Brazilian Carnival Comes to Sydney!

Friday night was my big samba performance at the Metro Theatre as part of the Latin Dance Ball. For the last week I have been so stressed out, so nervous, so jittery, so excited, so distracted, so nauseous, still so excited, you name it.

I was freaking myself out over so many things. First I was worried I was not going to get the g-string in time. I didn't actually get it until 4 days before the show. I also didn't get my headpiece or backpiece until about 5 days before the show. Hell, I didn't even know I was going to be getting a backpiece. All up, I'd only gotten to practice in the entire costume once or twice before the actual show - so I was very nervous!

The headpiece kept falling off, the backpiece made it difficult to lift my arms very high and it blocked my peripheral vision (making it hard to do this side-cross thing where two lines of girls go between each other, and if I couldn't see, I could easily crash into somone), the g-string had a beaded skirt and the beads kept falling off. I was afraid that by the end of the show, my g-string skirt would have completely disintegrated, or I was worried that my beads would scatter on stage and I'd accidentally take out all of us and we'd all slip and fall on the beads and end up in a heap on the floor! :-o


Also, the g-string was too big, so it had to be safety pinned to the right size. Also also, I was going to be performing without my glasses and of course my eye sight is terrible. Also also also our teacher decided several days before the show that we would end by each walking down the stairs into the audience. Me, blind, in heels, walking down stairs - woo-HOO! ;-) Also also also also, we never got to practice on the actual Metro stage until the evening of the show. So, yes, I was freaking out about all sorts of things. :-D


I got up on Friday and put L'Oreal's "Red Pulse" colour into my hair and obsessively compulsively checked my bag a billion times. Bra one, bra two, g-string, pantyhose, underwear, special string, ankle pieces, necklaces, headpiece, backpiece, gloves, feathers, shoes, make-up, brush, wallet, phone, safety pins, bobby pins, scissors, double-sided tape, run-sheet, skirt to wear before getting into g-string, skirt to wear after the show, earrings, nail polish, wet wipes, mueslix bars, bottles of water, you name it.

I was so jittery. I felt excited, but so nervous and ill. I could only snack, I couldn't eat a big meal. I had a hard time hailing a cab to get to the Pitt St Mall...finally I got a free cab and the guy was laughing, going, "From far away it looked like you were carrying a large plant!" He was referring to my huge backpiece. ;-)

But I have to thank Holly, my amazing make-up artist at MAC at Myer, for doing a fantastic make-up job on me. To say I looked like crap when I arrived at Myer would be a massive understatement. But when Holly was done with me, I felt like quite the sexy beast. Holly was hilarious and she would not let me see anything she was doing until she was done. I totally trusted her though. I never saw the transformation, only the final product. I couldn't wait to see what she'd come up with cause all the other make-up artists kept walking by going, "Oh, wow, that's HOT! HOT! HOT!" I was cracking up. I have only worn eye-make-up two other times in my life, so even though I wanted green eye shadow, I had no idea how it would look on me. Welp, I absolutely loved it and as soon as I saw the beautiful job Holly had done, I started to get super excited. In all my stress and nausea I had almost forgotten that I was supposed to be having F-U-N! :D

It was all thanks to my classmates Jackie and Pam that I got an appointment at MAC with them (bless you, girls!) and then we went back to their office building where Jackie did a fantabulous job curling my hair (loved it!) and Pam was kind enough to brush irridescent bronzer on my back where I couldn't reach. So, yes, after the super hair and make-up treatment I received, I was finally feeling like I was seriously going to be performing on stage that night!

Pam and I had a fun time walking down George Street with our huge feather back-pieces and our make-up. I wonder if people thought the circus was in town ;-)

We got to the Metro just before 5pm, just in time to practice our routine on stage. Thankfully the stage was less slippery than what we were used to, but it also felt smaller than our practice space. We were shocked when we saw how close to the stage the audience was - talk about up close and personal! If there were any wardrobe malfunctions a la Jennifer Hawkins, the audience was going to get an eyeful!!! ha!

After our quick rehearsal, we tried to go eat something so we wouldn't faint on stage, so we shared some food to pick at cause we were too nervous to eat too too much. I get the worst stage fright. I knew I'd be fine once I was on stage, but the wait leading up to it just kills me.

I was worried cause we were told we would only have 15 minutes to change into everything! We could have a few things on...like pantyhose, shoes, special underwear, magical string that ties everything up so you cannot see your undies and pantyhose waist with the g-string on, etc, but the hardest thing to put on would be the g-string, then the headpiece, backpiece, gloves, etc.


It was CRAZY in the changing room. There were like 30 of us crammed into a tiny room. Girls were yelling out for double-sided tape, safety pins, lipstick, glitter, bronzer, hairspray. Thankfully one of the professional samba girls helped me with the g-string. She did a fantastic job and I felt totally confident that it was going to stay on properly. She made me jump up and down a lot to make sure that sucker wasn't going anywhere. She kept apologising to me cause she had to keep hiking up my pantyhose and giving me an even bigger wedgie than I already had, but I was just so grateful!!! BLESS YOU, SAMBA GIRL!


Then I did everything I could think of to secure my headpiece. I tightened the front and back straps, I put in bobby pins, I tied a ponytailer around the back of the headpiece and a huge chunk the back of my hair. In my nervousness (and blindness!) I actually put on the backpiece backwards and was like, "This feels wrong...hmmm" thank GOODNESS I realised my mistake before we got on stage! The girls were like, "Are you sure it's on wrong?" And I was like, "Trust me...this thing is working against me - it's on backwards!"

When we were all backstage, about to go on, I couldn't wait. I no longer felt nervous. I just wanted to get the hell on stage. I was gunning for it! I couldn't wait anymore! The crowd was fantastic and I was feeling sexy, so I was ready to go. I think I remembered to smile most of the time, but I guess I'll have to wait for the DVD to be sure. It was all so quick, but soooooooo much fun.

It was certainly not my best performance ever, but it was 100x better than my dress rehearsal the night before and it was heaps of fun. The crowd was cheering for us big time and that makes so much difference. With the pics and video my friends took, I noticed mistakes I made that I didn't even realise I had made - ooops! - but thankfully no one in the audience would have known. Only my teacher and fellow classmates will be laughing at me when they watch the dvd ;-)

So, despite all the nervousness and stress and nausea, I absolutely LOVED IT. I am already thinking of doing it again next year and what kind of costume I want to make etc. I think I am crazy.

I just have an even deeper respect for dancers and people who organise shows like this. There is so much work and effort involved and it's all over so quickly, but it's such a wonderful rush of excitement. For that night, we all felt like superstars. Everyone should get the chance to feel like that at least once :-D

And because we were one of the last classes to go on stage, we got to see the majority of the performances and everyone was amazing. Lots of creative salsa, lambada, cha cha, hip hop, afro-brazilian, etc, it was a great mix! It's obvious we've all been practicing hard! We've been rehearsing our sexy asses off for the last three months, so it was so weird to not go to class yesterday for the first time in 12+ weeks!

Thank you to Claude, Mia, Emma, Carlos, Tania, Owen, Mer, Jason, Juliet, Jen, and Nick for coming and seeing me! You guys rock!

And extra special thanks to Emma for all her costume help! I seriously shudder to think what the hell I would have done without her sewing skills and costume expertise! She turned my 7 dollar bra from Kmart into something suitable for Vegas! ;-) Poor Emma slept over my place three weekends in a row to help me with my costume! Thank you, baby!