Overcoming Technical Difficulties

This past weekend was Grace Dance Academy's performance of their production "Creation". Costumes were finished, programs were made, the students had worked hard and gotten lectured about still not being on the right counts (even though the performance was the next day!!). Everything seemed to pull together last minute at dress rehearsal. Everything felt finished, and the dancers looked polished, all of the lecturing and hard work had paid off, and as teachers we couldn't be more proud or excited to open our show!!

An excited cast, and an eager audience, the curtain opened...and that is when we experience our first technical difficulty of the evening. Our slide show that so elegantly started a story that the dancers would finish through movement froze, and instead of a slide show the audience saw a gray box. (Not very exciting). Quickly the curtain closed! And shortly after the curtain reopened! Everything back on track!! The slides worked, and the show opened with a beautiful performance by GDA's Ensemble dancers.

However, that was not the end of the technical difficulties! During the second dance, dancers were on stage, dancing wonderfully and on the right counts (they were the once who were given a lecture during tech) when all of a sudden their music just stopped right in the middle of their dance!!! They froze, and didn't know what to do! We called them off stage, and tried to proceed with the rest of he show. But music was still being an issue, the next song didn't want to play and instead music from the second act began playing!! WHY?!?!?! Meanwhile the young dancers from the previous dance (the dance whose music cut out on them) were back stage crying upset (as they should be) about not even getting to perform a dance they had worked so hard to get right!

I know that dancers and other behind the scenes people began praying for the Holy Spirit to cover the show and prevent any other interruptions, and from that point on the rest of the show went (for the most part) smoothly. After the entire production, the dance that never finished came back on stage for a not-quite-encore encore...they did beautifully!!

To quote one of our audience members to our director: "It WAS amazing. The girls were amazing, you and all the other teachers are amazing and God was amazing, but we already knew that. My husband can't stop telling everyone he talks to today about how gorgeous the dancing was, how beautiful the message and what a wonderful tribute to the studio this must have been. He is not one to go on and on about dance, but he said he teared up several times last night watching all those girls dance for our Lord. Thank you for all your efforts. My family was all very impressed!"

Here our a few picture that I took at our flawless dress rehearsal.




Me and two of my students after the performance.