Rapture!
1.40pm 5th August 2006, Saturday

I�m still in a blissful daze from yesterday�s Rapture! at the Esplanade. The experience was wonderful. By the way, the audience�s experience was not the same as mine, mine was very different.

In the first place, I didn�t have a ticket, I had a photographer�s pass, but somehow wasn�t allowed to take today. I took on Thursday.

Now let me first talk about yesterday. I don�t want to lose this bliss and forget the memories. My photographer�s pass was valid from the 2nd to the 4th of August. After doing homework and waiting for an opportunity to talk to Yan Shan (she was busy revising for the H3 Maths selection test), I went home, washed up, searched for the bus route online, had an early dinner, packed my bag with my essential vital photographer�s pass, then walked out to take 162 to the Esplanade. The bus ride was 45 minutes. I missed the stop. I didn�t know I was supposed to disembark at One Raffles, so I alighted at Clifford Pier and walked to the Durian.

The sun was still up but it wasn�t strong because of the clouds. Walking along the bridge was wonderful. I like walking along there. I met Aishu. When I reached the grounds of the Esplanade, YS was just about to have her dinner, at 7.05pm, so I went down to the Stage Door.

I was wearing my �Once a Saint, Always a Saint.� t-shirt with my cargos to show that I was indeed from SAJC. I had a fear that I wasn�t able to be let through. Before reaching the stage door, I wore my pass around my neck, then walked right through the waiting area, no hitches. Yes! I have made it through!

I headed straight for the washroom. I heard from the corridor 2 dancers going from room to room reminding the other dances to smile and have energy. After that, I walked around in the dressing room area. Many groups of dancers were taking photos. I offered but they just stared at me. Never mind, I continued on my walkabout, just being happy with being able to be there and feel the backstage energy and excitement.
I pushed open one door and entered a small connecting room, pushed open another door and reached the stage area behind the curtains. I found the emcees there, excited and nervous. They were considering whether to do a costume change as previously planned because the other costume was apparently not very nice. I complemented the female emcee on her looks. She looked very pretty.

I then via the connecting room went to the stalls, the seating area on the first floor. I saw Zac and the sound engineer. The sound engineer opened up a small side door that connected the side stalls to the centre stall for Zac to go through. Zac was going to take a photo for WL. Both were on AVA duty. I helped them take the photos of them standing in between 2 spotlights. Since it was before a performance, the theatre and stage were filled with smoke so that the lighting effects would turn out nice. Hence, the 2 spotlights in the VIP stall area formed 2 rays of light fanning out towards the bottom. I finally had something to do. I then followed the 2 of them to an empty sound proof room called the broadcast room where they would film the concert. It was cool. I like walking around in the theatre, through one door into a room, come out and go into another area. It was just fun to explore and be an adventurer.

When I re-entered the dressing room area, I saw a whole cluster of dancers, blocking up the corridor. What were they all doing here? What was happening? MF and I saw each other. I hung around and watched, hiding in a large deliberate bend in the wall (it was a space for the clothes racks). It wasn�t appropriate for me to stand in the middle of the corridor, a high traffic area. It would make me very obvious to everyone. They gathered in a somewhat ring formation, joined hands and prayed for the concert which was going to start in half-an-hour�s time or less. I, in my corner spot, joined them in prayer, praying for God�s blessings to be on them.

When the group split up, I moved in and found HK in front of the plasma TV. We took pictures together with her in her costume. �This (the dance concert) would be the only time you�ll see me so pretty,� said HK. The dancers all looked pretty in their costumes and make-up, except for the guys whom one cannot call pretty, must use the word �handsome�. Hahaha.

The dancers had their pre-performance jitters. I had that too before during �Anne of Green Gables�. Everyone has the jitters. However, for the experienced stage manager and producer, she was calm. Deep down, she was probably feeling excited, not nervous-wrecked.

At 8pm, I heard from a crew member�s walkie-talkie �Open the doors, open the doors now.� The audience was supposed to be seated by 7.45pm but the doors had to be opened later, due to a disagreement with the AVA and the Esplanade people, that was what I heard from the producer. Earlier, while I was at the broadcast room, I heard the Esplanade crewmember notify Zac that the glass panel would rise before the audience entered. The glass panel would prevent all sound from entering the room. The AVA however would need to record both the sound and sights of the performance. No, the agreement with the school was that they would be allowed to film if the glass panel was up�. I know more details but I would not disclose them.

I saw people coming into the theatre. A big crowd.

I positioned myself in front of the TV located near the upstage door, after told not to move around in the high traffic area of the wings. I remembered that I would be blocking other people�s movements and I would be a distraction. The TV I was at was bigger and had better quality images than the TV located nearer the back of the right wing, where I was at. The plasma TV in the dressing room corridor had the best images but there the sound was faint, coming through the walls from the stage. My spot had the best combination of visuals and sound, coming straight from the speakers of the theatre.

The first half of the programme was executed well, with energy and the dancers mostly in synchrony. It was really, really good, near-perfect. The opening item, the Japanese dance, was beautiful. The TJC dancers were professional in their item. The Malay dance was also beautiful, with the candles floating away in the �river�. The first female dancer for that item made a wonderful back arch bridge. The Indian dance, MF and HK�s first item, was a good one, the dancers had fun doing it. One of the girl dancers did backward cartwheels, bending over backwards to reach the ground then lifting her legs over her body, then did a split. Wow. This was the only dance with a costume change where the girls shed their skirts backstage for long white flare pants. The girls� top was quite revealing but fortunately they had body suits. All the SA girl dancers had body suits so that they could change in the wings. MT would have loved the contemporary classical dance where they wore �blindfolds� where the dance began without music deliberately. I also enjoyed �On The House� which was well-choreographed. The choreography for Rapture! was done by a talented outside choreographer and some of the dancers as well. The dance done with an a capella song was had an interesting choice of music and was interesting in the dance too. I can�t remember all the dances. There were 18 of them in total.

During the intermission, I was finally able to stretch my legs, after standing for 1 hour in front of that TV. I had a can of 7-Up which left me with many burps and a painful fizzed-up nose. I helped the TJC dancers take group photos, pushing myself against the wall to reduce shake.

I mistook the final call as the 5-minute bell, missing the beginning of the 2nd half. I wanted to see the beginning pose of the �school boys�, one of them MF, lazing about at the edge of downstage centre. I missed a good portion of the item, titled �Made in Sin�, a dance with a Singaporean theme, with songs about Singapore used. It was a humourous performance, with executed with enthusiasm. After that, the energy level dropped by a large amount. It was worrying! The dancers were getting out of sync and didn�t execute the movements fully. I was genuinely worried. In the dance about marriage the 2 girls who entered with flower bouquets didn�t do the full pose where one leg points straight up into the air while they put the flowers on the ground to form a straight split. The breakdancing bit of one dance was done with little energy. Only the Cheong Sam dance had slightly more energy than the other dances, but less than �Made in Sin�. Fortunately, the NUS dance, with the dancers fresh, had a lot of energy, raising the energy level. The teacher�s dance wasn�t executed properly, with the lead dancer dancing too fast. But then again, they were teachers. Fortunately, for the finale before the �Presidents� Dance�, the energy was up again. It was the final dance for most of the dancers, done to a fun song. I love that song. They really had fun. For the Presidents� Dance, the outside choreographer, Zaqi, if that is how his name his spelt, danced alone on the stage, joined by the past presidents and maybe current presidents of the SAJC Dance Society, dancing to a backdrop of photographs of last year�s Rapture! and other photos of the Dance Society. Each of the presidents had a short solo dance with the others remaining still, done to the backdrop of their face, name and year of presidency. They were really good dancers. The photograph show began and ended with a photo of a sunset, with the dancer�s final pose, it was just beautiful.

During the finale dance, I was singing along quietly, mostly mouthing the words �You can�t stop the Motion of the Ocean� and �You can�t stop the beat�. I wore my shoes which I took off earlier to relieve my foot and back pains and carried my bag. During the curtain call, I was silently clapping and cheering, but I made a bit more noise than before. I was no longer going to observe the rule of silence in the wings. When the stage lights were turned off fully, I turned around, shifting my gaze from the TV after 2 hours in total, and ran straight for the stage, calling out for HK. I cheered at the end of the dancers� cheer and found HK. I nudged her in the arm with my fingers. She turned around and upon seeing me with my arms towards her, screamed,�Aah!� and we embraced each other tightly. I was SO happy for her! I found MF somewhere behind her moving in my direction because the dancers were heading straight for the dressing rooms.(While I was in the washroom after the show I heard Mrs Chia the dance teacher going from room to room to tell them that they had half an hour to clear the premises.) I extended my hand for a handshake, saying loudly �Congrats man!� He grabbed my hand, shaking it hard and vigorously, saying loudly� Thanks!� beginning a short competition of who can shake harder, ending up with both of us jumping while shaking hands. I could feel the excitement and the pure joy that the dancers felt. I remember that feeling too after AOGG. I also shook hands with the emcees to congratulate them.

Here is why the dancers and everyone else who were involved in Rapture! felt like this:

You�ve made it. You have worked so hard for so long. You have gone through all the hard work, the fun and the pains to reach this day. You have just performed as part of the big show called Rapture. And now that the show has just ended, we are not going to care if anything has gone wrong during the performance, all we care is that you have done it, you have just presented Rapture! Congrats!!!

After that, I met YS at the lobby. Mum was going to fetch her home. We bumped into Jason outside Mrs Field�s, looking good in his long-sleeved pinstripe navy blue shirt. We chatted with him for a while. He managed to get a good seat on Circle 1 while Yan Shan got a poor seat on Circle 3. The worst seat however, is at the back row of Circle 2. I sat there during a re-enactment of Queen. The view there is very restricted, worse than Circle 3 where the restriction is less. I sat on Circle 3 during the Sound of Music. This was YS�s first time at the Esplanade. I told Jason, twice, that I was not seating with anyone in the theatre but standing backstage watching TV. He didn�t bring a flower for his girlfriend who performed. Yan Shan and I chatted about Rapture! at the taxi stand while waiting for Mum.

This morning, I re-read the reply messages to my SMSes to the 2 dancers. On Thursday I had wished them �Good Night!� since it had ended at about 9.30pm for them. I packed the equipment at 9.20pm. On Friday I wished them again �Congrats!�. It�s now 4.16pm and I am still in a daze.

Oh. And I still haven�t talked about Thursday. Never mind for now. My eyes need a break!

and i've got a lot more to say.