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)