Memoirs of a Salsero Part Una
Welcome to the greatest show on earth, and one of 2011’s most awaited event!
Welcome to Havana Estudio’s 13th Anniversary Bash, held at the Dewan Perdana in teh Sports Complex of Bukit Kiara Equestrian and Country Club on the evening of 25th June 2011. The event marked the first time Havana Estudio (hereinafter referred to as “HE”) held a full dinner & dance since the anniversary celebrations held in 2007. For those confused with the timeline, HE organized an anniversary bash in 2009 at Bar Savant (now known as Vogue) in Mont
And we did, indeed.
Being one of the performers, I arrived there extra early. I’ll not bore you with the details of the jitters and butterflies in the days prior to the 25th but I will tell you this: For more than the past 2 months, solid, I was in the studio practicing my backside off. I was in the studio a bloody 6 days a week. Why the extra work? 2 reasons in particular - One was that I foolishly volunteered to perform 2 different performances (there were three performances, the Young Starz, Shines and the Senior Routine. I did the last two). Another reason is purely my own. With only less than a handful of kind souls assisting me with my lack of technique and ability, my strong need to over-compensate by working harder is overpowering.
Initially, it seems foolhardy to take on so much work. It has been done in the past of course. In my short salsa career, I’ve seen it done twice, but I believe it was smaller and tighter. But to do two full ones? Madness I tell you. You know the saying, ‘the ends justify the means’? I just learned it. The hard way. The physical strain on my wee-body was tremendous. Perhaps if I took it easier and practiced much less, I would be less in pain. But being me, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Ultimately, the rewards were mind-blasting! Mind-blasting I tell you!
As performers, we arrived on location at about 4.45pm, several hours before the doors open for dinner. Technical Rehearsals were to be held at about 5pm for all three groups. Everything went rather smoothly, albeit a little TOO smoothly. The installed wooden floor was found to be ridiculously slippery on some parts. Good to know these sort of things early.
Immediately after Tech Rehearsals the girls set about putting on their makeup. You know how girls are. The guys also had to get into partial costume but being guys, we took this process less seriously than we should have.
I started snapping shots before Tech Rehearsals and immediately after to show the tedious but necessary preparation process. For photography nuts, the White Balance once again proved a worthy adversary, but ultimately was no match for the tag-team of RAW and Photoshop.
Not long after, even before 8pm, the crowd started to stream in. Well, they’d better since seating was on a first come, first served basis. Unfortunately, not many people took the ‘Future & Fantasy’ theme of the celebrations seriously. But there were some gems in the crowd. There was an amazing looking ‘Lady Gaga’, a slightly out-of-retirement Captain Kirk, a bloody Pirate (by the looks of it, not very Caribbean, but more South China Seas), and another Star Trek big-eared alien I could not identify.
For a quick link to Part Two of the memorable and super-awesome Havana Estudio 13th Anniversary Bash, please click here!
For those of you who like statistics:
Vital Stats for June: 7 post 210 pics
Vital Stats So Far: 84 posts 3,294 pics
Disclaimer: The views published in the above photoblog are the author's and the author's alone. If readers are not agreeable with the above views, well, you can bugger-off. All rights are reserved for the photos and the article itself. This article may be reproduced with permission of the author for private or public usage, or other forms of general mayhem. Any unauthorized usage of the images or articles contained therein is expressly prohibited and violators will be prosecuted with the full force of Malaysian law applicable. Thank you for reading this disclaimer.
No comments:
Post a Comment