We Love the Blomidon Inn!

I couldn't blog about the school tour without mentioning the Blomidon Inn. What an amazing place! When I was organizing our hotel stay, I was originally dismayed to learn that the Old Orchard Inn was totally booked at this time. When I was little, my family and I used to stay there in the winter and go on cross-country skiing trips, which I actually hated at the time, but I still remember loving that hotel. I quickly reserved rooms at the Blomidon Inn down the street, and hoped it would have everything we needed.


Well. The Blomidon has everything and then some. All of our rooms are outfitted with victorian style furniture and four poster beds. There are beautiful sitting rooms for reading and tea, and high tea is served everyday from 3:00 - 4:30pm. There's a beautiful complimentary breakfast of bagels, homemade bread, homemade granola and fruit - sometimes they play strange jazz piano/musak versions of chariots of fire and the titantic theme song, but it's still pretty awesome. The rooms also have free wireless internet, so we've been able to keep up on some other work after each school day. This is such a great little spot, maybe I'll come back this summer for a little vacation!








We've also had a chance to explore a little of the local landscape. Yesterday, Tania, Carolle and I went for a walk along the dykes before supper. It was really breathtaking. Thanks for taking all these great pictures, T!

Tomorrow we go to Horton High for workshops and then again on Friday to prepare for the evening performance. It's going to be a great show!

Kathryn

So many schools!

Hi all! Kathryn, here, for my first ever blog post. It's not often that I get to go on tour with the company, as office work usually keeps me in Halifax, but this tour is a little different. Over the past two weeks, Mocean has been visiting elementary, junior high and high schools in the Annapolis Valley, conducting workshops for students and performing school shows. By the time we're done, the dancers will have performed 8 shows for over 2500 students and will have taught over 30 workshops for more than 1500 students. Yup. That's a lot of students. I don't know how the dancers do it. They are machines!

Why am I here? I'm acting as a travelling sound technician, school-company liason, prop manager and speaker during the shows. The space and the set-up is a little different in every school and it's keeping me on my toes. For the most part, everything is running smoothly. I have to say, the kids in the valley schools system are some of the nicest I've ever met. Really enthusiastic, polite and eager to learn.

The valley schools have also treated us well in terms of food! Port Williams Elementary was kind enough to offer us baked potatoes with cheese (pictured) and today's lunch at Evangeline Middle School was a genuine feast! I'm talking chicken burgers, salad, yogurt and berries, cookies, muffins, rice crispie squares and juice. This cafeteria was not messing around. There was no way we could have finished the spread they put out for us. It was awesome. Thanks to all the schools for making us feel so welcome (and sometimes so full!).

More to come...

Kathryn

Mocean takes a detour!

Oakville!!

So I need to catch you up on several days of our Ontario Tour!! Sorry - we've been slacking a bit on the blog posts, but so much has happened!

We arrived on Friday, did a little teching at the Oakville Performing Arts Centre. I have been suffering from this nasty little cold virus for a few days and my voice was beginning to sound a little groggy. By Saturday morning (show day) my voice was pretty much non-existant. A few squeaks was all I could muster when I woke up that morning. Now....this might not be a big issue for a dancer in most shows....but this show literally has speaking, singing or yelling - or combinations of all of the above, in EVERY PIECE.....one of which is my solo. Not good.

I called on my sister Erin (Opera singer) for advice and tools of the trade. Hot drinks, no caffeine, advil, losanges (lemon, not menthol), sleep and hydration were all necessary. Also - we looked into a few controversial things like Cortizone shots (not recommended - so we didn't go there). It was a stressful day of tech wondering whether I'd be able to squeak it out! We made a few modifications. Erin showed up with the homemade "wonder tea" that saved me. The raspy voice actually ended up working well for my rock star solo (Live From the Flash Pan) - it just sounded like a partyed too hard the night before. I made it through the rest of the show with a few modifications. Close call.

Minor glitch in my solo....the sound computer decided to reboot and my music shut off towards the end of my first song. Had to improvise once again. This piece is totally keeping me on my toes! The beauty is.....it usually seems to work alright! The audience actually liked it and thought it was deliberate. Ok - enough curve balls already.

Oakville was a warm and friendly audience! They laughed a lot - which we love. They also cried! I totally heard some sniffles during Lisa Phinney's piece (Beside Myself Gasping)! Nice! We were delighted that Paula Citron came to the show and reviewed it! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/moceans-fine-line-accessible-but-never-simple/article1530653/

Sunday was a day off for us! We headed to Toronto on the Go Train for a little shopping and visiting with sisters. Lishe's baby sister Talia and my voice saving sis Erin met up with us. Sarg (Marcel) came shopping with us and often waited near the entrance reading on his Sony Reader.....we felt a little like celebs shopping with a body guard. It was a fantastic day!

This morning we headed to St. Catharines and to our first outreach workshop at Port Colborne High School. Amazing dance students there with a fantastic dance studio right in the school! On the way back to the hotel we decided to take a quick detour into Niagra Falls! My first time there!

More to come.....

Hitting the hay for a full day of outreach and tech tomorrow

CC (Carolle)

Creation and Performance at the Imperial......check!

Well, we had a fantastic time in-residence at the Imerial Theatre. Peter D., if you'd like to have a new company in residence just move in...well, we're available. That space is just incredible! and a great staff and crew too!

Our creation group did an outstanding job. The piece was tight and their dancing was stunning! We were so inspired by their passion, creativity and unwavering focus. We were very proud of this group and of the quality of work we were able to create together in such a short time! Bravo ladies! ....and thank-you again for the lovely hand-crafted gifts (from the market that we fell in love with) and for the thoughtful card! We hope to see some of you again!

As for us....we had a great show! The crowd was warm and very alive in Saint John (lots of laughs and energy). That stage is just a pleasure to perform on - it's luxurious to have that much space!!!!!! We ate it up! Mel was particularly funny in Lesandra Dodson's piece (You Tackle A Staircase Face On) Saturday night... she had the crowd roaring during her improvised speaking part. Could have been the slight concussion from a mishap earlier in the piece....but hey, it was working out for you Mel!

We left lovely Saint John at 6am Sunday morning to make it home in time for a bit of time with our families before starting a week in studio at home working with Toronto's Bonnie Kim. Just enough time to wash all of those sweaty dance clothes from the week!

As always - Mel provided the comic relief on the ride home with her "larger than head" sized rice crispy square from the Saint John market (Java Moose!). We love you Mel!!

Thanks to Peter D., the Imperial staff and crew, the residency dancers, Marcel (Sarg), the Korean place at the market (we love you), Java Moose, and Carol and Janet at the Courtney Bay Inn!

We'll be back writing in Feb......when we hit Summerside, PE!

CC.

Last Rehearsal Day

A quick video post of our Day 5 rehearsal!! We're ready for tech and showtime!
CC.

Day 3 and 4.....a short clip from our process!!

Well it's now the end of Day 4....so we have some catching up to do! Yesterday started with an early rise for me. I've been hitting the local Nubody's in the early mornings (it's massive and pretty empty in the morning which I love). After some "hotel administrating", i.e. working on stuff back at the Courtney Bay Inn, we all headed down to the Port City Ballet Studio where our friend Sarah Johnson introduced us to a great concept....."Express Barre"!! We loved this fast paced barre without breaks between exercises - it was a great warmup for us in 25 minutes! We plan to bring this back to Hali and make it our own for those pesky after lunch warmups when you just don't feel like kickin' it into gear! Thanks Sarah!

After a great 2 hour rehearsal on the Imperial stage, we headed back to Saint John's famous market (our new favourite place) for some eats. We all tried the Korean food this time.....(extra spicy for me).....glorious!

Day 3 with the Creation group was our first day of crafting the piece. We began to draw on all of our vocabulary and phrases and set the first half to 2/3 of the dance! These ladies were ready for anything and so focused!

Today we decided to have a massive Cora's brunch. This is a bit of a tradition for us when we're touring. We LOVE a big breakfast! Sa (Sarah Rozee) headed to an Ashtanga class where she was told she was "born to be an Ashtanga Master" (nice one). The rest of the afternoon consisted of more hotel admin, some hotel rehearsal for next week, and a ballet barre at the Imperial (gotta keep the bods ready for Saturday night!).

Day 4 with the Creation group was truly amazing and inspiring!!!! We are very excited about this piece and what we, as a group, have been able to accomplish in only 4 rehearsals! The group is such a strong group of 11 females ages 13 to 34, and it's beautiful to see them all moving together. They are going to rock that Imperial stage Saturday night!!

Tomorrow we clean the piece, work on quality and on details! Hope that you enjoy the clip of our process.

CC (Carolle)