Today i saw someone cry.

So i am finally going to post on the choreographers blog.

This first blog means alot to me, so i wanted to make it count. haha.. but i think i have a tendency to ramble, so i will do my best to structure this post. So here it goes.

1. I chopped the CAC stamp on all the tickets.
this was a week back, where my treasurer Jessica was worried if she could chop the CAC stamp on the back of all the tickets as per NTU's regulation. it is a good regulation and system in place to protect and ensure ticketing processes and protocol when it comes to student handling money from the public when procuring tickets with regards to the university's name. So i offered my help to do it. and i did it in one night.

yet, having to chop 1049 tickets was no easy feat. i remember having a bruise on this little corner of my palm. But this physical pain aside, i had a chance to really feel what the capacity of the audience was like. for every ticket i stamped two chops. and if you see your ticket carefully that blue stamp at the back, i put it there. To me those were like the number of eyes that was going to see our show! 2 eyes on every person holding one ticket. And i chopped. and i chopped. the frst 500 tickets overwhelmed me. and inside, some emotional outburst was engulfing me as i pushed on to the last few hundreds. it was amazing. Whether you are an MJian reading this or a dancer or a non dancer reading this, i just want to say, 1049 is alot of people. i touched every single ticket that you are going to hold. the number of times i had to chop on those tickets was such an emotional process..

ALOT of people are coming to the show. and it humbled me. it made me moved that we sold out in the first 3 days. it made me proud that so many people were so supportive of our name, our club, our members and what we stand for. i was so overwhelmed by the fact that there was a demand to watch us. This idea that there are people out there who acknowledge us and in economic terms "demand" us, was a powerful feeling..

Maybe you don't know this, but MJ is a club with a long history. We've been around since the early days of NTU and then we slowly adopted Hip Hop and our instructor Pat came on board. we had our glory days and we had our low days. and now, in the Singapore Dance scene that is blooming and growing. it is an extremely loud compliment to know that 1049 will come and watch us. 1049.. think about it. an average elevator holds 8 people. the average studio holds 40 dancers. a lecture theatre in NTU holds 200-300 people. There will be 1049 people watching us.

needless to say. i am scared and worried. we have had the fortune of having a powerful publicity team, and i am extremely proud of the work that they have put in and produced. AND it leads me to want to make sure that these 1049 will have heir 20 dollars worth. knowing that 1049 people will take time out of their schedule to see us, see our choreo, see our art, see our family, our love, is an extremely humbling and intense feeling. having my body repeatedly stamp those tickets gave me a sense of the magnitude of this show.

OUR MOVIE WILL BE BETTER THAN OUR TRAILER.
because i stamped those tickets. all 1049 of them. haha. doesnt really make sense, but it does to me. =)



2. I saw two people cry over costumes
On separate occasions of course. one of the biggest and most stressful thing about throwing a show like our concert is the need to find costumes. and to say the truth, our costumes are straightforward, there are no peacock feathers or yogi bear suits or barney mascot hats. but it is true though, that my dancers struggle to find the right costume.

It's simple. we practice everynight, 7-11pm. and we work hard and intense. we clean, we block, we do runs we get scolded, we laugh we smile we sweat we do it again tommorrow. on saturday, people are more free we have full day practices. we practice for the whole day and we allocate slots. we start our saturdays from 10am till 11pm. every other sunday we have a vetting. So our dancers have no time to find these costumes.

they spend their day time running around bugis, far east and every where you can think of. they do what they can to fulfill the choreographer's need. and sometimes our choreographers buy in bulk or we appoint someone to buy for everyone. So this was a special incident involving our female members.

the two i saw was on separate occasions but all for the same reason. they tried on the costume and felt that they looked bad. This person in my time of knowing her for the time that i had, i have always known her as a cheerful and positive person. Another person is a pretty lady and mesmerises people when she dances. she had many admirers in the club that have a crush on her or want to, well, how do i say, court her? she began dieting and would feel stressed out and wouldn't believe me when i tell her that she looks fine.

We can say that these two dancers are just typical vain females.

but in my mind, i kicked back and i thought again. the reason why they wanted to be vain was simple. they wanted to look their best for this show. It mattered to them that they looked presentable and how they looked in their costume was appealing and entertaining and aesthetic to the audience's eye. maybe they didnt want people to think that they were ugly. but i think its because they didnt want to be the one pulling the picture down, or making that image on stage look bad because of them.

to know that i have dancers who will cry at the thought of not being presentable on stage, is really very heartwarming to me. of course. i buckle down, swallow it all and i scold them, i tell them they need to get their costumes in time and tell them we are two weeks from show and we need to look good. i tell them that they don't look fat(TRUST ME I AM FAT) and i tell them that they look fine. but they ignore me. they say i don't understand because i am a guy.

well. maybe i don't and i'm interpreting the concept of female vanity wrongly. but deep down. i know.
i know that they are stressed about costumes because it was important to look good.

it was important to make sure that after all that, they would help make the show better. They wanted to make sure that this was a good show to watch.

this must be a good show to watch.

and it will be a good show to watch.
because i saw two girls cry over their costumes. on separate occasions of course.



3. i saw a choreographer cry.
I have the best team of choreographers this season of dancetitude. They are disciplined, they follow all my ground rules and they follow all my timelines. As you know by now i am calling this concert "the concert that was done in 2 months"

HAHA.

really. i do not know how they did it, but they have done it so far. we are not there yet, but they have. we have had an intense four weeks to learn all the choreo, we had a full choreo vetting one month into this concert. we just had a blocking vetting and this coming vetting will be a full dress vetting.

we did this in 7 plus weeks.

it is not just the quantity, but the quality. every item has more than two choreographers. they HAVE TO COLLABORATE(Pat pushed this on them and we have not looked back since). They go back and forth about choreo, about blocking about transitions about costumes and right now about lights and cleanliness. you would think that having more choreographers is better. to say the truth. it is tougher. it is artistic and aesthtic wisdom to do so though. the item would be more dynamic. BUT TO have more ppl argue back and forth about doing something in a short time. that is one tough feat and so far, we are on track.

And it is not just this quality. i don't know if you know this, but to me one of the big trademarks of the current MJ style is that we are big fans of good musicality. we appreciate musicality as though its wine. we argue about lyrics, about beats about whether the choreo fits the song. we GIVE A DAMN that we dance the heck out of a song. Especially these choreographers. taking up the mantle of being a choreographer in our biennial concert. EVERBODY stepped up their choreo game. they have been choreoing into the night walking with ipods driving with speakers blasting, writing notes, sleeping in the studios. we are lucky to have this team of choreographers.

and today i saw a choreographer cry.
this choreographer cried cos she told me she wasn't working hard enough. she was feeling guilty that she hasnt been putting enough to the dancers. she felt bad that the item is not clean, that the item is not ready. she was crying because what she has given, is not her best.

to know that i have someone on my team who would cry because she doesnt think that she is giving her best, is an extremely comforting thought to me. it moves me. it moves my being and brings me to a special fuzzy place in my heart.

this is the Love i am feeling now.

If you don't know me yet, well, i'm a hardcore anal person on being

professional and mature and having a good time(i know it clashes i am complicated that way)

but i am most stuck on heart and work ethic.

i harp on it day and night. AND RIGHT HERE.

I know that in MJ, we have heart and work ethic.

this will be a good show.
because i saw a choreographer cry.







Let me admit the truth.

as of now, 14 days away from the show, we are not ready. BUT to know that i have these people around me. i feel.. well i don't really know what i feel, that's why i am blogging.. (duh) but well. i feel something though. i feel something enough to keep me up and turn my 5 hour sleep time into this 4 hour sleep time to write this post.

we will keep working hard and we will keep pushing.

i will keep pushing and i will keep scolding.

we will keep working and we will keep dancing.

we will keep stressing.

i don't know if on show day whether we can get there in time.

But all i know is i am glad i am walking there with these people.


This people are my family, and my love.

and i will ALWAYS love this place that made me who i am.





And to me. that's what i live for.
right now in this place and in this time of my 23 years of life as a human,
i am living for Dance, and this Dance club.
this special place i call home.
home for my heart,
that safeguards my soul.


i love you.


MJ <3

*fist to chest x2*


Love,
Apple




--
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

-John F. Kennedy

Marking Our Steps, Living Our Life.

Why are we working so hard for this dance concert?

Really, why?

Some dancers are already asking themselves this burning question. With the time and energy spent on this preparation of Dancetitude, one would be able to do something else which is much more beneficial to oneself. One might as well work OT to get bonus pay and to impress one's supervisor. One might be able to go home and spend quality time with loved ones. One might hang out with friends on the streets of Bugis, window shopping like nobody's business.

But what if we look at it with another perspective?

Despite all the preparation made for the concert, we can still and will work hard during normal office hours and being acknowledged by your colleagues. Despite all the time spent rehearsing at night, we make sure that whenever we are with our family, we feel much more grateful and put in effort to create quality time rather than quantity time with your loved ones. Despite all the tiredness and rejecting all our friend's outing, we will want to make sure all of our friends will attend the concert, and strive for the concert to be the "outing" that they will never forget.

This concert is really the test of faith for all dancers. Admist the busy period and own commitments, can we still make a great dance concert? We shall take this concert as a challenge to ourselves. If we can make an awesome concert and at the same time still being able to succeed in whatever aspect in our life, this is victory. This is victory in life. Therefore, what obstacles can stop us in our life?

We are unstoppable.

How sincere are we?

"Stop and stare, I think I'm moving but I'm going nowhere."
- OneRepublic, Stop and Stare

That's what most of us dancers and choreographers would do at one point of time during the preparation period. After all those hectic schedules and energy being pushed to its' limits, do we stop and remind ourselves the bigger picture of this concert?

Wait.

What IS the bigger picture of our concert?

Do we have a concert because we love dancing? Or are we celebrating the MJ family? Or do we want to inspire the audience with the energy that MJ always have?

Everybody definitely have their own mission in this concert, there's no doubt about that. We aren't a group of mechanical devices with set objectives, excecuting actions in loop formula.

What matter most is how sincere we are. On-stage, off-stage.

Sincerity.

MJ ♥

there are really a lot of things i wanna say about my first choreographing experience in MJ - how grateful i am to the committee for giving this very inexperienced junior a chance, how awesome it is to be working with dancers i have much admiration and respect for... but most of all how much i have learnt and grown throughout this process. having to think like a choreographer on top of a dancer puts a lot of things in perspective and it has been a really humbling experience (: so a big THANK YOU to all and especially my zha bor dancers in girl to guy for being so patient with me...

xoxo, k? (:

that being said, let's jiayou for the upcoming practices and vettings! don't forget what we're dancing for: our ideals, our passion, our dreams... the things we live for (:

♥ van

Self-Refection

What we live for.

That's what we as dancers are trying to ask the audience, hoping that they will leave the concert hall, self-reflecting and moving on with life. However, we dancers too struggle to answer this burning question: what do we live for?

Trying to juggle our family life, relationships and crazy dance practices at the same time, only to disappoint our love ones for not being able to be there to love, and the choreographers for not being able to live up to their expectations. Is that what we live for?

Travelling to office every early morning, catching up with all the unfinished work, only to attend rehearsals right after work. Due to lack of sleep and energy, we could only hope we do not lose focus for at least 5 minutes. Unable to full out during full runs, we could only blame ourselves for being bad at time management. Is that what we live for?

In long hours of practices, one could get oneself injured, and that is the risk everyone is familiar with in the dance studio. Yet, some willing to take that risk for the sake of dance, only to suffer later with long term injuries. Few will even pretend that the pain does not exist at all, attending rehearsals like everybody else. Is that what we live for?

I always wondered. Is this what's worth fighting for?

We will never know.

Until 14th August.

First Post!

Hey guys! The Dancetitude Choreographers blog is up! (:

Here is a place where the choreographers can share their thoughts, feelings, comments, videos, photos, and basically anything they want to say about dancetitude and their item, for their dancers, and also for the others to see how we work hard for our upcoming concert, dancetitude 2011 :D

I'll start it by thanking all of my dancers in "Work" and "Friends" item, for working hard to remember the choreos and the blockings. This sunday is our 2nd vetting, lets achieve to be better and cleaner by then guys! (: i love you all, and really, i want to thank you all for giving your best for this dancetitude.

Yesterday, TBG was the super awesomest concert. (and ours is right after them) I know theres alot of pressure, but think about it, we perform for ourself, we dont aim to be better, or even half as good as them. For me, we perform to inspire others in our own unique ways. Through our hardwork, our work ethics, our responsibilities, our friendship, and most importantly, we inspire as one family.

MJ <3