tempo is looming with my Honouring on the 11th Oct and performing my Witch Bitch solo at the 10th anniversary Gala o the 12th!

Onward

Have been hearing this music so have just nipped down to the Grassmarket square to buy a CD of some music a duo are playing (drums and violin)  – they are The Imprints from Oz – cool!

Went to a ‘surgery’ last week – where the Fringe people offer workshops to assist performers with contacting presenters etc. The fringe people running it had heard of In Flagrante and heard that it was great – so that’s something!

Am going to a promoters brunch on Sunday to hopefully meet some.

Went to the Highlands on our day off on Monday – travelled as far as the North end of Loch Lomond – stopping at Stirling Castle on the way. Having been to the Mary Queen of Scots exhibition at the museum in Edinburgh – so twas cool to actually go there.

North of Loch Lomond we stayed on the spur of the moment at The Drovers Inn – really old, really cool, very Scottish. Ended up in the bar singing old Scots folk songs – which of course I realised I was very familiar with….such as ‘Loch Lomond’!!

Our audiences haven’t been too bad – in fact good on EdFringe terms! As there are 3000 shows on at the Fringe and over 120 of them Cabaret shows  -we are lucky to get an audience at all!  We are averaging about 50 – 80 a time….sometimes they are very enthusiastic….Sunday night show was magical, then again last night Tuesday 13^th, was a tough audience – gave nothing!!

Have asked for a meeting with Frodo to ask his advice about various things and he has agreed – so will meet tonight. He replied saying our show was still his favourite of the fringe which is heartening cos its tough getting noticed here!

Timeout have asked for some photos so hope to get a Timeout review soon! A positive one obviously!

A Fringe reviewer came to the show on Sun apparently – crossed fingers we get a positive review from that!

Last night a dude asked to meet me afterward and asked if we would like to audition for France has got Talent!!! Apparently a woman from Crazy Horse is on the judging panel!

A dude the other night asked if we were open to being flown to The Seychelles for a private party!

Onward and upward…….

Six performances, a great review, settling in….

Wrote this 4 days ago – didn’t go through as published – so am publishing it now!!.

Its our 9th performance tonight! Rachel went mid week and the local techs are doing welll – whew!!

Had a huge surprise on Monday….was just chilling in the afternoon before gearing up for the evening performance and saw a great review  – headline – ‘no tassels required’ he he …..from Frodo McDaniel in the  Broadway Baby publication!! There we were – reviewed extremely positively and 4 stars. Getting reviewed is a major, let alone such a positive one – we are delighted!

We are creating a bit of a buzz here that’s for sure. The poster cuts through really well and people are really positive about the show. Its so hard to describe or explain it but when they see it they are super appreciative. Everyone reckons we will be packing them in soon – so fingers crossed!
The dancers are being fabulous, really professional, performing beautifully, great attitude – we’re so proud of them. The audiences have been more and more animated – they especially respond to Cancan……see Maria featured below

Our first street events / outdoor performance last Sunday went well – obviously with more clothes on – still shocked people a bit I think – did Traffic, Horses and Marching Girls….mini version, just a cast of 2 in Horses and MG’s. We have another one tonight then a Kiwi party at Roxy – Jo O’Sullivan is bringing us all together to meet and hopefully greet some press! Anyway it will be great to see everyone. Most of the Kiwi shows are getting 4 and 5 stars!

We’ve yet to see anything – been too busy sorting marketing, publicity and things. The dancers have been getting to many shows and are very inspired by the performances they’ve seen!

Five more performances then we have a night off next Monday!

Official opening night at Assembly Roxy

I was hugely relieved that our opening night at the Edinburgh fringe fest went well last night! The audience got it beautifully….thank goodness. I reworked the order back to more how we have played it in NZ and it went much better…….Addiction after Horses, Blindfold later worked better.

Its been a harrowing 3 days since our first preview on Thursday, I’ve been very nervous, struggling with feeling very insecure about the show but now I feel great! The audience responded in the familiar ways, they laughed and clapped in the usual places last night – thank goodness!!

Today at 6:10pm we are doing an outdoor stage performance on the Royal Mile! We’ve figured we can do Traffic, Horses and Marching Girls….Traffic and Horses with more clothes on of course – and because the stage is so tiny we’ve cut it down to just 2 dancers doing Horses, 2 doing MG’s! The rest of us will be handing out flyers like crazy so hopefully its the right strategy to do this to attract more people to our theatre performances! We’ll see!

Then its our 10:30pm show later……..

Getting down to business

The dancers are being so great!
Yesterday we went out postering and handing out flyers. The girls did really well getting posters into all sorts of places! Making friends and contacts so that they will hopefully come to our show.
Megan’

our first sighting of our poster outside Assembly Gardens!!

s taken on the responsibility of handling the ticketing arrangements – comps etc which is brilliant for me so I can concentrate on the show!
The deal is we give out lots of comps as a form of publicity – hopefully they come see us (as the have free tickets!!) then its word of mouth cos our show is so great!
Our tech time and dress run the other night were ok – stressful but we go there! The venue is this old renovated church – very gothic, seating made up of rows of 12 x 25 rows….a long narrow auditorium, but a very atmospheric space with ancient stone walls and pillars. The staging is different again from how we’ve worked before but its ok.
We all went to the studio again yesterday and did a bit of a class then a runthru. Very satisfying. We were all exhausted by the end of the day. Phil and I went to one of the pubs downstairs and had fish and chips!…..then walked around a bit on the Royal Mile – saw our posters all over the pillars!
Today we are continuing the promo stuff, then meeting later for a shared meal before we go to the opening night party which apparently is important to do so we can talk up our show!

Solos

Here is a photo of Molly McDowall dancing her solo Eve to the track Addiction by Waldeck from his album Ballroom Stories. This album is the basis of the show, with a few other tracks added to add spice and variety.

In Flagrante preparations are going well – I’m making sure all the pieces, groups and solos, have other dancers from the company as covers who know them well enough if anything happens. I might even change the casting occasionally anyway to keep them ‘on their toes’!

Please go to https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/cabaret/in-flagrante to book for our performances in Edinburgh

As well as preparing to perform in Edinburgh – I’m also preparing to perform myself when I get back to NZ.

My solo Witch Bitch has been invited to perform at the Tempo Dance Festival Gala in October….its been great getting this solo dance work  I made 4 years ago back into my body. I love the music from the Book of Longing by Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen (I’m a total fan) and I love to dance and perform so am feeling privileged that I still can!

Vids to Guardian, studio hire, buttons on website…..

Maria in the Cancan Punk

So we now have a studio booked in Edinburgh to do class and a bit of rehearsal when we get there – thanks Maria for organising that. I’ve just managed to upload our promo vid onto the Guardian / Edfringe page promo section – whew…..that took a while as I had to work out the format and size (had to edit our promo vid quite radically but think it still works). Update 18.7.13 – After all that have finally realised they want footage like for a news item – not anything edited as a promo vid  -so have sent the footage I recorded from the Gay Pride Gala Opening event at Q theatre – we did Marching Girls and the audience were hilarious – they got it, loved it and I love this footage because it shows a wonderful sense of community/communication between the audience and the dance! We’ve ordered a button ( an ad on the side of the page) on the edfringe website  -so have to go to the bank to organise payment as they don’t have Paypal – shame as paypal makes things so much easier! Update 18.7.13  – aaaagh – in the end just called them and paid by credit card over the phone, rather than pay that extra $25  – I’ve learnt its a challenge working with people who have a 12 hours time difference  – they are working while we are sleeping….so we’re not doing much sleeping/relaxing at the moment…. Have a dude checking our house alarm now – updating the battery etc….. I’m now heading up to K rd (Karangahape Rd) to find another cancan skirt – we’re leaving behind the huge denim skirt we made that Shanelle wears as its too heavy….our costs for extra baggage are huge already. Update 18.7.13 Got a skirt from an Indian clothes shop – turned it inside out and Phil got a NZ flag which we’ve ….er…re-arranged and sewn in bits onto the skirt…..kiwi punk style…. I’m looking into getting an upgraded phone so can make better quality photos and video……. 10 more sleeps……. its all go…….

Many Hats

6 staunch young women in character in In Flagrante

I’d like to name the dancers here now so you begin to get to know them – clockwise from top left they are Maria (in Blindfold character), Megan ( in Traffic Girl), Molly (in Eve/addiction character), Sofia (in Make my Day character), Amanda (in the Ex Great Redondo character), and Shanelle (in Black and Blue character)…….they look fantastic eh!

I’m wearing a lot of hats at the moment – the one I most enjoy is choreographer – and had a lovely day yesterday rehearsing the dancers.

Production, music copyright, marketing and publicity, flight arrangements……all coming together and my brother Craig has lent us 3 large blue suitcases, perfect for carrying all the costumes and props – yay! The only prop that doesn’t fit is the walking stick for the Black and Blue dance but we’ll get one over there. We also need to get white stayups for the Nurses dance as Auckland only has cream ones for brides!

Phil is fixing and cleaning up all the props ( he designed and made them) so thats great.

I’ve redeveloped the programme order to work without an interval, as we have one hour to perform and if we go over we are fined. I understand that as I ran Tempo Dance Festival for years and when shows are too long it throws all the scheduling out the window!

I’m thinking to put all the fetish material up first – Begin as usual with Our Day will Come, then Whip solo, Horses, Blindfold, Group Bondage, then 3 mini stories, Eve, Redondo and Black and Blue,then the uniform pieces – Marching Girls, Traffic Girl, Nurses, then a couple more mini stories  -Make My Day and Pikelet recipe, then the Cancan and Summertime finale. Whew – its feeling good as a programme.

The dancers are getting involved also in admin areas so thats great! Molly and Maria tweeting, Megan tour manager, Shanelle, rehearsal director. Maria’s organised studio hire for when we get there….whew!

The Group Bondage dancers in the photo are a bit hard to identify with their wigs on but I think it is from left – Amanda, Shanelle, Molly……can I identify them from the breast size or their body shapes…hmmm…….the dancers maybe can help me here?