Neo in New York

Just four days after the Boston debut, ten of the Neo girls, plus myself departed New England and headed towards New York City!

We were there just two and a half days. Here are some of the sights that we saw...









On day one we pretty much checked into our hotel and headed straight to City Center a few hours later. We arrived for our technical rehearsal and discovered quickly that like most of New York, the building was old, not air-conditioned and HOT! Warming up was not an issue for my dancers at all.

Our "dressing room" was nothing more than a stair landing with these neat-o old wooden lockers. Hey, you've got to start somewhere right?!

You can see the lockers on the left...



The company teched...





Then we found out that my piece was the show closer for both evenings. Primo spot!

So they performed...beautifully...





On night two - the of age ladies in the bunch went out for a night on the town to celebrate! We went to this great bar called Faces and Names right off of Times Square. We might have celebrated a little too much, since we returned to the hotel room at 3:45am and did not go to bed until 5:00! There is a reason that they call it "The city that never sleeps!"

After a good long rest, and some greasy spoon breakfast, it was homeward bound for the New England girls.

For me, this is where the fun stops.

About 10 minutes outside of the city, I was following an 18 wheeler going about 50 MPH, when I saw a HUGE bump in the road, like a frost heave, the size of a milk crate. Since I was behind a truck, I saw it at the last moment and had no choice but to go over it. And over it I did go, and flew through the air Dukes of Hazard style in my little Jetta and came down with a crack. Immediately we knew that we had done some damage to the car, but we didn't know what. I had to pull over three lanes of traffic and check it out (PERILOUS!!!)

When I got out of my car I discovered that the bottom half of my bumper was 3/4 of the way ripped off and dragging underneath. Lovely. With nothing to secure it, I had to get back on the highway and drag it some more, to the next exit. The we got duct tape (classy) and taped it up and hit the road again. I haven't even gotten it looked at yet...because I don't even want to know how expensive it's going to be!

Then, when we got back on the road in Connecticut, it took us 3 1/2 hours to go 75 miles. Aaaaaand, my car is a standard. Clutch, brake, clutch, brake. So irritating. We left NYC at 1:30 and we arrived in New Hampshire at 9:15. It took us almost eight hours to make a 4.5 hour trip!!! Not fun!

However, that aside, having my work performed in NYC was thrilling. Lifelong dream - checked off and done! Now I'm dreaming of going back, again and again and again.

I've already started working on my next piece, which is to a live version of Distant Lover by Marvin Gaye. I'm pretty psyched about it - maybe I'll try to get some rehearsal video up to give all of you a sneak preview.

More soon - maybe some craftiness :)