Dolly Dancing

What’s that sound? It’s the sudden thud of my long blogging silence being broken. Hello again everyone!

The past 7 weeks have been filled rehearsing for our current performance season of Coppelia. After shedding our winter woollies post USA tour it’s nice to be back in some slightly warmer weather (despite the occasional Welly horizontal downpour).

Ready to head out on tour!

Coppelia is a ballet I have grown up watching. It was one of the first ballets I tottered along to see as a very young, aspiring dancer and it was the ballet I performed at the conclusion of my graduating year at the Australian Ballet School. 7 years later, using the Australian Ballet’s costumes (I found my name in one of them from all that time ago) we are revisiting this uplifting classic.

Without going into too much plot line detail, I believe that this version of Coppelia- reworked by the consistently inspirational Martin Vedel, has gorgeously developed characters and a touching twist particularly to the character of Dr. Coppelius.

Tonight hails an evening of suitcase packing before jetting to Invercargill tomorrow. I feel I can confidently say that after years of touring life I have my travel essentials very clearly established. As I learnt from my kiwi buddies, you should never go anywhere without a pair of jandals, sunglasses and shorts. Added to the mix are a dress and heels for post show functions and as always my travel candle and tracksuit pants are an absolute luxury to travel with. Naturally tennis and golf balls are perfectly normal things to carry in ones handbag when preparing for tour too? It may sound like packing everything but the kitchen sink but when it comes to post show muscle aches a golf ball to the calf is a miracle worker. Lastly and quite possibly the handiest item to take on tour is what is known amongst the dancers as “our tour bible.” This booklet contains all the timetable, travel, media calls, accommodation and venue information for the duration of the tour. So, bible packed, suitcase zipped and I look forward to blogging our tour adventures!

Tonia 🙂