Lighting Design

Bear with me whilst I explain.  The other day I had a laugh out loud moment where I was making dinner in the kitchen and recounting the events of the day in fast forward (I often do this just to remonstrate with myself how little I've achieved in terms of career and creativity - fun isn't it?).  I came home from teaching my morning adults beginner's class - WITH ONE PERSON, and was bemoaning the fact of lack of dance and career to The Accountant.

He was happy as he was working from home (i.e.laptop on the terrace, coffee on the side, gazing out at the sun and the trees).  We sat there we two, laptops side by side - he earning money whilst tapping now and then, me earning none but desperately searching between loads of washing, feeding Jonty, putting Jonty down for sleep, re-putting Jonty down for sleep and fitting in job-searching for week into 12 minutes.  And I wonder why I can't find anything to fit in with my routine.

I happened to mention that there was  vacancy at Ausdance - the CEO/Director for Victoria.  Well up leapt The Accountant, eyes shining and encouraging me to apply straight away.  Seriously?  Seriously I am a dance artist/housewife who has spent the last year settling a family into a new life and who - at a stretch - teaches no more than 4 hours a week.  Lately I have been in the studio more, choreographing and now performing a duet, but before that - not a lot.

So in the space of ten minutes I am contemplating coming home at 10pm and staying up until 3am to get the fifteen points on the selection criteria addressed.  For a job where I am not even certain I would get an interview due to the fact I know NO ONE in dance in Victoria.  However I should not have been that put off as when I checked the last two people to get these posts recently in the ACT and NSW were former parliamentarians.  Nothing to do with dance at all.

In a complete turn-around, I was nearly the oldest person at a production meeting for choreographers this weekend for Short + Sweet.  It was not a short or sweet meeting.  For two and a half hours I had to have a workshop in lighting in a small scale theatre and complete an intolerable risk assessment (I may or may not trip over in the dark on the way to the stage).  I can understand why they do this.  They do not want some undergraduate dancer/choreographer coming in with 30 lighting cues for a ten minute piece - complete with set, props, water, fire, mirror ball and haze machine.  The rest of us just want to get on with it.

So instead we all had to fill out our own lighting designs to give to the technicians ahead of our technical rehearsal.  I think it was the only time in my life where I finished a piece of written work way ahead of everyone else.  And I even knew what I was doing.  Now if I could only get my blue pants from riding up my bottom during the piece all will be well....