I bounced over to the red velvet back drop and offered the weary fellow a sympathetic smile. Nothin. So... I did what every high school cheerleader does when a photo is about to be take. Hand placed on hip? Check. Hip popped? Check. Head tilted? Double check. And... SMILE! Quick. Easy. Painless. Well, I at least looked less awkward than this poor person who looked like they were suffering from severe constipation. Probably just nerves...
So after everyone had taken the "tattoo walk of shame", we were instructed to spread out so we could learn the next set of choreography. Now I will confess to you that I was scared that this dance would consist of prima ballerina moves. You know, "First you're going to À la seconde into a chasse' into a grand jete' ".. that kind of stuff. the choreographer stepped to the front, looked us dead in the eye, and informed us that the dance would be ten 8-counts long. Ten. 8-counts. Long. Now, for those who may not be as familiar with dancing, for an audition dance, that is long. I was a cheerleader. Most of my dances were eight 8-counts at most. So this was going to be a challenge. I sucked in a breath of air and let it out. I planned on meeting this challenge head on.
We began. The learning process was as follows: "ok, here is the first 8-count. Repeat. Got it? Ok, moving on!" There was no mercy. None. The first three 8-counts were pretty easy. More complicated than the parade dance, but I did it with no problems. After that... my fear was confirmed. He started speaking in French that was occasionally interrupted by an English word or two such as "French word, French word, TURN!, French word, French word, NOW WITH THE MUSIC!" Wait, what? What just happened?
At this point, many people, including some of the males, were distressed. Ok, I noticed a couple of tears. I was almost included in the tears category. I don't like not being able to do things. But I bucked up. This is Disney; they are going to be looking for a smile at all times. So we proceeded to do the dance to the music (hahaha more like shuffle and slide around like newborn horses and hit the ending pose). Now there were about three people (including the no-nonsense Rockette girl) who rocked the dance. They could kick their feet all the way up to the back of their heads, the whole bit. I'm pretty sure there was a group of girls conspiring in the back to murder them after the auditions were over, but I'm sure I was mistaken!
We ran through the dance two more times, and then we moved on to the animation sequence. This was the saving grace to all the "newborn horses" in the group, myself included. We were given two scenes: "At the Beach" and "Washing Your Dog". We had to perform an 8-count long mime scene, doing whatever came to mind. We just had to include a beginning, a middle, and an end, all wrapped around something funny. It sounded pretty simple. We practiced a few times, but soon found out that it wasn't as easy as it sounded. We had to over exaggerate EVERYTHING. Literally. If we were putting on sunscreen during our "At the Beach" scene, the sunscreen bottle had to be bigger than us. If we were laying a towel out, that towel had to be as heavy as a sheet of metal. Little things like that make the scene.
Now I wanted to stand out. I didn't want to surf or lay out on the beach.. everyone else was doing that. I said a quick prayer to the Lord, asking for an idea. Immediately a though popped into my head: chasing crabs. That's it! I'll spot a few crabs on the beach, and chase them around; I'll pick one up and it will pinch my finger- there's the comedy aspect. Perfect. So I pantomimed like I had never pantomimed before.. I actually never had pantomimed anything before.. but it was fun! It was like acting like a four year old in public, but it was completely socially acceptable!
It took about 45 minutes all and all to rehearse everything. Then we were told what the final audition would be like. We would be in groups of five- only the five who were auditioning would be in the room with the judges. A song would start playing, and we would begin scene number one, "At the Beach" , at the end of the scene, we would do the dance. Then we would do do scene number two, "Washing Your Dog", and repeat the dance one more time, and it was over.
Everyone went into the holding room, waiting for their number to be called. Meanwhile, the people who had the dance down helped the rest of us. I had just gotten in place to practice the dance, when my number was called. I was in the first group to audition. Great... good-bye practice time! I took a deep breath. I didn't know the dance past the first three 8-counts.. so my only hope was to absolutely kill the pantomiming. The five of us walked into the audition room. The judges looked about as cheerful as this...
We began. The learning process was as follows: "ok, here is the first 8-count. Repeat. Got it? Ok, moving on!" There was no mercy. None. The first three 8-counts were pretty easy. More complicated than the parade dance, but I did it with no problems. After that... my fear was confirmed. He started speaking in French that was occasionally interrupted by an English word or two such as "French word, French word, TURN!, French word, French word, NOW WITH THE MUSIC!" Wait, what? What just happened?
At this point, many people, including some of the males, were distressed. Ok, I noticed a couple of tears. I was almost included in the tears category. I don't like not being able to do things. But I bucked up. This is Disney; they are going to be looking for a smile at all times. So we proceeded to do the dance to the music (hahaha more like shuffle and slide around like newborn horses and hit the ending pose). Now there were about three people (including the no-nonsense Rockette girl) who rocked the dance. They could kick their feet all the way up to the back of their heads, the whole bit. I'm pretty sure there was a group of girls conspiring in the back to murder them after the auditions were over, but I'm sure I was mistaken!
We ran through the dance two more times, and then we moved on to the animation sequence. This was the saving grace to all the "newborn horses" in the group, myself included. We were given two scenes: "At the Beach" and "Washing Your Dog". We had to perform an 8-count long mime scene, doing whatever came to mind. We just had to include a beginning, a middle, and an end, all wrapped around something funny. It sounded pretty simple. We practiced a few times, but soon found out that it wasn't as easy as it sounded. We had to over exaggerate EVERYTHING. Literally. If we were putting on sunscreen during our "At the Beach" scene, the sunscreen bottle had to be bigger than us. If we were laying a towel out, that towel had to be as heavy as a sheet of metal. Little things like that make the scene.
Now I wanted to stand out. I didn't want to surf or lay out on the beach.. everyone else was doing that. I said a quick prayer to the Lord, asking for an idea. Immediately a though popped into my head: chasing crabs. That's it! I'll spot a few crabs on the beach, and chase them around; I'll pick one up and it will pinch my finger- there's the comedy aspect. Perfect. So I pantomimed like I had never pantomimed before.. I actually never had pantomimed anything before.. but it was fun! It was like acting like a four year old in public, but it was completely socially acceptable!
It took about 45 minutes all and all to rehearse everything. Then we were told what the final audition would be like. We would be in groups of five- only the five who were auditioning would be in the room with the judges. A song would start playing, and we would begin scene number one, "At the Beach" , at the end of the scene, we would do the dance. Then we would do do scene number two, "Washing Your Dog", and repeat the dance one more time, and it was over.
Everyone went into the holding room, waiting for their number to be called. Meanwhile, the people who had the dance down helped the rest of us. I had just gotten in place to practice the dance, when my number was called. I was in the first group to audition. Great... good-bye practice time! I took a deep breath. I didn't know the dance past the first three 8-counts.. so my only hope was to absolutely kill the pantomiming. The five of us walked into the audition room. The judges looked about as cheerful as this...
..so I felt pretty confident. ;) Anyways, the music started. I had no idea what song was playing. But it was annoying. Extremely annoying. I chased some invisible crabs like a dog going after the mailman. I did the first three 8-counts of that danced like my life depended on it, *shuffle shuffle shuffle* HIT END POSE! Then I washed a tiny, invisible dog with some invisible shampoo that smelled like the tears of Jesus. Then I did the dance again, and I owned that end pose. I owned it! Because this is Disney, and at Disney we own things we don't really own!
So that's it. I walked out of that audition with my head up.I had such a great time, meeting new friends, acting like a four year old, and living that expression "dance like no one is watching"... because you will NEVER see me dance like I danced in that audition. :)
A couple of weeks later, I got an email from Disney. All I saw was 'Congra-", and that's all I needed to see. I became this cyclone of happiness. I had been accepted into the program AND I had been offered one of the most difficult positions at Disney to get. Character performer. I've never felt so much pride and joy before. At the same time, I was completely humbled because God had blessed me with a HUGE opportunity. What a gift!
So, finally at the conclusion of my Disney auditions...My advice to anyone who is thinking about doing this... DO IT. Don't think about it. When you are at the audition, don't pause and think about how silly you feel. Guess what? 150 other people feel exactly the same way. And that's what Disney is looking for! The goofiest goof ball who ever goofed the world.
So I now, when people ask what my job is, I get to say, "I'm a Disney character performer". But when I actually get there, I plan on answering, "I make believe." :)
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