Friday was the last day of the first week of the children’s program. And I could not be more excited. It was really starting to bum me out because the kids all hated dancing except for two, Greyka and Elan, who are both adorable and through the camp have become very good friends. But other than those two, I had to force kids to dance, which is something I've never wanted to do. For me, dance was always something I wanted to do. I don't recall ever having to be forced. I know that throughout my life and my dancing career I have missed out on a lot of things to continue dancing, but that was always okay with me because I was happy to dance. It makes me sad that I wasn't able to give these kids the same spark of passion I had at their age. However, on Monday I get a new group, so who knows what they will bring to the mix. And honestly, that little bit of sadness always goes away as soon as the senior cast gets to rehearsal. I'm so incredibly proud of them.
I have now finished teaching the three really big dance numbers, which is very exciting. I need to figure out formations and exactly how all these people are going to fit on the tiny Bromelias Amphitheater stage, but that will all happen next Saturday when we have our first rehearsal in the space--that will be a fun day! With this cast I'm mostly impressed not necessarily with the amount of talent there is, of which there is a lot, but rather with the determination with which the cast tackles the choreography I give. Rather than giving up when they get frustrated, the ask me to go over things over and over again and honestly want to get the steps perfect. It's turning out to be quite a fulfilling job for me!
After rehearsal we had planned for an improv night up at the CEC (the private bilingual school that a lot of the participants attend). I was really excited to head up this night because it's been a while since I've done improv, and I quite miss my Celeryheads. We did some Three-Character Scenes and some Hold That Thought. I also taught Elevator and Forward and Reverse for some interstitial action. It was really fun even though not a whole lot of people showed up. We as a staff really need to start getting our act together for these extra cast bonding things. We never seem to have them planned in time to tell the cast and get them to show up. Something to work on.
After improv night, Katherine and I suddenly realized that we had been in Costa Rica for over two weeks (16 days, to be exact) and had gone to bed before 10 almost every night. Most nights before 9. Ticos are early sleepers and early risers. It's a very different sleeping schedule from what I'm used to. So we walked around Santa Elena for a while and realized we weren't going to find much to do until we saw a group of stumbling Gringos and remembered that we had passed a pretty cool looking bar on the way down from the CEC. So we walked back up that direction and went in. We spent a couple hours there talking and dancing--our first official night out in Costa Rica! Even with all this fun and excitement, though, I was still in bed by about 11:45.
I think we'll get used to Monteverde/Santa Elena and figure out how to have some extracurricular fun. We just need our Tico guide to be able to come out with us! Supposedly that will be the case tonight.
Tonight--Katherine, Dario, and Erin take Santa Elena by storm.
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