As the BD at last goes "live" by having toured via Newbury and Taunton, I'm rightly, really proud of us, and me. But I confess to a frustration at insufficient day-to-day momentum with this live work, the kind of daily, multiple passes of the pieces which together refine, strengthen, hone and, overall, transpire new life into the whole thing.
However, I'll pretend not to complain, as "some work" is far better than "no work". As for my own passage thro' the doors of propertour, I've been consistently indulged by the audiences' (this I observed empirically at the Corn Exchange as well as Tacchi-Morris) heightened whooping as I took my show-end bow. In fairness to needed skepticism, I stomp onstage last to savour my plaudits; but the feeling is true, and seems genuine.
None of this vindication stops me being scared of all forthcoming gigs, though, especially Laban and Bristol. For this latter, my chosen home, I'll bear an extra frisson of dread-full selfconsciousness. Good for the constitution, I'm sure.
Yet, how momentum would lift us, lift me, lift the sense of the mission being truly mobile, really activated. I hope there are more gigs. Apart from all else, my commitment to this excludes other work - yet this contract miserably fails to pay anything like a living wage. I can wholly understand why at least one of my erstwhile colleagues from the reheasal-/preview-phase - itself, ironically, perversely, the sweet source of more than twice as much paid work than the "tour" itself - may have been driven away by the sheer dearth of working days.
I can't afford this. Skint artist dreams of retainer.
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