I thought I felt the most terrified in the very first live show, but this Thursday beat that one by far. Our dress rehearsal was a write-off, which put me in a bad state for the actual show. But the worst of it was the fact that I’d caught a mild virus early in the week and on Thursday I had the runs like no other…
Nothing can prepare you for having to dance energetically in front of an audience and live TV when you feel like you might explode at any minute. Rob and Garth were legends, they were giving me some serious pep talks and words of encouragement just before I had to go on, but little did they know that the reason why my eyeballs were bulging so far out my head was because I was concentrating so hard on KNYPING!!
So there I am, forced to sit on the couch in the “green room,” waiting for my chance to dance, and singing to myself: "When you’re sittin’ on a cushion and you really feel it pushin’, diarrhoea, diarrhoea."
As nature’s irony would have it, I had to dance the JIVE this week. Not a nice, slow, chilled out Waltz. A flippin’ JIVE people!!! Do you know how much BOUNCING that takes?? My stomach was churning like a blender on E and I started having visions of hurling projectile vomit across the dancefloor half way through the routine. Or at best, I could’ve saved the spew for the judges at the end!!
Thank crap my adrenaline took over and got rid of my weak state and I actually managed to KILL that dance - I was beyond ecstatic with the way it went!! That’s why I was smiling like a fat kid in a candy store after the dance … I was so elated that even one poephol judge, not mentioning any names, but TYRONE, and his incongruous comment, couldn’t get me down.
Oh and I especially LOVED my dress this week. The only anal thing about all these outfits is the MISSION it is to go to the loo. And on Thursday I must’ve gone about 365 times.
That’s 365 times of having to take off my gown, unzip my meringue-of-a-skirt and hang that somewhere where it can’t get dirty (the designers FREAK if you get something on their dresses), unbutton the top, which is attached to the broeks, pull the whole lot off, and THEN still pull your fishnet tights and underwear down!! And THEN put it ALLLL back on again… till 10 minutes later…
In Rob’s one-man comedy show (Sundays at the Theatre on the Square - go see, it’s hilarious) he talks about “leaving your shit-bucket at the door” before going on stage to do a performance. I think I gave that a whole new meaning on Thursday night!!
Anyway, that’s enough of the toilet humour. I was sad to see Judith go, she brings such serenity to a show that’s bursting with stress, emotion and nervous tension. She’s always so chilled out backstage; I’ll miss her calm energy next to me as we wait to enter the stairs at the start of the show.
So on Friday Grant and I were far too buggered to dance for more than an hour, and this weekend I hardly had any time available because I was busy competing in two showjumping competitions, so our proper training for the Foxtrot only started on Monday.
But I’m not too worried - with Grant as my trainer, I’m sure we’ll KLAP it!!:)