Cirque audition: LONG VERSION

And now for the patented Bekah-version with WAY more details than you ever needed or wanted to know:

When I arrived at the studio on Saturday morning at 8:35, There were already about 20 people lined up outside in the cold, stretching & talking while waiting for the doors to open at 9:00. I met a really sweet girl from northern Georgia named Autumn. Chatting with her helped a lot to get my mind off everything and not be so nervous. After registration, the 3 people from Cirque came in to talk to us. There was Charles, the audition coordinator, a French guy in his mid forties or so who mostly did the paperwork & ran the camera (the entire audition was filmed). Then Cecelia, a beautiful black woman with a great Spanish accent, probably mid to late thirties, and even though she didn’t do anything completely full out, she could pretty much move her pinkie finger and make your jaw drop in awe of how amazing she is. I don’t remember her exact title, but she led our warm-up & taught all of the choreography. Then there was Rick, a kind of short Asian guy with black spiky hair, maybe mid-thirties, and he is one of their Dance Artistic Talent Scouts – he’s the one who made all of the decisions throughout the day.

If and when I am in a place with my future company to hold auditions, I want them to be like this one. From the very beginning they created an incredibly positive, encouraging and inspiring environment. They explained that Cirque du Soleil is unique in that, unlike most companies that create roles & then audition dancers to fill them, Cirque likes to find dancers with unique skills & personalities and then create the roles around the dancer. They also said that, per a very new decision from their creative team, for Cirque du Soleil, dance is the new acrobatics. 5 years ago they had about 20 dance roles in all of their shows….right now they have 150. And they expect to be at 200 by next year. They encouraged us to not compete with each other or compare ourselves with each other. They said we were there to show what WE could do, and not to worry about anyone else. They also said that if we were cut, it could be for a thousand and one reasons, and not to be discouraged or try to figure it out.

After about a 45 minute warm-up, Cecelia taught us a jazz combo. It was quick-paced and fairly typical – layouts, battements & pirouettes with a lot of dramatic "Look- Look"s….it even had a hip roll & a chaine axel. The studio that the audition was held in was terrible….in fact, the Cirque people apologized about the facility 3 or 4 times throughout the day. They said that Atlanta is a new audition city for them, and they hadn’t personally scouted out the location. It was extremely small with no windows or any real ventilation, had a non-sprung, cheap, tongue & groove, fake wood floor, and 8ft ceilings. Apparently they teach a lot of pole-dancing classes at that studio, so in addition to the ceilings being really low, they had these 4-inch long metal screw things dangling from them (I guess that’s where they attach the poles). In fact, in some of the improv stuff we did later in the day, they specifically said NO JUMPS because they didn’t want anyone impaling themselves on the hanging screws. Oh and did I mention that there were 60 people in there? So we were squished almost shoulder to shoulder, trying to learn this jazz combo. I don’t know how many times I accidentally kicked or smacked somebody while just marking it. Since there were so many bodies and not much air-flow, it got so hot that everyone was dripping with sweat so much that the floor got all wet and slippery. At one point, after we had broken up into some smaller groups to practice the combination, while I happened to be front and center, I did a layout and totally wiped out flat on my ass. But I wasn’t the only one, after me several more people slipped & fell as well. After we worked on it for a little over an hour, they had us perform the combo 2 at a time for the camera. I was number 11, which means I was in the first 5 or so groups to go. When I went I totally forgot a couple moves, and thought "oh no, I’m done for". But there were quite a few after me that forget it way worse than I did. In fact there were several who did maybe 8 counts and then just stood there blankly like deer in the headlights. But instead of kicking them out the door right then and there, the Cirque people told them to just do whatever, so they just improv-ed for a couple minutes, which I thought was pretty cool. It further emphasized that they’re not necessarily just looking for perfect technical dancers who can pull off a polished routine in an audition. They want people with something unique, whether that be skill, talent, creativity or personality. Some of the people who blew the combo even made it through the next cut as well. After all the groups went, they read off the numbers of the people who they wanted to stay….I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to hear the number 11 in my life :) At that point it went from 60 people to about 25.

After about a 45 minute lunch break, we came back and they had people show any type of specialty they could do….some people did some hip-hop/break dance stuff, some showed gymnastics, one girl did salsa, another did some kind of traditional Spanish character dance, one girl did some freaky contortionist stuff. I showed some gymnastics as well as some Capoeira & martial arts. After this portion they cut 3 or 4 more people.

Then came what I think was my favorite part of the audition. Cecelia taught us some Wade Robson choreography that he did for So You Think You Can Dance last season. Some of you know that Wade Robson has been a favorite choreographer of mine for quite a while (I even liked him back in the old NSYNC days :). It was a piece called "Swamp", and how she described it to us is "imagine you’re in a swamp that is covered in thick slime and you’re a nasty, creepy, crawly swamp creature who lives on slime and bugs and nastiness". We started in a big clump on the floor and we had four counts of 8 to crawl on each other, pretend to eat bugs out of the air or off of ourselves or each other, and to basically just "be nasty". (For my ex-Renascent friends, think the Outlander King on crack). Then there was eight counts of 8 of really fun twitchy, creepy choreography, then another four 8 counts of improv. At one point, when the two guys were out of the room, Cecelia told us "You could get the gig from this right here. If you really use your facial expression and totally get into it, this could be it." We worked on it for about 30 minutes, then once again, had to perform for the camera (in groups of 3 this time). After that, another 5 people were cut.

So then came the improv. Each person had to get up one at a time and improvise for about 45 seconds to whatever music Rick picked. Then he got in front of us and said, "Ok, we’re gonna do it again, and this time I’m going to give you each a word or phrase that I want you to interpret. And also, especially for the girls, I don’t want to see anything ballet-like. No pretty lines; it’s a crutch. Get over it and move on." The phrases he gave out were completely random and obscure: "Watery", "Traveling Maestro", "African Queen", "Twitchy & Cracked Out", "Smooth & Sexy", etc. And for me….."Punk Overdrive". He said, "I want you to dance to the level of your hair color" (for those who haven’t seen me in the past 3 weeks or so, I’ve currently got chunks of bright red/fuchsia running through my hair). Looking back, it probably would have been better if I had gone like first or second because then I wouldn’t have had enough time to think too much. But I was 3^rd from the last, so of course I did what I always do….I completely over-thought it. I latched onto the "punk" part and tried to think about like classic punk music – angry, aggressive, confrontational, against "the machine"…..it’s one of those things that, when I think about it now, it’s almost embarrassing to admit my thought process because it was SO off. And I also had this gut feeling that this was it. This was my big test & if I blew this then it was over. So I got up there and…..well, I don’t even know what I did. It’s like I was thinking so hard that I forgot to actually dance. I was trying to follow his directions and not do anything that might be construed as ballet and well, I think I maybe thrashed around a bit and threw a couple angry glares at the camera. As soon as I sat down I thought, "well, that was it, I’m done". And sure enough, Rick called my name, along with 4 others that they let go. I will say this, the really cool part of how they did the cuts was that they gave each person individual feedback and if there was something that you needed to work on, then they gave you their opinion and critique.

For me he said that I’m a really great and strong dancer, but that he just kept wanting to see me push past to that next level of intensity. He said, "in the improv I gave you the opportunity to do that, and you actually pulled back more than before". To which I replied, "I know. I felt it as soon as I sat down". Then he went down the line and shook each persons hand and said thank you for coming. NOW HERE IS WHAT KILLED ME: I was the last person, and when he got to me, he squeezed my hand and gave me the most intense look and said, "You’re SO close." I walked over to collect my things as my eyes filled with tears and I wanted to kick myself I was so frustrated. If I would have gotten cut in the first cut at the beginning of the day, I totally would have been fine. I would have left thinking, "ok, well, I gave it a shot, it didn’t work out, no big deal, move on". But to know that I just missed it by overthinking an impov, well that’s almost too much. I went over and talked to Cecelia and asked her what I needed to do. I think she could tell that I was just about to lose it. She said that I was gorgeous and strong and flexible, and that all of those were good things, but that I just needed to not worry so much about how things looked and trust my body and trust my technique, and have the confidence to just give it all I’ve got. As I left I walked past Rick again, and it was all I could do to bite my tongue and not say "Could you give me one more chance, just a do-over, I promise I can totally do it this time!". But that’s completely tacky and horrible audition etiquette. So I just said thank you again, but I think he could tell that I was really having a hard time because, after shaking my hand again, he pointed his finger at me and said, "I fully expect to see you again, and when I do, I want you to blow me away". To which I meekly said, "Yes sir".

Here’s the thing, I’ve been over and over it in my mind, and I can think of hundreds of different things – tons of specific steps even – that I could have done and probably made it through at least to the next cut. But this way, I’m forced to dig deeper. To confront an aspect of my dancing, and if I’m really honest, of myself that needs work. What Cecelia said is exactly right….I worry too much what things are going to look like, what people are going to think about me, and don’t trust that I’m good at what I do. You can’t go the extra mile, or reach that next level of intensity if you’re holding back because you’re afraid of what people may think. I’ve never been good at risk taking. And of course, I have to be taught my lessen the hard way.

Anyways, now I’m just trying to figure out what to do next. I was originally thinking that if I didn’t make it, then I would work on transitioning into a different stage of my life and do more teaching and choreography, and start to phase out of performing. But now I’m thinking, maybe I’m not done yet. I just don’t know yet.

I’ve emailed them to find out what exactly I need to do next…if I need to send in a whole new profile or if they can just notify me if they want me to come audition again. So I guess we’ll just see what they say.

Ok, if you’re still reading this, then you must be a true friend…..either that or you’re incredibly bored at work and just waiting to clock out :)

But seriously though, really, really, thank you all for your encouragement. It truly means the world to me.