Burlesque On Ice Rehearsals - Week Two!

Following on from last week when I kept a daily diary of Burlesque On Ice rehearsals; we're at the end of week two!

Burlesque On Ice - tickets on sale NOW!

So what happened this week?! It's had its ups and downs (literally and figuratively!), we've made great progress with the whole show, had photoshoots, puppy visits, music mix-ups, and unfortunately our Glorian Gray wasn't with us as she's not very well, so we all sent positive, get-well vibes up to Manchester and hopefully she'll be back in skates next week!

Monday
I went in slightly earlier this morning as I had rehearsals for my solo with Hollie, and I caught the end of the professional skaters rehearsing the big opening number for the show - bloody hell, it's going to be a-may-zing! Honestly - they've got jumps, lifts, spins, cartwheels; the lot! Boom!

Ruby Deshabille and I spent a couple of hours going through our solo routines, as some moves we could do easily on ice are not so easy on the plastic and bits of them had to be changed or adapted - on the synthetic ice you need to work twice as hard to get half as much result and it's flippin' difficult!

While practising a move in my solo I caught the toe-pick of the blade and, where on ice it would cut a bit and maybe make me stagger, with no give on the plastic I just went straight over and fell face-forward onto the ground! I managed to catch myself as I fell and my knee caught the brunt of the fall so I have a nice shiny bruise on my kneecap now. Lovely.

Later in the day we continued to polish and clean the two big group routines in the show, which are going to look awesome when they're finished, and Hollie impressed us all even with just the bare bones of her solo routine!

Showgirls! With Bonnie Fleur, Trixie Kixx and Ruby Deshabille!

Tuesday

Today was a lovely day - both professionally and personally! In non-ice related news; my missing cat came home! He's been gone for about twelve days and it was heartbreaking but he's back in one piece and I couldn't be happier!

In rehearsal news we spent the day cleaning and rehearsing the two big group numbers in the show - Hollie wants the routines to be so ingrained it's like muscle memory so even if we freak/forget/get stage fright, our bodies will still know what we're doing and just do it regardless! It's something I remember from college, and at times it can feel like we're soldiers doing drill but it's so good.

We even got time to have a basics lesson - as I've mentioned previously, it's so different skating on the synthetic ice to regular ice that it's useful to keep going over things we *thought* we could do to keep ourselves on form! 

My knee was hurting a bit from my fall yesterday but nothing that coffee and nurofen can't handle! Boom!

Wednesday

I was exhausted today - a late night last night followed by a very early morning made me tired and a bit cranky, so I can only apologise to my fellow cast members for being a big ball of grump all day!

We went over the group numbers, adding in Joe Morose on the cleaning. Then in the afternoon the glamorous Gwendoline Lamour joined us for her section and we spent a fun-filled couple of hours mincing, strutting and shimmying around the ice - a booty shake is a lot harder when you don't have a solid surface beneath your feet!

When skates start to hurt, there's always the option of these sexy, sexy shoe covers...

Thursday
Today was great fun! The pro skaters in the show stayed later after their rehearsal time to run the big finale number, and it's going to be epic!! Fans, Isis Wings, kick-lines, cartwheels, shimmys, boobs.... what more could anyone want?!

Rosie, Jek, Sarah and Kerri practising a lift! Eek!

Hollie in full CSI mode... kind of...

It's the first time we've put the whole thing together and we managed to have a stagger through of the actual show run a whole day before schedule which was ace.

In the evening, Antonia arrived to fit us with some of our costumes and I'm really excited about mine - my ice solo is a variation on one of my regular acts and I'm adapting it for ice, which is much easier said than done!

Friday

A nice end to an exhausting week - because the professional skaters in the show didn't have any pictures for the programme, the lovely Tigz Rice came along for a morning photoshoot on the ice

Pro-Girls on the ice - Hollie trying to hide!

We also had Joe Morose with us all day and we had a laughter-filled afternoon with him learning the rest of the finale choreography and working on our individual introductions... it's going to be hilarious! During our solos rehearsal a bit of my choreography changed to a slightly more impressive looking move, which is awesome, but terrifying, and I'm chuffed to bits with myself that I managed to do it at all!

Trixie Kixx also brought along Darcy, who definitely needs to be in the show - look how good she looks in skates!

Pooches on Ice?

Cuddles from Darcy

Once again I'm absolutely shattered and aching, but it's all good and the show will be amazing - now I'm off to pop crystals on a drag queen's dressing gown...
xx