Show Time!

A week has gone by already?!! Tonight is the BIG night! For the past 2 weeks we have been rehearsing for a collaboration show with Balinese students from ISI (Indonesian Art Institute), and we are finally ready! Well, ready is a relative term... For the past 3 evenings we've had rehearsal from 7pm until about 10:30pm plus an hour long drive home (where I inevitably fall asleep in the car, thankfully I am not the driver) so it's been tiring but every moment is fun. We have to drive so far because we are preforming in a small village and local boys from the village are doing our music. The boys look to be from 7 to 12 years old and they all play the gamelan/drums as if they were professionals. We danced for the first time to the music 2 nights ago and said we were sorry we couldn't follow the music (it's very different than the drum we had been rehearsing with) but were told "it's alright, they know it, they'll follow you." Hah! If you've ever seen an American boy playing a video game where he has the entire thing memorized and can do all the hard moves without looking, then you can picture these boys playing their instruments. They stare off, talk with each other, laugh and joke around, all while doing something that took every inch of my attention and patience the week before. Amazing. I'm excited because tonight we will also have traditional costumes and makeup so we have to go very early to put it all on. Members of the village are coming to help us get ready, and I imagine it to be much like the scene from Mulan where they wash and scrub her and paint her face. Our rehearsal last night was in a different village than the performance tonight but it was outdoors. As word got out that we were rehearsing, slowly the entire village was there to watch the rehearsal. When I and the other 3 girls came out to do the legong, the crowd thought it was so funny and laughed and clapped and gave us thumbs up. They got such a kick out of us trying to do their traditional dances, I don't think it matters how good we are at it, they will probably enjoy it regardless (which is very good for us).