Another lion king blog

Here i go again,going off on one of my lion king rampages...for anyone who hates lion king..I'm sorry i advise you not to read. I actually havnt spoken about my obsession this year...i dont think. So now is a perfect time to write again.
Well today i wanted to write about the dance i done with the YA in the fall and yes i have spoken about this dance many a time before but i just felt i wanted to write more about it...about the guy i learnt the dance from and the whole experience that time.

Everytime i dance the Lion king with the young Americans i feel something different, i change a little inside...another piece of my heart is opened up...my head is clearer...but oh my gosh...the last workshops i took, i flew to Germany, i literally have never seen a more amazing cast, or more, i have never trusted a group of people enough to let them in like i did with them...I mean even the company director oh my gosh (Tina) I loved her to hell and back, and it broke my heart inside when i had to say goodbye, just as it does with the YA. People always seem to overlook the director, well both Tina and I had our last workshop in Gotha which is a beautiful town that  fell in love with, and the kids were incredible...and there is this medley dedicated to the world, to working together to create something beautiful....and I was watching Tina the entire time, and in the end i was like 'screw it!!!!' and asked for her to come sing with us all, it was literally the best feeling ever, the best. NEVER BE AFRAID..even if you hands are shaking...and your faith is broken,...even as the eyes are closing, do it with a heart wide open. Don't be afraid. It's ok.
But Tina was beautiful, she touched my heart and..wow...she was like the perfect director for such a perfect cast...
Where i do so much performing arts stuff, I'm used to working with lots of different people and moving on and never really seeing them again and i deal with that pretty well.  I mean my heart will break at the time but i get over it pretty quickly...well...i still miss this cast..more than ever i still miss this cast with every fibre of my being, whenever I'm having a shit day (often recently), i always try to look back..at what that cast taught me.
I'm gonna try SO hard to take all of it into the workshop i am taking next month..although physically i am so ill right now, i don't even know if i will cope with workshop...but if i am ok..if i manage to not faint, or end up crying I'm in so much pain with my stomach haha..then i will try and give it all i have.
This cast...( I love how i go off subject all the time because i have so much to say) I couldn't ask to have met better people...in the worst of situations i cope so much better..When Topper died in december, i cuddled into my little irish man at the stables and gave him a hug (that horse is my life)...instead of being stupid over something that was indeed just a part of the circle of life...My butterfly tattoo, instead of self harming all the time...i consider all that cast to be a part of that butterfly...they all mean that much to me.
OK..I'm gonna actually do the blog i came to do....first of all i would like to dedicate this to a girl who helped me a lot and her little baby Maisie...for the meaning of lion king..I hope this brings you strength. love you.
So I danced this dance with Rob this time (and with this amazing other boy who i think was called tom..i'm 20 in a week or so my brain cells are dying i can't remember!!!) and it was perfect because i knew the dance from previous stick dances, so i really got to focus on the meaning behind the dance and song even more than ever. I remember Rob saying to me something along these lines.

'The best of the sticks like you already said is the heartbeat, now we start that heartbeat, thats why your centre sticks, that why i picked you i think you are the strongest in the workshop. We are going to go out there and dance from within us...' Well...even in rehearsal i cried every single time, and the best bit, i felt different every time..thats what i love about dance, most of all lyrical, it has so much power and so much soul.  The first time i learnt the dance (this is to shadowlands btw) Emma taught me that it was a story....going through something hard in your life and getting to your lowest of lowest and coming back up again...(and yet again i'm crying my eyes out this always happens!) Everytime i try to reflect that within my movement...and when i'm up on that stage in front of people i just want to give the message, and the fall cast taught me not to give a TOSS what people thought, or how much of a bad dancer i am just to dance..The best moment came when Nartan took my hand and said i danced the entire Lion King medley with such passion and such heart, like oh my gosh that just meant a lot..the trying not to cry thing was a struggle then too..When he said he could see the whole story i was telling from within my eyes...that meant more to me than anything else ever...

I just want to explain the heartbeat thing and this Maisie is where it becomes a message for you and you mum. When i was in workshop, i learnt the heartbeat was what kept all us all together, the heart beat made us one.. and one i keep with me, is that no matter where i go i will still have my heart beating along with all the people i was blessed to dance that dance with. Even the kids who i didn't take workshop with, from that dance i was taught, we are all connected in a circle of life...even when our time on earth is over, as long as a heartbeat, somewhere remains, that person/loved one never dies..NEVER...Their heart beats though YOUR heart.
'They live in you, They live in my, their watching over, everything we see, in every creature, in every star..in your reflection they live in you.'
The circle of life is the most beautiful concept ever...it gives me hope i will see my grandad again, the man who was my father to me. It gives me hope i will see my friends i've lost again and all the little animals, as insignificant as they may be to others, anything that meant a lot to me..it gives me hope i will see them again.
To me..i now believe that nothing is ever final  and that no matter if someone in body is gone, it does not mean they have to be gone. I mean my grandad is here more than ever, and theres this beautiful YA called Gweedo who passed away in 2006, he is still very much alive..because the people who loved him keep him alive and pass his story on.
From this blog i wanted to show how much this dance means, again...i mean, i learnt to accept death though the young americans...i learnt to let go, i learnt goodbyes are sometimes the only way to go, i learnt we are all one. i learnt we are connected, i learnt the real meaning behind lion king and the circle of life ( i will like cry every time i see lion king...i went to see it in London a month or so back, i was crying pretty much the entire way though...WOW...so much power...
LIFE LOVE LIFE LOVE LIFE LOVE They need each other. and remember what i said just because someone is not here in body does not mean they are no longer alive anymore. As long as they live on within your heart...they are alive too...
Please take this blog and understand what i am saying...I actually love you all just for reading this, just for taking time to read this...
I wish you 525,600 minutes of everything you could ever want..  xxxx
PS: added is the video of the stick dance i was talking about and for those who know what I'm like watch me...just watch me..im actually at the front this time, and I'm jot trying to hide...im not running away and oh my gosh the passion i am putting into it, i was gobsmacked when i watched it back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0lFkn7S8GE&lc=5kSuQO6l26P7xFiUU2HkJAPNIMH2fvnIFwbgp-jiggo&feature=inbox

PPS: Please PLEASE check out the YA website and see what they can offer, they really do change lives so much, as you can read here...and that dance bear in mind that was one part of the show which they taught to hundreds of kids who spoke german in two days...im just crying again thinking about it..if you know ANYWHO who will benefit from the incredible opportunity then please get in touch....(with them not me that would be pointless and i never check my mail. www.youngamericans.org i am sure thats right, if not google and it will pop up right away  :)

Lion King at west end :)

SO I FINALLY GOT TO SEE LION KING!!! yayayayay ok i need to calm it down so i can just say everything i need to say because im gonna have trouble doing it anyway because there is just so much and half of it i do not know where to even begin with it neither do i know how to start explaining. Well, let's just put it this way, it was breathtaking, from the second the lights went down and that first spotlight came up i was hooked...glued to the end of my seat with my eyes and heart full of wonder and amazement. This show, well i don't think anything can compare with it, and there are other musicals that still remain up top there for me, wicked, rent, and close behind les mis...but the lion king is right up there. I first of all start kicking myself when i first arrived, as we had these awesome seats where we could literally see EVERYTHING that was going on, on every aspect of the stage but the dumbass i was, i forgot my glasses and i literally am terrible with distance without them...i was sitting there thinking FUCK...but then i realised that i actually had a pair of binoculars in the seat in front of me so i was able to put some money into it and grab a pair of them. Lifting them up to my eyes i got to see even more of the show, i found myself captivated and drawn into the story, into the lives of these animals on stage, and let me tell you, the costumes are amazing, many times i forgot there were actually human beings up on that stage and not real animals, and i think for me anyway, that added to the entire magic that came with being at this show :)  This show left me feeling such an array of emotions there were times i were laughing so hard that i was practically laying on the floor, and at the same time, there were the times when i was crying cuddled up to my sister...The lion king really is powerful and i urge anyone reading this to go see it.  I am lucky to have got my ticket free but i would pay up to go see it again without a second doubt. It applies for all ages to, the group of friends i was with, ranged between 15 and 21, and we all thought it was spectacular....then there was an old couple sitting behind up, whom said the same thing, a young couple sitting on my other side, who i heard say 'wow best present ever' and there were two little children in the row in front...i would say no older than 6, and thats maximum and they were having the time of their lives, the loved every minute of it...i think that...for the kids seeing it all on stage makes their disney movies real for them, it helps them believe in dreams and gives hope, which i think is a very good thing to be teaching todays youth. They may be too young to understand the story underneath all the bright colors, and vibrant dances full of energy and sound, but then that is the part for the older children and for the adults...thats what i love about the lion king....it teaches all ages....every generation has a chance to grow from the message given though this show.

This morning i found out that my friend helen's friend was the guy who would be playing adult simba, and this made me super excited even more so because it meant i could feel some sort of connection, it's hard to explain it really is...but it's like, i felt pride for him because i know Helen, and from what she has told me he is a wonderful man, who deserves this chance more than anyone. He took my breath away from the first moment he walked on stage the energy literally rocketed and i didn't even think it could do that anymore lol! At the end of this song it was the interval and i text Helen to say to let her friend know he was awesome, and she told me to wait till i heard him sing endless night which is a song that always gets me emotional anyway (for personal reasons) and oh my gosh, i couldnt speak, no words can come to me when i try to explain what i saw and heard on that stage..no feelings can begin to go there..i felt every single word that that man on stage sung, he had such a presence about him...i couldnt even breathe through my tears.....pure magic.... 

But just oh my gosh....i loved every second of it, and saying what i said about endless night, well that goes for the entire show but that song just grabbed me more than it ever had before..it really was amazingly performed...I actually could write forever about the show, but i'm never going to find the right words simply because there are not any...it was epic..

Right, so on our way back home Katie decided she was hungry, (I'm so super jealous she can eat like a horse and yet still remain incredibly beautiful and slim, how she does it is beyond me. But we popped into tescos to fill up :) We decided to walk back though Covent Garden on the way back to the underground and oh my gosh i am now so hyper about winter wonderland which i am hoping to go to...if i am ok with the immense amount of people there but just like...Covent Garden in defiantly my favourite place in all of London and at Christmas, and at night nonetheless, it is even more beautiful :) HA! and then my klutz of a sister Alice decided to fall down the stairs at the station on our way back she just slipped, landed on her arse and dissolved into fits of laughter, closely followed by Katie and I who were on the floor next to her laughing equally as hard....i think everyone else found it funny, but not as funny as we seemed to find it.

As we jumped on the train coming home we were greeted with 'hell yeah we've got us some bitches and sluts' apparently it's Irish tradition to get drunk on the tube and try and hit on girls haha! So we were singing if your happy and you know it with them and they were doing this crazy dance with it whilst remaining sitting down and holding their drink! When we got off at the next stop they followed haha, but then were getting on another train (thanks the one slightly more sober one telling the others they were not going to follow us home!) so after going round kiss everyone goodbye, including trying it on with dean which i loved haha! We were off again minus our new found Irish friends!.. Then when we changed again at Liverpool street there was this Irish guy in the underground playing his flute *prompt the irish dancing* i will try and get a video of that up at some point, so bear with me on that! I actually love the Irish he was so friendly bless him! Defiantly was to go to Ireland now please!  Alice and Katie are irish so if they ever go home i guess i'll pop back with them haha....or i hope anyway :) Then on the way home we literally sung the entire way and even got the train joining in with us which was awesome, much to deans embarrassment....all we got from him was... 'i've had them for 7 hours, dont encourage them more' so of course that made the 'audince' join in more...although Dean was laughing which didn't help, he personally loved it i know :) 

But wow such an awesome evening, i really did enjoy myself. :) <3

Lion king dance

'It's the circle of life, and it moves us all, though despair and hope, though faith and love..till we find our way on the path unwinding, in the circle of life.....'

So here is the link i was promising ages ago for the video to the lion king dance i done with the Young Americans. I know that i've written alot of blogs about the lion king in the past, and it's music, and lyrics will still remain a huge part of my life and heart no matter where i go.  THIS was the dance that changed my life. 
I wanted to share it with my readers because i think you are all amazing and you deserve to see a dance that is, so so beautiful in many ways. 
I love how i am always at the back with things, i always want to be at the back but for the lion king i actually dont mind being up the front because it means that i get to show to the audience what the song really means, although in many other ways it can mean anything, something different for every person.
In the video im up the front most of the time although THANK GOD its not good quality ( i think the lighting was incorrect when filming) because i looked a bloody mess, i was crying so much it was unreal.
But yeah, enjoy, this is the Young Americans, Fall cast 2011 in Kassel performing the lion king.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0lFkn7S8GE&feature=channel_video_title