We had a bit of excitement yesterday in rehearsal, which showed us a little where the priority lies in our company: Dancers versus Rehearsal, and I think the rehearsal won hands down! We were just beginning the section of the fairies in Le Songe ( our directors version of Midsummer’s Night Dream) when we smelled an acrid stench of gas fumes, or burning wires. At first, it was minimal, and we individually assumed it must be coming in from outside. As we continued, however, it became too potent to ignore. At this moment, the dance is fairly inactive, and we were standing in a large cluster, waving our arms, and discussing whether or not it would be a good idea to evacuate (or “Evaculate” as one of my non-English colleagues put it). By this time the fumes had reached the ballet masters sitting at the front of the room, and they both got up to smell out the window. The music did not stop, however, and we half-heartedly continued to wave our arms around. Some girls gave up altogether, and joined the group developing outside the door, where they had called in the building manager. We were still not quite sure what to do, so continued to do the steps, even though no one was even watching. At one point, we all started to laugh, since even if the entire building was on fire, it would not disrupt our rehearsal! We would first finish the dance, then get out of there. Finally the music was stopped, and we could freely investigate the source of the smell. It was definitely something electrical, for it was only in certain places, and almost as if coming from below the studio. After ten minutes of turning off the lights, as well as investigating the entire building from down to up, nothing whatsoever looked out of the ordinary. They concluded that it must have been something with the air conditioning (although I had my doubts about that, since it smelled nothing like air conditioning!) and that we could continue with our rehearsal. Somehow, by this time the smell had dissipated, and we had to go back to the beginning and start the dance again. We were all still distracted and giggly, but managed to get through to the end without incident. At least it provided a little bit of excitement on a rainy, grey day at 4 pm in the fairy rehearsal!
