And five, five, five for my lonely

[venta]

OK. Technically this is day 15 in the ongoing saga, but hopefully it's a bit more like a regular update and rather less like me relentlessly documenting life without ligaments :) (Instead, I shall relentlessly waffle on about rapper.)

As mentioned, the whole not-being-able-to-walk thing has kind of knocked me out of the running for DERT. DERT is the annual competition for the form of folk-dancing that I do; to the rapper-dancing section of the world DERT is a really massive deal.

Teams practise pretty hard for DERT. If you've got a new dance, or an innovative figure, or you're changing your kit, you'll probably break the new stuff out for DERT. Especially a new figure - if you only bring it out for the competition, no one else can steal it and put it in their competition dance. Despite DERT taking place in pubs, adult folk-dancers have been known to avoid alcohol all day in case it hinders their performance. Trust me, it's a big deal.

A team will usually select the five dancers who dance best together, to make sure their performance is as good as it can be. Anyone else will come along in a supporting role only. Last year we had six dancers, and we swapped people in and out throughout the day, this was regarded as dangerously egalitarian. But this year an inconvenient landmark birthday and an injury mean we had exactly five dancers in the team. Right up until the time I ski'd into the floor, and then we had four.

Rapper doesn't work with four[*]. Or three, or six. Five. Arse.

However, of late we've had some new recruits to Mabel. None of them has performed in public yet, but we were expecting one to make her debut at the Oxford Folk Festival in April. With the spectre of pulling out of DERT again (for the second time in three years) looming, a team decision was reached:

If Jen is willing, we will ditch our competition dance in favour of a much easier dance, and take that along as an "exhibiting" team. Exhibiting is the stress-free alternative to competing: you go along, you dance in all the competition spots, but the judges put down their pens and just pretend to be regular spectators.

Jen is lovely. She is incredibly enthusiastic, and just sufficiently batshit crazy to say "yes". Yes, I'm happy for my first ever public performance to be for the most critical audience I will ever have. Maybe she hasn't thought of it like that.

On Saturday, a village hall was booked for an all-day practice. They started at ten in the morning. ChrisC delivered me around one o'clock, just in time for tea and sandwiches. I shuffled slowly in on my crutches, helped finish the crisps, and then settled down in a chair to watch with my best critical eyes.

After the first run through, my phone was full of cryptic notes. "Spin not circular". "Second bp down slow". "Mary-Ann too big". "Turnout stuffs may".

OK, the last one confused even me. I think I was trying to write "Trumpton swords messy", but was entering text faster than Swype could handle it.

And yes, the dance isn't competition standard and yes, I could pick holes in it. But with a new dancer in the set, and a couple of other people dancing in unfamiliar positions, it was bloody good. I left when the practice ended; they went off to eat cake, and then take the dance out round the pubs of Oxford. They collected enough money to pay for the hall rent, so people obviously liked it.

I'm still trying to decide whether to head up to Manchester on Saturday. As well as the dancing, it's the annual meet-up of the rapper world, and it'd be great to catch up with everyone. On the other hand, even if I hire a wheelchair, I suspect I might still end up tired and grumpy and in pain, not especially enjoying myself and being a pain in the arse for all around.

This evening, I've sent off a note to the competition organisers asking them to switch our application over to an exhibition team. I'm sure the dancers will be brilliant. If necessary, I'll catch up on YouTube later :)

Post practice, ChrisC delivered me into Oxford to catch up with hendybear, temporarily back in the country. We hung out at metame's house chatting and drinking tea, then removed to the pub for a meal. I think coming down Metame's stairs - which are real Sheffield stairs[**] and have a bend in them - is probably thus far the single most terrifying thing I've attempted on crutches. (After the briefest of attempts, I desisted and descended on my bum instead.)

[*] There have been some attempts to prove this wrong. And there are a couple of smart-arses who do a two-man rapper dance. Some of these non-standard dances have been highly entertaining. But, y'know, DERT is not the place :)

[**] Houses in Sheffield always seem to have ridiculously steep staircases. Usually also with steps that are very narrow back to front.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suspect 19th century post-industrialisation oh-crap-we-need-somewhere-to-put-these-workers architecture!