s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Last night we went to our second World of Wearable Art show. It was as fantastic as lastt year. We paid a bit more to get closer seats, which was totally worth it so we had a better view of the costumes. It was like they heard our unsubmitted comments from last year, and kept the various peices on stage for much longer.

What is Wow, you ask? Well you can check out http://www.worldofwearableart.com/

The show can be descibed as 2.5 hour modern/avante garde dance show mixed in with a parade of mind-blowing art-fashion peices. Many of the sections are themed, so the opening “Pacifica” bit was to the pounding music of Oceanea while dacers did a haka-like dance, and garments made of feathers, flax, paua and other native/natural products were on display.

And for the Bizzare Bra section they had a couple of the performers from the Heavenly Burlesque show providing entertainment. Not that the chorus-line of men and women in over the top bra-art doing a huge dance number wasn’t entertainment enough! Massive overstimulation, with way to much to look at.

Like Cirque to Soleil on acid mixed in with a fashion show.

And this year there were some books on sale that provided good pictures of pieces from this and previous years. The program was a disappointment again, due to the lack of photos of this years entrants.

It is very cool that Wellington has such a one-of-a-kind show. WoW is becoming more international, 54 or the entrants were form overseas this year. There is some talk about trying to take it on the road, which could be cool if they could figure a way to move all those costumes safely.

One nice thing about The Two Sisters is it gave us a chance to get to know some of the people who we would see in Bellydance class, but otherwise never really talked to.

MJ, who played one of the Mermaids, is a fellow North American. She is here on a 9 month contract (though we can hope she will fall in love with the place and decide to stay) working as a vet at the Wellingon zoo. Beingt a zoo vet is quite a challenge, as most of the critters you deal with a complete medical mysteries. Fun!

Janjo, who played the younger sister, is also quite a cool person. As we had a dance duet, I got to spend plenty of time with her (picture the two of us standing there going “well, now what?” “I don’t know…”). I was quite surprised to find out English was not her first language. Her first language (note that I don’t say native language) was– wait for it– Esperanto. Apparently she is a third generation speaker. Now that is a seriously wacky family!

So, we survived. Last Saturday we had the sole performance of The Two Sisters. It went well. The technical dress rehersal was a bit of a dogs breakfast, but the show itself went with only a few minor glitches. And only one glitch, a missed “start the music now cue” would have been easily noticed by the audience.

We only had 85 people in the audience, which was a bit of a disappointment. I think it did not help that we were competing against WoW which had just started. Nor did it help that we were all so busy getting ready for the performance, that we didn’t really get to market it as much as we woud have liked.

We are talking about doing it again, and maybe taking it on the road to the nearby cities of Palmerston North and Masterton, both of which are about 2 hours away. That could be fun. I do think it is a much better piece than our first version, 2.5 years ago. Really great costumes, a tighter story, more logical stage directions, and some very helpful cast changes.

With that major project now behind us we are enjoy the warming weather of spring. Cria should start dropping in only 3 weeks. We are very excited, and more than a bit impatient!

When we get digital photos from our friends of the performance and costumes, we will post them. The evil trees were my favorite.