Today was my first "real" performance with Aura. I could have used at least another week of rehearsal, but I did the best I could. The performance consisted of two dances, "Extremum Mobile" and "Aceptic Zone". Each are about 30 mins, with a lot of fast violent floorwork. As you can imagine, I have bruises everywhere. But then so does everyone else, so at least I know that it is the choreography and not my dancing. :) I only had about a week to learn both dances, so I am still thinking hard about the order, timing, and spacing. Also, we did not get a dress rehearsal in the theater. So, today was the first time that I did the dances with costumes, lights, fog, etc. Which posed some additional challenges, as you can imagine... But overall it went well, I think. Afterward Legita only had a couple of minor corrections for me, nothing that the audience would notice. And tomorrow will be much better. :) We will have a much bigger stage (in Vilnius, instead of Kaunas) and with more room to dance there is much less stress about spacing. The dancers have been wonderful to work with: they are nice, eager, hard working, and manage to accomplish quite a bit with the little they are given. Both the director (Birute) and the assistant (Legita) cannot show the movement with thier bodies - so they forget how the body needs to learn, and must rely on words (and others) to communicate thier needs. This makes me competely dependant on the other dancers, to learn the movement, or for translation into english, etc. I am very thankful that they are so kind and patient. It would be hell if they weren't so nice. Of course all my opinions are shaped by the fact that I don't understand the language. I don't know what the arguments are about, or even if the director is yelling at me, and I can't be held responsible for not knowing what is going on. Of course, at times it can be quite frustrating, escepcally when they are trying to describe some detail in the dance (which is difficult enough when you are both comfortable speaking the same language). I guess I will have to work harder at learning lithuanian. :)