The job of an artistic director
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_director
There you have it, what it should be or could be.
So who was she, our “artistic director”?
Let’s be politically correct and skip my personal opinion on her personality.
(+*&^%$@@4?/®÷×_<{± and so on, as you guess)
It was her big chance of making something now, something to show for before retireting and trying to have a baby…
(These ladies that think a baby can make up for their unfulfilled lives *sigh*)
Stating the obvious, she has hardly seen a theater or variety inside, not even as an audience member, least as an artist.
She promised a picture perfect broadway show with cirque du soleil class circus in it to an equally ignorant owner (he owns whorehouses otherwise)
She had no idea what her job was and she failed it every corner of the way.
She was spiced up with all imaginable insecurities, numbed back down with weed and alcohol.
On rehearsals she was more occupied of trying to show off with the pole or on the hoop (she never hold one before) than doing her actual job.
Her way of treating people was plain abuse downwards (which should never be, not even with an animal) and mad ass-kissing and pretending upwards, also showing off with other people's merits.
Let’s see the job closer
From what I saw from the past, rather than qualifications, you need a sense, talent and taste, but most of all hard work to do this job.
In burlesque the artistic directors I mostly work with are also performers, and performers of the same genre. Outside of their genre, they let themselves guided by the ones who areprofessionals, that is, they understands the needs of a burlesque artist, while they carefully consult over rigging with an aerialist or safety with a fire performer, etc.
Running order
They do not put a show together just sucking the running order out of their fingers.
People need to change, warm up and cool down, drink a sip.
In the case of most burlesque shows and variety style shows, the individual numbers are linked together with a compere, there is not necessarily a written plot.
If the show is theatrical play like, there might be plot or a storyline built up.
In both cases, if you work with a limited amount of performers, that have reoccuring roles on stage, you need to plan the timing according to the needs of changes (for example: character or costume) to be made during the plot.
Other consideration should be variety (in the strict sense of the word), so not put two numbers of the same or similar style after each other.
Well, here we were supposed to leave the stage to change costumes (thigths and gloves included) and get back on in 20 sec, just having finished our aerial duo. We obviously could not make it…oh, did you ask? No, we did not have people helping us dress.
Was she a director?
No, not by profession, either by talent.
Was she a coreographer?
Same negative answer, I think my grandmother would have been more effective teaching a coreography than her. She was constantly yelling, instead of counting we got “plass plass and bumm”s. Correcting and recorrecting the same thing back again. Not being able to show the same move twice same way either, but yelling if we didn’t get it right.
Was she a dancer?
There is a difference between having skills to dance and selling that you have skills to dance, in the second option you might also lack the actual skill or only have some.
I need to admit, I had her raised on a piedestal in the past, but memories tricked me, I saw her now and there was nothing of that divinity. Not because she lost it, but rather because it has never been there. She was trash, she was insecure, she was eager to proove she could, but she could not.
She was a graceful stripper, great pole dancer as of 2006 (when pulling an aysha was OMG!) Once she did rythmic gymnastics. Fact.
My glasses of the wannabe stripper fell, and I could see the reality.
Big dreams
(Too big)
She dreamed big. She visioned a broadway show cirque du soleil crossover.
She dreamed aerials, aerial hoop, aerial silks, trapeze, spinning pole, aerial hammock… All high quality, spiced with motorised movements and flights… On a height of 4.5 meters and 5 m wide stage… (For the less circusy reader, that would leave you with hoop and pole, as other disciplines need more height, if we talk quality)
She dreamed a weekly change of theme of 4 different themes. Namely cabaret, flamenco, circus, futurist.
Cabaret, because she saw Cabaret, Victor Victoria and Chicago once.
Flamenco, because it was a tourists’ must, not her choice.
Circus, because we were circus artists, but she had no idea of this theme.
Futurist, because she saw Step up wichever, with the glowing ballet dancers and the coming out of the wall body paintings.
As you can see, all original, all new ideas on a brand new take, innovation up your ass…
She dreamed a team whose superhero powers doesn’t require days off to rest. Neither regular hidration, nor proper food.
She dreamed two, two hours each of shows a night.
All this paying a casual gogo dancer’s salary to the acrobats a day. 120 euros, underline! (and slap me in the face if I ever consider this sum acceptable ever for aerials…)
She dreamed wild success and a job offer in the 3 upcoming months from El Molino Barcelona or such.
She also dreamed that for all this she just had to sit back and light her pot acommpanied by a daiquiry.
She made everyone else do all the aspects of her supposed job. That mostly me, at the beginning then after that our coreographer.
Costumes
Generally the last rehearsals should go with costumes, any fucking where, (except for a burlesque show, where performers already had that about a 1000 times, one would suppose…)
The costumes arrived, like 2 days before premier or less.
She asked us to provide our own dance-skin type tights, white and black tight with all matching black and white garder belts, black and white, black frilly underwear for “mein herr”, big holed fishnet thigh high black stockings, plain black fishnets, etc.
All this being told during the last week of rehearsals, with no free time and no shops selling these items in the nearby.
Surely, a “real professional” should have all this already.
I was to have most of it, providing two frilly undergarments even, but still, white fucking garder belts? White over the knee tights? Last minute?
Obviously a single pair does not work, because to begin with we were 3-4 girls needing each item at a time, so that would go by buying 8 pairs.
Bcn is cheap, but fishnets go around 3-5 euros, frilly underwear 6-8 euros, tights 3-10 euros, garder belts 5-10 euros all depending if you get lucky to buy it in your corrner chinese store, because buying in a higher end store means having to spend 3x more.
So you start the work with min. 30-50 euros loss in material you might never ever use again (fishnets in burlesque is quite a generally accepted nono)
The made costumes were not matching anyone, since noone ever asked for our measurements.
Some were unusable, like our “By-bye blackbird” coreography jackets. These were jackets bought at any sale store, with a badly sewn in velcro in the back. Taking a proper 1.5 size down. So whenever we opened our arms the jacket opened wide open on our backs. No time to fix anything, no sewing machine, either anyone to do it. (At this time I was still hand sewing and fixing what I could, until the directorrissima thought, that instead of thanking me, telling me to shut up and stop critizing our very professional “costumier” was something suitable, so I stopped.)
Shoes
In the middle of dance school show season, we were sent to try shoes the weekend before. Well, no shop had the matching 5 pairs of black dance shoes already, including 3 pairs of 36 and one of 41 size, which was the hardest to find, and did not happen.
Best moment was calling the directorissima and passing her on the phone to the shopkeeper lady, she requested giving us the shoes without paying and that in two days the boss would come and pay for them, on the basis of youknowwhoIam, which they had no idea of.
Technicals
Motor. Failing. All. The. Time.
The so called motor was life threatening to us. Hitting the floor was a constant threat. Start and stop had more movement and shake than the length of the actual rope involved.
Professional aerial arts motors are somewhat costy, so they got cheap industrial ones. These get jammed, are not licensed to hang people from them. (In Spain nobody gives a damn)
Million and one cheaper solutions, pulley? Or fixed rigging?
Oh, did I mention that the structure to begin with either was quite made for this.
We ended up having 3 stage managers including the her, but still no stage courtain got to open and close when needed, no motor working when needed, and we were requested to collect our clothing ourselves. Glamurous that is.
Lady, and others with a smoke in their mouth on that 4 m2 behing the stage and between the dressing room, that had a single curtain to protect itself.
4 circus artists, no actual m2 to stretch, or warm up. Sure, we solved this too.
And after each and every show she came on stage with us to take her bow and collect the applauses of a puzzled mini audience, who wondered who the hell was her…
