I Heart Week Three

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christine O’Grady. 

I'm about to enter my favorite part of the rehearsal process: Week Three. I LOVE Week Three. 95% of my choreography is up on its feet, and now it's time to finesse, make funny with the actors, and clarify the storytelling. I always feel a huge sense of relief when I get to this point. For me, the rough draft is always the hardest part, and once I get past the first pass, the fun begins. If I remember correctly this is the opposite of how I used to feel. I used to love "making it up" but have trouble with being tough on myself and throwing old ideas away. Now I feel liberated when I cut that move that's been gumming up the works or giving the actors trouble.

I'm currently working with an ensemble that has been so super diligent about drilling sequences and nailing the details, and I have a feeling that this is going to make this week even more enjoyable. It's so useful for me to sit back and see a clean presentation of what I have given them so far, rather than say, maybe when it's cleaned it will be what I'm looking for. We're also at a point where Cara, the director, can watch a sequence and say, "you know, I think the point we're missing is this...", or "you know what would be funny to include here...?"

I find that week three is one of the most collaborative. We've all had some time with the material, we have a pretty good sense of the style we're going for, and we still have a little distance from the pressure of tech week looming over our heads. I'm really looking forward to deepening the work we've accomplished thus far and seeing what kind of personal touches continue coming from the actors, and other people in the room. LOTS more work to do, but rather than trying to choreograph every moment of every song, this week I can agonize (in a good, productive way) over those moments that aren't quite landing yet. To me Week Three is "make the play better week" and no matter what show I'm doing this is always my favorite part. 

Cossak Choreography a Click Away

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christine O’Grady. 

Cossak dancing? Check. Russian soldiers' marching technique? Check. Busby Berkley? Cyd Charisse? Fred Astaire? Check. Check. Check. What did we do before YouTube? I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I circle back to a project that I first worked on back in 2006, before countless videos were a click away.

I'm choreographing a musical for Prospect Theater Company called Iron Curtain, which is primarily set in Russia during the Golden Age of musicals in America. This is my second time mounting a production of it and the director (Cara Reichel) and I were really interested in doing it bigger and better than last time. As I was reviewing my old choreography, which, at the time, I remember being quite proud of, I realized how little Russian influence there was on the musical numbers that take place there. When I think back to why, I realize part of this had to do with the fact that the show was being completed while we were in rehearsals (you gotta love new work!), but video research of this magnitude was also far more daunting five and half years ago than it is now. Now I can spend an afternoon watching hundreds of sources, and because of this, hopefully, I can anchor my work more specifically.

There's not enough hours in the day to take classes in and become a trained expert on every kind of dance I may need to reference for a musical I'm choreographing, however with the explosion of available videos on YouTube I'm finding that referencing styles of dance that I have never trained in, for example Cossak, has become both manageable and thrilling. Sometimes these videos just jog my memory, but other times I find the perfect trick or traditional step to integrate--and that's when I love this the most. In the first big musical number in Iron Curtain, The Ministry of Musical Persuasion, five of my favorite parts have been inspired by videos of Russians dancing that I stumbled across. It goes without saying that I am not talking about plagiarizing someone else's work but when it comes to comedic historical and cultural references some help has been helpful, and for this, I'm very grateful to YouTube as of late.