8.30 we took the bus to arrive at 10 am, taken directly to the venue to start rehearsals. We were screamed and yelled to start fast, cuz there was a short timeframe and too many coreographies.
We were not asked if we needed water up until 12-13 pm, let alone breakfast or lunch.
No warm up time either.
Rehearsals in 30-40 degrees celsius, 10+ hours of dance rehearsals daily, on a half done stage with our decoration artist working with supertoxic materials next to us, including finishing the stage itself.
Personal drama lovepack:
My Mr. was given a barman job a month before, he had been cancelling the works of his own company to be able to come and work with us. He had a funky feeling, se he talked to the directorissima various times to reassure the thing was not a set up. He also made it clear that he was coming for me and in desperate need of a job.
Needless to say, it was a set up.
So, in her car she drops between two giggles, that ohh hon, the job of ya boy, well, giggle, I dunno, gotta talk to Fernando, cuz it kinda looks like it is not happening.
Woahhhh!! My mouth open of digrace.
First of all, my Mr. is a first class bartender, worked at the poshest places in Bcn before, second, nobody asked no favour, he sent his CV, they fell in love with it, they choose him. Supposedly.
I obviously call my man, who happens to get mad and send tha bitch back where she belongs along with the half pimp of the boss.
We had a serious relationship crisis that day, he literally told me I needed to leave the job or else… he didn’t give a fuck and would even payed me to stay at home… (Surely he calmed down later, apologized and all good)
I was between two sides, responsible towards my friends that I dragged into this shithole and towards my relationship. I knew that I did not want to loose a guy like him over a stupid bitch’s wrongdoing. (Talking about the expecting father of my child, the best, ever, caring loving relationship)
Anyway, I was useless by day two. Then Fernando, tha boss, came up asking me what was up, I told him straight up. This was in no way correct from them. I bet he did not know many things until that conversation, for example that I pulled the whole company together, either that we won’t be able to make weekly changes of theme. That working with your body needs days off… He was sold a dream on crack.
I surely told the bitch too. I guess she remembered a more submissive little girl from years before. She really thought she could get away with all.
Surely, truth was, once again, her shit, promising something without nailing down with the boss, lying on both sides.
I think her plan was to get my contacts and come up with a sorry excuse to sack me during the first weeks of rehearsals… Making me feel like shit of not being a professional dancer, since we know I am a aerialist, that excuse kinda never was to work.
Note: Know who and what you are!! The works of a chef and an aerialist does not overlap and for a reason. Dancer and acrobat maybe, but if you were ever near performing, or watched Step up (haa, bet you did) then you know how is it to ask even dancers to shuffle their style and learn another style.
So, yes, you might or might not dance as an acrobat, but expecting you to be a licensed dancer without you ever stating anything near that is abusive.
Or once again, if pro dancer-acrobat needed hire one.
(Clear up: I consider myself a pole dancer and a burlesque dancer, my dance skills are not bad, but the demand here was exhausting even for the professionally trained dancer)
I was stupid, I thought maybe she was feeling some guilt for the shit from years before, so this way she wanted to somehow make it up to me, and to karma… haha! Idiot I was.
Sidenote: do not karmatise too much. There is no need to look for karma in fart, as more spiritual peopld say.
I was about to leave the first week, it was too much, too little, too bad. So, my friend (more about her soon) talked me into staying, we are in this together, we will make this fun, and it is only one person that causes my troubles, etc. “Oh look at her, what is she compared to you” “She just wants to badly make it and not know how.”
These two became best friends in two weeks term, just to state the obvious.
There was an original agreement of the 6, that we would stick together as a real company if shit was to go down. Well, in this conversation she made it clear that she was not leaving even if they lower her salary or leave her in unlivable conditions, because she badly needed this job, I had to understand…So much for loyalty.
I was the public enemy from day one, as you see.
Why? Because I opened my mouth. I have been an international performer since 2009, stripper since 2006, I have seen way too many places, worked way too many gigs and festivals to see something was desperately wrong here.
Tha Diva
Good excuse the directorissima came up with. I was behaving like a diva. Why? Because I asked for water while rehearsals, I told we needed warm up time. We needed time to practice solos, which never happened. I pointed out things in general. She needed to stop smoking while walking around on stage, she was a constant threat with her cigarettes to us. You know burned thighs are not cool on dancers. Also stop being high on weed the whole day.
But, I was tha diva, the unprofessional, the one that causes the problems.
Constant psychological abuse
“Carino, you really have a lot to learn as an artist” mean tone, mean eyes… was like the friendliest of her comments, the first week was loud of her exclamating my name. Calling me out to “special talk” every hour. I was the weakest spot in the dance (which I was not), because I could not make perfectly the coreographies at first try. There was 5 more in the same situation, though, that is just normal, we were under lot of pressure, but I, out of 3 acrobats and 3 pro dancers, I had to be picture perfect upon the first try.
It was not personal…She said. Wasn’t it? The bash down mixed with skizofreniac changes to friendly, how she understood I was no dancer (belittling, belittling).
Also coming up and correcting a coreography without being able to do it the same way twice herself. Correcting something then correcting it back as it was, telling us we were wrong all the way.
On the last of my patience, one day, there was a sudden change. The bitch calmed down, she became friendly. She backed off from our rehearsals and let the coreographer work his magic.
I got to know weeks later from Fernando, that he saw what was happening and tripping over how someone can behave like her, so she got a higher call to calm the fuck down otherwise she would be out of job soon. (I mean, if we can believe a man, who fails to pay the salaries of 10+ people 6 months later)
And we were still at the first week of rehearsals…
Housing
Was a granny smelling, literally filthy old. 8 m2 room with two bunk beds for the 4 of us, in an old house. No locks on rooms.
The only beauty was the garden and the view.
Kitchen as filthy as possible, and with a continous food disappearance, that is by the end of the dag you had nothing of the food you left in the fridge in the morning.
Bathrooms the same, one day even my towel was stolen, let along all shampoos and shower gels.
Meals
20 euros per day for food in an extremely expensive village with no supermarket at a walkable distance. Best for special diets or any heathy eating, the nearest veggie and food shop was a 20+ min walk with prices tripling the Bcn ones.
There was no way of actually having groceries since by the next morning everything were gone as the construction workers and the gogo dancers and the bar staff was also accomodated in the same house.
We were supposed to get dinner once “real work” started. Well, that started off with fried chicken breasts salads and rice, hardly fulfilling after 10 hours of dance…
As days passed by the amounts were less and less, vegetarians(2) were left with the same fried veggies every day, the quality went down to pre-made half done half still frozen, half rotten salad served the second day in a row… Reaching the wonderous heights of unedible/wonderifitspoisonous.
Until one fine day we were just left without dinner without any notice…
Then some days later dinner appeared again in a wee better state…
I could actually state that we were almost starved (or without almost.)
We fed off protein shakes, protein bars, tuna salad, microoven rice and sandwitches, when we could actually slip out to the bar next door.
It surely is fun to have to spend a considerable amount on not starving to death of your already way too low salary.
Transportation
The lodging was a good 40 minutes walk on the roadside (oh so very safe) or a 5 min car ride. We were told, that there would be a minivan to get us to and from work every day…
That ended up in car rides in the car of the directorissima with two contorsionists in the trunk…
Or most of the time walking down if you wanted breakfast.
We were living in the Voliére.
To sum up nothing was as it was agreed upon or promised.
So you wonder why on earth I stayed?
With people you trust you can trick yourself too much. As everyone acted as if this was normal, I was always the odd one out, the uncontent, the rebel.
We were drifted very far from reality.
The main attraction of our show said these places are all over the islands and it is the same deal, abusive and shit, but at the end of the season you go home with good money… I came to realize this was just as much of a lie as anything else she said.
I kept going, because I believed in the 5 friends I was with, I thought we were like family (stupid thought of a circus girl), I was very, but very wrong.
I also believe that the weekly or twice a week visits of my boyfriend got me not to break out. (We had a friend’s house left for us in the next village every time he came)
