My first impression of Serkan was that he was an extremely tightly wound gay Frenchmen. Well, he wasn’t French, he was Arabic. And he wasn’t gay. His wife was one of the more graceful dancers in the Ballet Des Moines company. However, she was more tightly wound than he was, which is saying a lot. (sigh).
Observing this, I thusly begin The Tale of Serkan and the Des Moines Ballet. (Insert cheesy throwing of the dust into the campfire moment)
Preparations were already going on in the HSP Theater throughout the week. I had joined Felix earlier that week to collect some equipment from another venue and to aide him in setting up for the Des Moines Women’s club event going on that Wednesday. All in all, a pretty relaxed atmosphere. Then the remainder of the days that week took an interesting turn.
I returned to HSP to continue to help Felix set up for the performances of the Ballet Des Moines. On my way into the theater, I met a lady sitting on one of the many door stoops, smoking and not really looking like she wanted to be there. Being me, I waved and said, “Good morning.” She didn’t really return the sentiment, but rather did a quick head nod and looked away, clearly not wanting to be disturbed by someone so cheery. I made note of her icy nature and planned to avoid her during the next couple of days. Easier said than done, but I did have to adjust to being glared at strongly for the next few days.
I walked into the theater to find Felix working furiously on the light board. “Good morning, Felix. Where would you like me today?” I asked. He directed me to continue putting imitation street lamps together and plugging them in and making sure they worked. Upon completion of that, I rolled out marley, the specialized rubber floor that dancers use, and various tasks to get the stage of HSP ready for Ballet Des Moines. As the day progressed, different Ballet Des Moines classes were being taught on the stage, which made moving things across the stage increasingly difficult. There were no collisions, luckily for me. It didn’t spare me from being randomly glared at, though. The way I figure it, I was being glared at, because I was working on and crossing their stage.
My interactions with Serkan, the artistic director of Ballet Des Moines, in particular, were unique in that he never once addressed me by name, or by my position, or even at all. I would have settled for a, “Hey You!”, but nothing. He would just come up to me and adjust his own body position so that he was in the center of my vision and start dumping his own worries, anxieties, and questions to me. It’s at this point that I realize that Felix is nowhere to be found and it’s on my shoulders to calm this uptight man. And calm him I did.
I had no reason to doubt what we were doing, so I convinced Serkan that if I wasn’t worried, he shouldn’t be. “Yes, Serkan. It will be done by the time you need it. Yes, Serkan it will look good. Yes, Serkan the lights will be fabulous.” I made the mistake of snickering once in my interactions with him. He turned from slowly-relaxing guy back to everything-is-going-wrong guy before I could speak. He then demanded what was so funny. Was he funny? I quickly told him I remembered a joke from earlier that day and repeated it to him. He calmed down, but he didn’t laugh. He left me to bother another techie about why there were cables and plugs laying around in one particular spot. Like I said, slightly uptight.
The rest of the day went as planned, or at least as someone had planned it. Felix found me and told me that my stagehanding position would be in the fly loft. No problem for me, I thought. I’m used to such.
And it really was no problem. Except for my lack of knot tying/ rope tying skills.
Remember how I said that Hoyt Sherman Place was an antiquated theater? Part of that is very much reflected in the fly loft rigging. Apart from the motorized (a specialized power wrench attached to the drive gear) winch, the fly rail is the exact same system as the theaters of old and even older used. Though, instead of hemp, the rope found in HSP is nylon.
Insert brief history lesson here: Way back when, stagehands were off-season sailors. Sailors who communicated by whistles (there’s a valid superstition about that…) and shouts. The theater mechanics had to accommodate any given sailor at the time, so a lot of the theater workings are not too dissimilar from the workings and mechanics of a ship. In particular, the fly loft, designed very much like the rigging of a ship, has mooring anchors to tie off the various ropes to. In this case, instead of holding nets, cargo, sails, and spare parts, these ropes held scenery and special drop-ins.
As for my lack of knot tying skills, I’ll simply say that tying off the ropes isn’t as easy as it looks, but I did get the hang of it.
I wasn’t nearly as busy as I thought I’d be up in the fly loft. Which worked out in my favor, I think. I got to watch the performance from a unique vantage point. And watching the dancers, both professional and amateur alike, I was in sheer awe of the grace and style they all possessed. I felt very lucky being the one to watch from above. And once again, a bit stronger this time, I felt like Joseph Buquet.
The performances went off without a hitch and Serkan was proud and ecstatic. And relieved. Felix was glad it was over for another year, and I was just glad I got to enjoy one of the oldest arts from one of the oldest arts professions. And I got to learn some simple rigging in the styling of a sailor.
Until next time… Ship up, me hearties. Yo ho! -ACS
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