“Joyful, joyful, Lord we adore Thee…..” I never thought I’d grow tired of hearing this line but after hearing for about a few thousand times these past few weeks as we practiced for our Christmas presentation I kinda had about enough for one year. We nearly panicked as the day drew closer but thanks to God for His blessing and providence, we did it….after all, like most typical Malaysians, most of the preparation was done quite last minute.
Being in charge of the hip hop dance number which was scheduled at the end of the show but was shifted to the beginning….at the very last minute….I had quite a number of challenges on the way to the final product. Initially I asked my dance instructor for help to choreograph the dance steps but due to both our busy schedule, we postponed it again and again. When we finally could find a time where we both could meet, he was suddenly down with high fever for a week!
My dancers couldn’t wait to get started already since we only had about three more weeks to go, so I had to pull my creative juices….and some of my hair as well to come up with the dance steps at least for the first part and meet up with my dance instructor later to help with the second part. The end product was a real ‘rojak’! I took parts from his dance steps which I felt was suitable and adjusted it to mine with a few suggestions from my dancers as well. Not bad considering that all of them are amateurs…You go girls!! Sunny, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for your time and help. You were a tremendous help….now you know why I couldn’t remember the steps for the first part…cos it’s all rojak…hey, you said it was okay for me to do that!!
I still remember the first night when the dancers ran out with their pom poms and started dancing, it was so exciting to see all that hard work come into fruition and everyone enjoyed the dance. Later, as we started the mime and slowly turned off all the lights till the audience could only see the moving white gloves which glowed in the UV lights, there were gasps of surprise and awe cos it was so unexpected.
We started with the choosing of the Christmas Tree scene and we didn’t realize it had such an impact on the audience until we heard one of the kids saying “Waliao!" His father was wondering where he learned to use that expression and credited it to the infamous ‘Waliao! Coconut Tree?’ scene. The highlight scene was the “fight” for the last present…what with all the kung fu/matrix- like action and light saber fighting, we really had the audience tickled pink. Santa Claus and kids were really memorable too….now kids know never to touch Santa’s beard cos…."Aaaaahhh!! It’s not real!!!!!"
The audience left with a little glow in the dark gift and hopefully a memorable message of what Christmas truly is about. And a BIG THANK YOU to all the people who made it happen...the stagehands, actors, narrator, cooks…everyone! I had fun preparing for this Christmas presentation despite of all its challenges….but might be another 10 years before I think we’d do something like this again!
Being in charge of the hip hop dance number which was scheduled at the end of the show but was shifted to the beginning….at the very last minute….I had quite a number of challenges on the way to the final product. Initially I asked my dance instructor for help to choreograph the dance steps but due to both our busy schedule, we postponed it again and again. When we finally could find a time where we both could meet, he was suddenly down with high fever for a week!
My dancers couldn’t wait to get started already since we only had about three more weeks to go, so I had to pull my creative juices….and some of my hair as well to come up with the dance steps at least for the first part and meet up with my dance instructor later to help with the second part. The end product was a real ‘rojak’! I took parts from his dance steps which I felt was suitable and adjusted it to mine with a few suggestions from my dancers as well. Not bad considering that all of them are amateurs…You go girls!! Sunny, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for your time and help. You were a tremendous help….now you know why I couldn’t remember the steps for the first part…cos it’s all rojak…hey, you said it was okay for me to do that!!
I still remember the first night when the dancers ran out with their pom poms and started dancing, it was so exciting to see all that hard work come into fruition and everyone enjoyed the dance. Later, as we started the mime and slowly turned off all the lights till the audience could only see the moving white gloves which glowed in the UV lights, there were gasps of surprise and awe cos it was so unexpected.
We started with the choosing of the Christmas Tree scene and we didn’t realize it had such an impact on the audience until we heard one of the kids saying “Waliao!" His father was wondering where he learned to use that expression and credited it to the infamous ‘Waliao! Coconut Tree?’ scene. The highlight scene was the “fight” for the last present…what with all the kung fu/matrix- like action and light saber fighting, we really had the audience tickled pink. Santa Claus and kids were really memorable too….now kids know never to touch Santa’s beard cos…."Aaaaahhh!! It’s not real!!!!!"
The audience left with a little glow in the dark gift and hopefully a memorable message of what Christmas truly is about. And a BIG THANK YOU to all the people who made it happen...the stagehands, actors, narrator, cooks…everyone! I had fun preparing for this Christmas presentation despite of all its challenges….but might be another 10 years before I think we’d do something like this again!
Comments