So, you may have heard. I hope you did, because we were kind of pathetic and frantic about getting the word out. In an unprecedented move of professional dancerly-ism, Mad King Thomas had some auditions.
Auditions, sounds nerve-wracking, right? Turns out they were fun! And weird.
Here’s the thing; we’ve never really done this before. Plus, this isn’t really a big auditioning town. We were worried. I swear we were more nervous than our auditionees. Nobody really knows how to deal with the strange dynamic of having to prove yourself/choose from amongst your friends. The Minneapolis dance-scene is like a sprawling dysfunctional family. It’s weird to put some of your cousins and sisters and step-brother’s uncle’s adopted grandchild in a room together and pretend like you’re the patriarch. No one will believe you. And besides, you no matter how removed someone is, someday in the future you’re going to see them at a family reunion and they’re going to hear from your Uncle Dick about the time you showed up to Great-Grandma’s 90th birthday party wearing nothing but a hospital gown and a cheap plastic tiara.
Okay, I’m not really sure where that analogy went. But suffice it to say, HOW COULD WE POSSIBLY CHOOSE? We got a crowd of delightful, enthusiastic people in a room together, and we made them do silly things, they cheerfully obliged, we laughed until we hurt, they were all awesome in so many ways; how could we do anything other than love every one of them?
And we did love every one of them, in both auditions that we held, but we’re learning there is more to auditioning than just love. The tricky thing, the thing that makes this an audition and not a project, is learning to pick out the awesomenesses that are the right awesomeness for our current dance.
It doesn’t help that we weren’t entirely sure (and we’re still not) exactly how we want to use this corps of people we’re trying to gather, how much of a commitment they are going to be required to make, and what the dance is ultimately going to look like. Last-minute construction is kind of a big part of our process. We work for a long period of time with lots of dramaturgy and not many promises, and then KABAM, there’s a dance. Working with other people means making promises before we’re ready. Which I’m sure is a good challenge for us, pushing our boundaries, learning new skills, blah blah blah, etc. etc. But right now I want to know, can’t we just take the audition and put it on stage as the piece?