Live From Our House, Part 2

How we staged (and survived) a virtual dance recital

Make sure you read Live From Our House, Part 1 first!

On the second day of the virtual recital, the sun rose with a blazing hot fury that I had forgotten it was capable of.  I’m an air-conditioning gal myself, so I was not looking forward to feeling the swampy sweat that the blistering heat was sure to bring to my butt crack.  Then a bit of divine intervention changed our plans – one of the girls (the name has been omitted to protect the not-so-innocent) dropped the laptop charger on Tommy’s foot, rendering him unable to do the heavy moving required to set up the “stage” outside.  Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, I made the executive decision to run the show from our basement (on the newly-constructed dance floor chronicled in “Completely Floored”).  All I needed to do was bring the balloon bouquets downstairs, set up the tech, and let our guests know that we would be performing in-house (in every sense of the word) that day.  

Despite the last-minute change of plans, everything came together quickly.  However, I did hit (literally) one major snafu; after adjusting the laptop’s angle because the girls’ heads were getting cut off in the shot, I misjudged where the bottom of the sharp-cornered wooden handrail was.  I stood up quickly, and the rough corner stabbed me in the forehead.  I collapsed to the basement floor, biting my lip hard to keep from crying out in pain (the girls had started performing on camera, so I didn’t want to distract them).  One of them hissed from behind clenched teeth, “Are you okay?” while doing a complex series of a la seconde turns.  I managed to gasp out, “Keep going!” and crawled up the stairs; the hot tears burst forth as I stumbled into the kitchen. After digging a small chunk of wood out of my flesh, I staggered to the mirror to assess the damage.  It wasn’t pretty – I had a jagged, semicircular gash with a huge, underlying lump prominently featured on my forehead (who knew it could turn THAT purple THAT fast?).  I grabbed an ice pack and slowly made my way back down into the basement.  Despite the fact that they were in the middle of a performance, I could clearly see their eyes bulge when they caught sight of my battle wound.  I assured them I was okay (I don’t think they bought it, but they kept going), and the rest of the show went off without a hitch on our end.  Days later, I still have a tender, yellowed, raised area on my forehead, along with a scratch that reminds me of the ragged stitches on Frankenstein’s face.  Being a dance mom isn’t for the faint of heart, kids – if you’re not willing to shed a little blood, are you really all that committed?

The show hit a few minor snags along the way.  There were several instances when a staff member had to make an announcement to all of the people out in Zoom Land to turn off their cameras and mute their mics (Pedro, Muriel, and Patty’s iPad will forever live on in our collective memory).  Also, the clouds opened up over the town where our three senior dancers were performing (good thing we had moved inside anyway), dousing the area in a torrential downpour and forcing them to relocate.  There were a few instances in which a performer was experiencing technical difficulties, so those numbers were repeated with the full roster later in the show.  Going in, we knew that there would definitely be bumps in the road (although I couldn’t have predicted the one on my head).

Minor mishaps and bloody battle wounds aside, it made for a fantastic, memorable weekend for all of our dancers!

Work hard, have fun! – Danielle

Did your school do any end-of-year events?