So this past weekend was a big one for the Lotus Bloomers -- first a demo on Sat. at the City of Elgin Centre where we take class, then multiple outdoor performances on Sunday at the new FoxFire Fest in the new zillion dollar park with the new billion dollar fountain across the street from the new million dollar town homes next door to the not so new gajillion dollar riverboat that pays for all of these civilized amenities.

The gigs both came up pretty quickly, like with about five weeks notice. This is typically not a big deal -- we've been doing this long enough now that we should be able to get out there without a detailed battle plan. This situation, however, was not typical. Though it seems like just about everything we do is under the gun, I think we as a group were particularly feeling the pressure here for several reasons.

First, one of the results of the short notice was that since our instructor had implemented a new, very much needed set of costuming guidelines, the situation suddenly emerged that we all had to assemble an entire new costume look in the aforementioned five or so weeks, so most of us were quickly buried under piles of unfinished tassels and sewing and/or scraping to pull together what we needed. Next, these were our first promoted, high-profile performances for non-dancers (like the real actual public! EEEK!), and we had no time to put together anything but improv. Now improv would typically be no big deal for our group -- we do worship at the ATS altar and some of us have been dancing together for better than two years. However, this wasn't our typical one song for a hafla or whatever. Oh no. This was two full sets of four songs each. Though not everyone danced every song, this was much more than we were accustomed to preparing.

We hadn't really worked on improv in quite a while, so we decided we'd better do so. Good thing we did, because it turned out some of us had learned a bunch of different vocabulary that was then being pulled out in troupe rehearsal, so moves were being led that some of us had never even seen, plus we did some very new prop work with some very new props, plus our zil skills had gotten really rusty so we sounded like a drawerful of silverware being thrown down a flight of stairs. Oh yeah, and did I mention that it's been in the mid 90s here all week with crazy high humidity? And that we made a point of rehearsing outdoors so we would be truly prepared for Sunday?

Two nights of sweltering bug-bite covered rehearsal, two broken sewing machine needles, and one tear-stained meltdown later, and I'm having that dance crisis (you know the one) where suddenly I'm going "This is what I do for FUN, right? Right? This is fun? Maybe I'll try hitting myself in the head with a hammer, that sounds fun too." And I didn't even do the Saturday gig, I was only on board for Sunday.

Now I realize (and so do you if you're still reading) that this whole entry up to this point is nothing more than a big fat glass of whine, the tedium of which is relieved only by the presence of the one photo of our group on Sunday that I can actually stand to look at. (In all the others, I resemble nothing so much as a glazed pork sausage in a purple cotton casing being slow-roasted over an open fire. Which is pretty accurate.)

But I do have a positive point here and it is a powerful one indeed. These awesome ladies did something really amazing: we practiced hard, worked hard, sewed hard, and tried our best to help each other. Then we slapped on our game faces, went out there in a heat index of 100+ degrees, and proceeded to DANCE OUR ASSES OFF. What easily could have been a torturous ordeal was elevated into a wonderful happening filled with applause, kids shaking their little butts, and, to my total shock and amazement, FUN. The sheer infectious enthusiasm we all had for the dance and the hard work we have all put into it allowed us to take a miserable experience and turn it into something magical.

And if that ain't pro, I don't know what is.