My Experiences on Tour

I thought I would write a brief blog about the experiences I have had on tour. First of all I love touring. When I started dancing I never thought I would enjoy touring with a show as I enjoyed my home comforts too much, however when I was given the opportunity I thought I would give it a go. 

I am so glad that I did. Although touring can be very gruelling, the amount you learn is irreplaceable! 

Whilst touring not only do you get to travel and see the world, you are able to try new foods, experience a different culture, and attempt at speaking another language. I have also found that touring can make you a much stronger dancer. It can make you more flexible with the way you adapt to your surroundings. The stages, theatres and staff can all be so different from each theatre you perform in, you have to learn to adapt quickly to the different ways in which people work. 

Another great but not always so great aspect is spending most of your time with a cast. It can be amazing to get so close to your cast, you get to spend a lot of time together that not a lot of other work places do, however this can also be difficult if you don't always see eye to eye with everyone. 

Here is a link below which is a great insight to surviving touring…..

http://www.dancespirit.com/uncategorized/road_warriors_surviving_life_on_tour/ (1)

A fascinating area that I have noticed can effect your experience and the performance is the culture you are surrounded by. Here are some of the examples of my experiences whilst touring that have had to be changed or altered to fit in the countries social norms….

During my two tours of China I noticed a lot of differences in culture. Firstly the language barrier - not only could we not speak Mandarin, we could not even translate any of the text, as they have symbols rather that letters it can prove to be very difficult when communicating. Getting to places and ordering food was often very challenging, although there were some very amusing moments, a lot of the time it was very difficult to get any food that was what you had ordered or what you needed, not the best when you are dancers and need to have a particular diet. When words are translated they are not always exact and can end up looking like this…..

                                                                 Menu (2)

Another area that I mentioned in module one was about the access of communication China has. China is quite a strict country in terms of social media and the internet. When I went there last year a lot of the main social media websites had been blocked and so had some of the search engines. This made communicating with loved ones at home and even doing the work for the BAPP course extremely difficult. I wasn’t even able to get onto my emails as my account is with ‘Gmail’. This then gives an extra  annoyance on tour when you are not able to use the same applications that you can use at home. Luckily I had been pre warned by other performers that had experienced this before, however I couldn’t help but think that if they had not warned me how much harder everything would have been.    

Another cultural difference I had noticed with regards to the show performance, was that within the Chinese culture they find it unacceptable for the show to go up late, sometimes even starting the show early. Although it is in our culture not to start a show late, however we would never dream of starting a show without the main performers ready to go on. This was not the case in China. On several occasions we had gone up early and performers were not ready and had not warmed up efficiently, this did not help as a lot of the Chinese theatres are very big, it was difficult for them to heat up. This was dangerous for us as our bodies would not be warm enough to dance full out, and would higher the risk of injury. In UK however this would have been sorted as soon as possible as it would effect the health and safety regulations, which China do not enforce. 

On the flip side of China, whilst performing in Israel the situation was the complete opposite. We never started a show on time. Within their culture it is customary to wait until most of the audience had arrived which would be late every single time. This was also not ideal as we were made to be ready for the set start time but would not start until at least 30 minutes to an hour later. This also can affect the warming up process as you end up waiting around and cooling down again. It also meant we arrived back at the hotel later and our breaks between shows were shorter. There was one incident where we had a triple show day and wanted to go up on time so we could unsure we had the right amount of rest time between shows, however this did not happen and a disagreement occurred. This was an example of a clash of social norms and values as in our culture it is against our own health and safety laws and seen as unprofessional to go up so late with a show.  

One other area I have experienced is going to countries where you need to cover up your body. In Israel there were particular parts of the country that we had to cover our shoulders, knees, chest and stomach out of respect to their culture. In Qatar the country in predominately muslin, therefore for our performance we had to alter our costumes so our bodies were covered appropriately. 

From my experiences I have realised that understanding a different culture and accepting the differences between you in order to get along is essential, particularly when working together. Although touring can be very challenging because of the differences, it is also amazing to learn more and adapt to a different life that is on tour. 

References

1)

http://www.dancespirit.com/uncategorized/road_warriors_surviving_life_on_tour/

2) Photo of a Chinese menu, photograph taken my myself.