The Day from Merli:
Picture this: It's 11am on June 11th -- the big day of the Dance for World Community Festival has arrived! -- and just as we approach "Advocacy Way" to set up our table, it pours. Kim and I scramble to check in, find a half-available tent, then pick up a giant table and run to safety! Within moments we realize it'll take far more than just a tent to save us, our many paper products and our assortment of bags from the rain. As it blows in from the back, we team up with the booth next to us to push our tents together. Kim finds a huge roll of lime green plastic wrap, and together we embark on...
SURVIVOR: Luminarium Dance Style
Kim, cradling our precious safety pins in her mouth as we work quickly to kludge our tent together.
Quick! The rain is soaking our beautiful t-shirt display! We grab our only umbrella and put it to work.
Caption: "WHAT have we gotten ourselves into..."
Hanging up the t-shirts in an attempt to weigh it all down.
Suddenly, it becomes clear that NO where is safe. The one dry spot left under the table has turned into an active river coursing through our tent.
Finally things start to settle. We are cold and wet, but happily secure in our survivor tent.
Merli...and the table! Not yet in its full glory. We put out posters, t-shirts, raffle tickets, mailing lists... It really looked quite lovely in the end. Not to mention, we were the most colorful tent on the street!
The day went much better after that. We were excited to share information on our company and recent performance projects, and eagerly listened to the other dance organizations that visited our tent. Despite the rain, it was a wonderful chance to get our name out there, and the diehard dance fans of Boston and Cambridge did not disappoint. Our audience was very full when we performed at 4:40, and everyone seemed to enjoy the show very much.
We soon learned that on average, the tent would turn into a sail boat and blow about 4 feet across the pavement every 33 minutes or so, leading Kim and I to become very good at bracing ourselves against it throughout the day. Kim suffered a waterfall from a neighboring tent towards the end of the day, and I lost most of my toes the moment my bare feet hit the stage (turning a beautiful, numb white!), but all in all, it was a fun experience, and our dancers -- as always -- did a wonderful job.