Olympia Theatre is a place that can accommodate up to 1,300 people seated. It is a place I have passed by many times.🎭🎭🎭
There were times I came across crowds at the entrance waiting to get in, which made me wonder what the theatre looked like 🤔🤔🤔
After spending more than 7 hours there yesterday, now I know!
We got in from the back entrance. The stairs going down to the dressing room are narrow and dark. One had to be very careful not to lose the footing 👣👣👣
There weren't many make-up rooms. When I heard there were about 300 people who would go through those crowded rooms before getting on stage, I was amazed 😲😲😲
It wasn't an easy task to run an event that had that much attendance: 1,300 audience plus 300 performers.
It was quite an evening! The show was called Gala de la Fête du Printemps 2024 organized by Alliance Des Associations Chinoises du Quebec.
It started around 7:30 and was still on when we left around 10 pm, we were able to watch some before and after our performance. To be honest, some are quite good 👍👍👍
We had a famous singer from China to sing for us. It was very impressive.
We performed a dance called 布谷春韵💃💃💃
We danced our socks off (literally, barefoot, in a few cases, the front of the socks was cut open for safety).
After a dance that was just a bit shy of 4 minutes, we had to catch our breath.
But we did it! We had fun (just like the image and video shown below).
There might be an error here or there but we pulled it off.
We are proud of ourselves, despite the short preparation time (a month or so) and uneven dance level of each person (there are ten of us). We made it by practicing once or twice a week, watching videos over and over, and by team leaders' patient teaching, we achieved what we wanted to achieve.
We performed the whole piece, on the central stage, in front of a thousand people, without losing our bowls🥣🥣🥣
A special shout-out goes to our Capitain Lily Huang who cut short her vacation and returned to help us with all the logistics and tedious little things.
I experienced the team spirit. I feel that we have all improved a lot since day one and we come a long way!
Hats off to ALL OF YOU!
Now we had to put this behind us and start preparing for our next Sunday's performance at Place des Arts:
It was a show I used to be among the audience a few times including last year.
Next Sunday evening, we will be on the central stage, under the spotlight and shine!
Cheers to ALL OF US!
