Posts Tagged‘Beijing Opera’

Thanks so much to all the well wishes! The performance went pretty well except for one minor snafu (which was not my fault).

I was actually performing at the Spring Festival at Berkeley, not the Earth Day Festival like I thought. My bad! =D It’s a small international fair put on by the students. We got there at 10:45ish and spent the next 2 hours putting on make-up and getting dressed. 2 hours of prep for a 10 minutes performance. Yayness. @_@

Of course everything was running waaaay late, so I was standing around backstage forever. I hate the waiting part because, of course, that’s when you decide: you’re hungry (can’t eat, in costume), have to go to the bathroom (can’t go, in costume) and you’re head starts to hurt from the costume (uuugh the costume).

Performance went decently well from where I was on stage. My voice dropped out of falsetto briefly because I was too busy trying to breathe and get through a more active section of the dance. I was totally kicking myself for letting it happen, but guess what? The portable mic they clipped on me and told me worked? It didn’t. I didn’t even realize it until I got off stage and they told me, but no one could hear me. Again.

>.<
Oh well…

Today at 1:30 in the main auditorium at Berkeley. Hi, who’s a nervous wreck? Ugh.

It’s not the singing or the dancing alone that gets me. It’s doing the both together without passing out. *roll eyes* ^^;

Wish me luck!

My brother is working on a documentary of the opera school we attended when we lived in MD: Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute. In an effort to help him out, I scanned in all the photos I had of us from back then and thought I’d post some of them.

I performed Farewell My Concubine today. I was told about the performance at the last minute and had 2 weeks to prepare. (It’s been almost 3 years since I last practiced this section. Argh.) My teacher has decided that she doesn’t want to perform anymore so she’s sending me to fill in all her appearances. I’m flattered beyond belief but OhEmGee… a little more warning next time!

All things considered, I didn’t do too badly. The singing could have been better… actually it could have been a lot better, but in a typical miscommunication snafu, I ended up with no portable mic so it’s not like anyone could hear me anyways.

The dancing I was pretty satisfied with. No forgotten moves, I think I got most of the nuances my teacher drilled into me, and I nailed that bloody backbend at the end of the routine. I hate that move because the headpiece is so heavy that I worry that once I go back into that backbend that I won’t be able to get back up. Nothing like adreneline to get you through it though.

Thanks to my awesome roomie, twjudy, for letting me drag her to the performance to help out. (Translation: she got to be bag ho and chauffeur.) ^^;

WonderCon report is up next after I get some sleep!