Thursday, January 28, 2016 "Silent Dancing."

Thursday, January 28, 2016
Week: 24
Songs to Remember: Danger (Mo-Blue-Mix) - BTS

        "Just enjoy it, don't care about what other people think." That was what the KDT vet said to me after the 2nd real performance. I did enjoy performing, I just didn't enjoy the social aspect of it (which I say about a lot of things too). When considering what other people thought of me, I didn't care for once.

        This special was a deep one. 4:20 AM (no meme intended) my mom woke up. Guess she thought I had to be at school by 5:00 AM, and not that we should leave the house by 5:00 AM. I checked to make sure I packed everything I needed. A belt (in case my jeans didn't fit for some reason), deodorant, an extra shirt, hairspray, and of course the KDT shirt. And my jeans.

        Outside wasn't that cold, it's been colder. We got to school at around 5:05 AM, the drive took only 5 minutes 'cause well, nobody really drives at 5:00 AM on the streets. There were no cars at all, I went to go check to see if the theater was open. Nope, so I just went back into the car and waited 'till others arrived. It sucks 'cause the Chinese club officers (who are in charge of setting up and hosting the Lunar Show) strictly told us to arrive by 5:30 AM. "Not leave your house by 5:30 AM, be here by 5:30 AM." Yeah, it was 5:22 AM when more people showed up and the club officers weren't even there yet.

        Only until around 5:40 AM did they come and open up the doors. Remind me to never come early again, showing up late is much better. Anyways, we went backstage to the uh, backroom? I'll call it the backroom. We set our stuff down, anywhere really, and just "chilled" there 'till like, whenever we had to go and rehearse. We only get 2 rehearsals (like, full show run-throughs) until we have to perform for real. Sounds pretty scary right? It was, it was. I didn't really know what to do during this time. Was it surreal? Hell yeah. It's early in the morning, you're in a bright room with a bunch of other people, some you know, some you don't know, some you come to know. People are eating, on their laptops, phones, changing to their costumes (in the restrooms of course, duh), practicing (musical instruments, singing, etc), doing makeup (considering that were around 30 people in KDT who are in day show, and out of those 30 people, there were only 4 guys, including me. So basically it was like a beauty salon), just setting shit up.

        Cc was there, Ln was there, others, I weren't really that close with. Spoilers, I trekked with them for basically the whole thing. They got closer for sure. And, even though I was interacting with some, I still felt distant. Anyways, I was just on my phone, waiting. About 40% of the show was just waiting. When our KDT president/ veterans said that it would be tiring, I believed them, because performing 6 times is a real challenge. Now I thought it would be like, consecutively. I guess I didn't think that through enough, because there was an hour delay in-between our performances. Yep, 'cause the day show lasts the whole class period, there are a total of like, 8 acts I think, and uh, we were last on the list.

        The real tire was standing, and waiting, and being sometimes bored because you've seen the same performances several times already, or the performances are just people singing (which, to me, isn't that exciting this time). So here's how all the hype went down. By that I mean, both how it went, and the decreasing in the amount of hype during each performance. As somebody who doesn't do this type of performing often, or like, at all really, the performers have to be near the side curtains, aka, "on deck," when the previous act to theirs is up, because when that act finishes and the curtains close, you have like, I don't know, 15 seconds, maybe? 20 at most? To get ready, get in position on the stage to have the curtains draw and start doing your dance or singing or act or whatever. Just something I learned. This is all behind the scenes shit I would have never have known had I not choose to perform in the Lunar Show (which, by the way, Ln reminded me of how she got me to uh, you know, stay in KDT and not bail, heh, like last year).

        During the first rehearsal, it felt like it was like practice from yesterday, didn't feel much fear. Around the 6th act, for the 2nd rehearsal, I changed into our KDT outfit (which this time was our group t-shirt and any kind of blue jeans) so that I could be comfortable and get used to the feeling of dancing with these clothes. And yes, they were comfortable. The 2nd rehearsal was alright as well, was just a bit nervous because it was closer to the deadline of the actual performance. I still was working out the kinks of my dance, like, I gotta remember to jump at this part, not go TOO fast at these parts (because I'm used to more fast-paced songs, or, that I was going at my own pace). Before I knew it, it was 8:00 AM, when the show was starting. The side doors to the theater was open for people who needed to go outside for any reason (for example, using aerosols, fresh air, practice, etc).

        I was outside with Ct and uh, it felt cold, yeah, I was wearing nothing but a baseball tee for a top and it was 8:00 AM, heh. There were people still walking to class outside and I felt sorta, "powerful," in a sense. Or more of a uh, what's a better word, ummm, special. There we go. I felt special 'cause I was going to be performing. I just wanted to shout "Hey, look at me! I'm going to be dancing with KDT for the Lunar Show Day Show!" This show is only one of the few times where I want the attention, heh.

        Acts go on, we're in the backroom still, I'm just doing whatever by this point, umm, putting on moisturizer, fixing my hair, making sure my shoes are tied, making sure my belt doesn't come loose, all that. Oh yeah, gotta mention the acts. The first act is by "BEAT!" That's the name of their group, consisting of some officers of Chinese club, our KDT president and vice president, and others. They're pretty good. Oh and uh, their act is like, dancing, with, umbrellas. And, flags. Color guard, there we go. And rifle spinning. Not sure if that's the same thing, You get what I mean by now. The 2nd act was by this one girl, forgot what her performance was but it was a solo one. The 3rd (I think) was probably my favorite act (well, other than our own of course, heh). It was the Taikwondo club, and they do a solo sword dance performance, then a bit of comedy story-telling, then a choreograph fight (with weapons). I genuinely looked really cool, and I like the weapons, heh. They had, well, swords, kendo sticks, batons, and even sickles. Now tell me that's not cool.

        The other acts were Hip Hop club's dance performance, a dude trio doing a Maroon 5 song cover with instruments, a girl duet singing Big Bang's "Bae Bae," a ribbon dance by this one group (which consisted of basically the same people as from "BEAT!"), and a trio who do an acapella cover mix of High School Musical songs. Sounds cool the first time, but uh, gets kinda ehhh after several more times seeing it. Alright, let's get back to the hype. So, it was nearing our time to get on stage, it was a little chaotic from what I remember, umm, never experienced any kind of sage performance like that before, so, that was literally what happens backstage, behind the scenes. People were still changing to their outfits, doing makeup. Soon enough, we were called to be on deck (we were the last act, after the HSM trio).

        And before I knew it, the curtains close, lights go out, lights go back on inside for us to find our spots, I position my body and my footing the right way. They really don't give you much time to setup, you know, the MC's who do their cringe-worthy jokes are just their to stall for time, which was only enough for around 15 seconds. I have my head down, staring at the ground (what we're supposed to do for the opening), my left hand in my pocket. The MC's announce us, the lights go out, the curtains open up on us, the spotlights shine, and the music starts.

        I swear, the opening to BTS's "Danger" will haunt me for the rest of my life. The opening builds so much hype, it makes my heart rate go up. The scariest part, that I remember from the whole act was the spin. Just like how my buddy Cc felt, after the initial spin and you feel like you're gonna collapse from the pressure. And boom, the drop starts (the song! I didn't fall, heh), I do my best, moved a bit too fast, but hey, not too bad. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to smile or not (during lunch I asked Jk if everybody else was smiling and he said no so I was good) so I just kept a straight face, looked into the distance, didn't wanna make any eye contact, heh.

        Another scary part, where I get the most "viewership" by the audience, is in the Taemin's "Danger" dance, the 2nd one in our mix, where we gott stand still at first, and do coordinated shoulder shakes and leg movements only. And spins. After my parts end, I head to the left side, the nearest, and behind the curtain (which surprisingly, even though they look open, the audience can't actually see you unless you poke your head right out. Cool illusion). Damn. "Good job," said this one girl in KDT. "You too," I replied. Only towards the end did I come back out, only to fall (which was part of the performance, at the end of f(x)'s "Redlight," we all fall in a fireworks pattern as the lights cut out).

        And damn, was it good. We were all excited, and it definitely an adrenaline rush. Being in the back, it's nice that if you mess up a bit, go off in timing, not many will notice (as people will be paying attention to performers in the front 90% of the time).  The downside is that you can't really see yourself in recordings, and you don't get the spotlight. At least for me, I'm only in the first 2 songs, which lasted like, 20 seconds in total, and from them, there were 0 rotations where I move somewhat close to the front. Other songs had better rotations, these 2 were just like the openers. One song went for like, 45 seconds or something like that, like, that's crazy compared to the time I danced.

        Sucks for me in my opinion, because it made me feel like I should've chose more songs to be a part of when we were first doing auditions back in like, September. When I met Ic during break (like, school break time), he was like "Hey I saw you perform. I was like 'Is that Drew? Omg that is Drew.' I tried to get out my phone to record you and send you a Snapchat with the caption 'tfw you perform in the lunar show,' but by the time I got it out, you were already done, heh." Yep, my performance time wasn't even enough for my ol' buddy from Chinese class to decipher that it was me performing, get out his phone, open up the Snapchat app, and record me.

        I'm not mad like, "Aw man, they should've put me to the front and given me more dance time." No, it's more of, umm, I'd say regret, jealous- no, envy, ol' fucking envy, and timidness. My phone battery was dying during the entire thing, I got left with 4% after calling my mom to pick me up at 3:00 PM (as the supervisor was tired and didn't wanna stay 'till 5:00 PM), even after leaving it with battery-saver on. I was basically tagging along with Cc and Ln, didn't say much, only some comments sometimes, never a full-fledged convo. Everyone looked like they were having fun, stressful fun, and/or looked like they had something to do.

        Cc said she heard her name being called out multiple times from the crowd. I never knew it until now but like, when the crowd cheers, you know you got people supporing you, so you have the reassurance of "I gotta do my best." It doesn't cause more fear like "Oh shit, they're relying on me to do well." No, it's the opposite, they want you to do well, and they're trying to help by encouraging you. After the 2nd real performance, Cc was brought outside because somebody wanted to see her. It was our old English 2A teacher. I don't rememeber Cc even interacting all that much with the teacher, but like, she was thoroughly impressed. She was like "Wow Cc, I didn't know you had that kind of talent!" Now it could just be bias but, you know, having a teacher, from a whole year-and-a-half ago come see you to say that they were impressed by your dance performance, it's like "Damn."

        To wrap things up because this post has been going on for like an hour, we took pictures, umm, real pictures, funny pictures, pictures where we had our hands (or made it look like we had our hands, whichever) on eachother's asses (you knows those kinda pictures) and have one of the dudes push my hand so that while it was hovering over this one girl's ass, it made it as if I purposely slapped her ass, which was like "Gotta tell this to my buddies back home" but at the same time "Oh," with a little side of "I am so fucking sorry, that wasn't on purpose." And again, timidness. FUCKING SPEAK UP, YA CAN'T EVEN SAY SORRY IF THEY CAN'T HEAR YA, DREW.

        And towards 5th/6th period, people were tired, the officers didn't really care anymore because it was 5th/6th period and most people have seen it all done the way it's supposed to be done already, so, acts trolled other acts. Pretty fun, I joined in too on one, which did show bravery. Also I think I dabbed a bit too much, but that won't be the case until shit starts circulating about "that guy who dabbed too much." And yes, I tried to make the dance trolls as cringey as possible, 'cause people are forced to watch, heh.

        So yeah, 6th performances, many adventures unfolded, many more stories to be told, but only one big thing to come out of this: I, don't, dance (HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK). That HSM thing fucking got to me, heh. Well alright, after yawning all day and crashing on the couch, taking one of those godly naps, it's 1:38 AM. See ya.