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Dancing (and singing) children

Children dancing
The Christmas Revels children’s chorus learning the “podaraki” dance from tradition-bearer Olga Vonikaki.

This year, the children will not only sing in Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, Croatian, and English… but they will also dance! Our children’s directors Kat Toton and Jenni Voorhees (along with children’s stage manager, Emilie Moore) couldn’t do all of this without help from our amazing specialists and tradition-bearers.

Last Wednesday, the kids had a visit from Olga Vonikaki who taught them the Greek podaraki dance, and I was lucky enough to get to watch the process.  The children worked hard (and had lots of fun) learning the new dance–one of three that they will perform in the show.  During previous rehearsals, Larry Weiner (another of this year’s tradition-bearers) taught the children two other dances for the show.

Olga is the perfect teacher for our Washington Revels kids.  She was born in Kavala, Greece, where she studied Greek dancing and performed with many groups across the country. Since moving to the the US more than twenty years ago, she has been teaching Greek traditional dancing, specializing in leading children’s dance groups, one of which won the silver prize at the East Coast Greek Youth Competition.

Our Christmas Revels children range in age from 8-11, and come from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.  Each year in September, we select about 14-16 from the total of 60+ who audition. And, in addition to selecting children for The Christmas Revels, we also select 25 additional children for our May Revels chorus.  The kids begin rehearsing in mid-September on Wednesday afternoons and join the Adult and Teen choruses during one weekend rehearsal in October, and another in November.  Soon after that, in December, everyone will be together each and every night for an entire week.

These kids are looking and sounding great already… and soon they will be fully costumed by Cecily Pilzer (their own costume designer)!  The children usually “steal the show” each year, and this one will likely be no exception.

Learn more about the 2013 Christmas Revels: Echoes of Thrace
View the Schedule of Performances and Purchase Tickets

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Eating, Singing, and Hydrating After the Show

A group of teens (and former teens) lead us in a favorite song from the American show. Photo: Helen Fields

This year the evening performances of The Christmas Revels are over at about 10:15. After the show I hang around in the lobby to chat with any friends who were at that performance, then go upstairs to get out of costume, wash my face, and leave the theater.

Then I have two choices: Go home or go to Bertucci’s. Last Saturday night my choice was Bertucci’s. It’s an Italian restaurant in the lower level of a shopping mall near Lisner Auditorium. For several years, people from the cast, crew members, specialty performers, and friends have been retiring there after the evening performances to eat and drink. They do a great job of looking after us. They even keep the kitchen open late, bless them. (For the past few years, we’ve sung “Happy Birthday” to one of the waitresses – somebody had better remember that tonight or tomorrow.)

This is Revels, so singing is a big part of the event. We sing Revels standards, like “Let Union Be” and “Country Life.” Favorite songs from the shows find their way into the Bertucci’s repertoire; the American-themed Christmas Revels show from 2006 has a particularly large number of very singable songs. Some years the specialty performers lead us in song and dance. In 2008, the Quebecois dancer Pierre Chartrand called some fantastic dances.

Some nights a lot of people go; after a particularly long day (or before a particularly long day) more of us might make the other choice, to go home and get some rest. There’s a risk of messing up your voice or making yourself too tired for the next day’s performances. I don’t know if I’ll have enough energy for Bertucci’s either night this weekend.

This is Revels. I love performing, but our get-togethers at Bertucci’s really get to the essence of the experience: celebrating with your community in song and dance.

Learn more about the 2011 Christmas Revels: Andalusian Treasures
View the Schedule of Performances and Purchase Tickets

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You Can’t Revel Without an Audience

A 2007 Christmas Revels audience fills the lower lobby for "Lord of the Dance." Photo: Erin Sutherland

Last night I went to a play at the Shakespeare Theatre. After the performance, some of the actors came back out on stage to answer questions. Someone asked what part the audience plays in a performance. One of the actors said that audiences have different personalities; one night everything will be hilarious and the next night you’ll have an audience who never laughs at anything.

This sounded very familiar to me. The audience is the last part of The Christmas Revels to fall into place, and every audience is different. The audience is so important that, for our final dress rehearsal, we bring in several hundred people who wouldn’t otherwise get to see the show to help us practice. In most stage productions, the audience pretty much has two roles: laugh at the jokes and clap at the good parts. Revels goes a step beyond, into the realm of audience participation.

Audience participation is scary. It makes people think of being dragged on stage and humiliated by a hypnotist. Revels isn’t like that. Yes, we are going to bring one person on stage, but it will be someone who wants to do it, and they don’t have to hop on one foot or quack like a duck or anything. For everyone else, there are opportunities to sing along – lyrics and music are printed in the program.

Some people only come to the show for one reason: to join hands and dance down the aisles in “Lord of the Dance.” At most performances, there are traffic jams in the aisles. This moment belongs to the audience – they even sing different lyrics from us. It wasn’t until I joined the cast that I learned that the refrain starts with the words “Dance, then.” The audience sings “Dance, dance” and that is ok. Not everyone wants to dance. We’re directed to offer a hand to audience members along the aisle, but if they’re not interested, you just smile and move on. Maybe next year they’ll change their mind. One of my best friends comes to see the show every year, but always sits firmly in the middle of a row so there’s no risk of getting dragged into the dance.

At the Shakespeare Theatre last night, the actor Ted van Griethuysen said he’d once been told something like “an audience is a group of people who are together for one moment  in their lives.” I love this. We put on The Christmas Revels nine times – one dress rehearsal and eight performances – for nine different assemblages of people. Every time, we’re joining them for an authentic, joyful celebration and every time is different. You never know if an audience will applaud in a solemn moment or wait, breathless. Some audiences sing out, while others hold back. And on some special nights, in the silent moment of the poem “The Shortest Day,” when we’re listening for the sounds of our ancestors, a baby cries. I’m sure the baby’s parents are mortified, but I love it. That’s exactly the sound of our ancestors, isn’t it?

Learn more about the 2011 Christmas Revels: Andalusian Treasures
View the Schedule of Performances and Purchase Tickets

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Dancing Around the World

Six men performed the Saidi dance in today's rehearsal. Photo: Helen Fields

There are two really exciting dances in this year’s show. I’m not in either one, which means I’ve had opportunities to take blurry pictures of both. One is called “Saidi” – it’s a dance from southern Egypt with its roots in Ancient Egyptian martial arts. It involves guys dancing with sticks.

Revels aficionados may think, “guys with sticks? that sounds familiar.” Indeed, guys have danced with sticks on our stage many times. They’re usually morris dancers. Morris is an English dancing tradition which is most commonly associated with big white handkerchiefs and bells on the ankles, but can also involve sticks.

Last summer I was in England and saw a bunch of morris teams performing in a town square. One of them was doing a stick dance and another team kept messing with them by running up, grabbing a stick, and giving them something else – a different team’s stick, a bit of ivy, a coffee mug, a flower, a member of another team. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time. I was informed later by an experienced morris dancer that this is utterly old hat, but, you know, it was the first time I’d seen it. I was impressed.

Eight women practicing their Spanish dance last weekend. Photo: Helen Fields

I do not recommend trying that trick during a Christmas Revels performance, by the way.

Anyway, the point of that little digression on morris dancing is that the word morris supposedly comes from the Middle English word morys, which meant “Moorish.” I don’t think anyone actually thinks the stick dances of the Border Morris tradition came from the Upper Nile, but it’s an interesting connection, isn’t it?

 

 

Learn more about the 2011 Christmas Revels: Andalusian Treasures
View the Schedule of Performances and Purchase Tickets