Dubai
It’s 5:56am and I’ve been awake since the uncivilised time of 4:00am. I’ve got my butt plonked firmly down in an airport lounge (la de dah!) in Dubai airport. Coffee to my left. Bashing out another one of these updates.
I’ve just finished 2 weeks out here where I performed 20 x 30 minute shows over the course of 10 days (5 days on, 2 days off, 5 days on). Initially, I was a little anxious about this because I thought it would be a strain on my psoas injury . I therefore had to adapt my show, to make sure the half-hours didn’t contain any jumping, spinning or fun moves (as I like to call them).
My shows took place in Mercato Shopping Mall, which as far as shopping malls go, is a pretty nice one. As soon as I arrived for my technical rehearsal, I noticed that on stage-right, there was a slide connecting the floors and terminating in a ball pit. My first thought as a 35 year-old man: “Start the show by going down the slide”. I asked permission and to my astonishment, my wish was granted! Show number one, I slide with glee into quite a tough first show. I was still finding my feet and figuring out how best to play the crowd at this point. After the first show I was told I can’t use the slide anymore because I was wearing shoes, and that if I wanted to use it, I had to remove my shoes, slide into the show, then faff about trying to pop my clogs on whilst trying to clumsily keep the enthusiasm well and truly whipped into shape. It just wasn’t worth it.
If I am being completely honest, and with you I am nothing but, initially I found the shows difficult. My talking material (which is most of my material), wasn’t really going down very well. Perhaps, I’d like to think, because of a language or cultural barrier. Also there were lots of children, and if you’ve read my book, chapter V is for Van will tell you that I am not great at performing for kids. I adapted my show each day, and I’d say by around show 5, I had it figured out and started to really enjoy it.
As for my injury, I am still injured, and still can’t pirouette or run, however there have been major improvements over the past 2 weeks. I can now squat and jump, which are two of my favourite things. It’s all progress.
Right now, I’m feeling a bit tired and brain dead, so I’m going to wrap this up and grab another coffee. In the mean time, if you’d like to see any of my upcoming shows, I have had some new dates confirmed for 2024 and 2025 which you can check out here.
I have some fun new projects coming up, which I will of course let you know about very soon. In the mean-time, stay hydrated, eat well, get some sleep and don’t forget to stretch.