Journeys!

Journeys. Was. Amazing.
Journeys? Journeys? What's THAT? The band?
Journeys is an annual benefit for the Melissa's Living Legacy teen cancer foundation, and Teens Living With Cancer (TLC), based in Rochester.
A lot of the nurses and oncologists come, as well as families, friends, and anyone else who wants to attend.
This was my first year. Me and some of the teens from TLC had been working with Lauren Spiker and a whole crew of people, starting some time in August or September, to create a short performance about our own personal experiences with cancer. We each came up with a character to represent cancer and ourselves. The process was really cool, and also sweet, fun, and deep.
We met pretty much every Tuesday evening, and some Saturdays. We spent hours writing, making collages, talking (LOTS of that), recording, learning how to be marionette puppets, thinking, drawing, laughing, contemplating, discovering, reminiscing, tossing ideas around, listening, doing photo shoots, interviews, looking, creating, changing our minds, comparing experiences, supporting each other, and plenty of other stuff.
The people we were working with. Amazing!!!
The PUSH Theater company (http://www.pushtheatre.org) was REALLY fun to work with, and we got so much out of their help choreographing and being in some of our pieces.
We got to work with a photographer, graphic designer, sound engineer, writer, video people, and of course Lauren, who started the group, and Leah, who received the Make A Difference award this year.
Anyway, I could go on forever about the group, and all that, but I'll just put a links to the websites and Facebook group. =)
http://www.melissaslivinglegacy.org/
http://www.teenslivingwithcancer.org/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37673471877&ref=ts

Anyway.
My little piece of the show (we each had about 2 to 3 minutes) was this.
A girl in a snow globe. At first she doesn't know she is in it (Life B.C. =D Thanks, "Side Effects" (Book. Go read it.). She's sitting cross-legged inside, playing a flute. The tune is fairly cheerful, a semi-bouncy jig (one that she's written). As she plays, shadows start coming around the globe, glaring menacingly at her and showing claws. She keeps playing. They crouch around her and watch, she doesn't see them. Then the globe starts to rock, and suddenly shakes and shakes, and is set back down. Snow is falling, but not ordinary snow (or snow globe snow). It's made up of gauze, alcohol prep pads, syringes, needle wrappers, parking passes, biohazard bags, numbers, and words like "Hematocrit" and "Platelets". She tries to keep playing flute through it, but the notes falter, and stop. She looks up at the things falling on her, and grabs, reaches, shields herself, and is even a bit curious. Slowly she picks up her flute again, and starts playing a low, minor, slow, gentle (but firm) tune. She falters at first, but eventually picks up confidence, and the shadows start backing away. The "snow" has started to settle around her, though there is still plenty falling. Some of it is sticking to her, some is just brushing past her, and some is missing her entirely.
And that's sort of where I'm at now.
But wow, going back and reading that, I see how dramatic it makes me sound. Not everything works out quite as easily as it sounds. I hope I captured it more at the performance.
So. PUSH members were the shadows. They were brilliantly menacing and shadow like. =)
I really did play my flute, almost as I described it there. And when the stuff starts falling, the shadows dropped handfuls of gauze on me. The rest of the stuff was done through animation!
That part was really cool. We all spent two meetings at Penfield High School, with Dave, in the computer lab (something like 20 Macs, it was great). We used "Motion" for my piece. And he found a snow animation effect! And we could use images as the snow instead of little white smudges. So I brought in a bag full of random stuff I'd collected. All that stuff I mentioned earlier, and more (never did use the syringes, though). And I scanned them in, and dropped each one into the program. Overlapped them, started them and stopped them in different places, played with sizing and quantity... It was fun.
And then we took a video of a snow globe being shaken (Lauren brought one, and it only had one little statue thing in it, which Dave managed to take out (the globe was a bit leaky after that, but it still worked).
He put together the finished video, and it was projected onto a screen on the stage, like everyone else's. Oddly enough, I still don't know exactly how the video looks, because I couldn't see it while I was on the stage, and there wasn't really time before, since we were all pretty busy. But I hear it's pretty nifty. =)
Dan, the sound guy, did little recording sessions with each of us. Everyone recorded themselves reading the pieces they'd written, though in my case I played flute. Played long tones, low-ish notes, and some where I was trying to sound shaken up. We also did a little talking piece, basically for me to describe my story.
Then he put everything together, used some cool effects and overlaps, to make this eerie soundtrack of random words (I had been describing all the stuff falling on me), eerie flute tones, and the sound of water dropping and swirling. So that was playing during the snow globe shake up, and after, so I was kind of harmonizing with myself when the shadows were leaving. It was so cool!

Everything really came together, right at the end. It was hard, because there was SO much material to choose from. We changed our minds so many times, and the stories twisted, transformed, and got tighter and tighter every week. It was really cool getting to see the creative process like that, and getting to know each other while we were at it.

One of the big highlights for me was the photo shoot. One week we met at Carrie's studio, and created our costumes. Mine was a long sleeved black leotard with black pants.
Simple, right?
NOT. Catherine and I used Steri Strips to attach all sorts of junk to me. Like cotton swabs, hospital measuring paper, alcohol prep pads, biohazard bag fragments, masks, gauze galore, and a syringe attached to a tube wrapped around my arm (Jessie, my home care nurse, let me raid her supplies for all sorts of stuff. It was great). Johanna did a fabulous job with my make up. Around my eyes was mostly white, with black, silver, and a little bit of red under them. My lips were half dark red, half shiny gold, but they were split up kind of like a checker board.
The photos came out AWESOME.
I was throwing extra junk into the air, grabbing it, biting it, being scared of it, being fascinated with it, sitting in piles of it, hiding behind it, and ripping it. Then some PUSH people came on, and we had a series where I was covered in random hands, and they were "injecting" stuff into me, supporting me, and surrounding me. We also had a series where they stood off to each side and stretched two pieces of plastic wrap all the way across. I did things like stick my face into it, push my hands forward through it, and eventually I ended up getting wrapped up partly in it.
The last one was with my flute. I sat on the floor "playing" my flute, and some PUSH people lay next to me, out of sight, and put their hands on the flute too, so it looked like I had about 6 hands. Of course, I couldn't resist playing a little bit, which was funny due to the circumstances.
Anyway, I think I'll have the photos soon, which I can't wait for.
I didn't get to see much of anybody else's shoots, but I did get to see some finished products (we each had a poster at the event). They were ALL ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Gorgeous, brilliant, thoughtful, full of attitude and snazz, It was great.

At Journeys.
The whole huge room was set up all fancy and shiny. There was a silent auction, and live music (a small high school jazz group, and I think a high school chamber music group, though I didn't get to see them), and quesadillas that were being made to order right there.
We got to "mingle" for about an hour. It was nice getting to see people in a setting other than the hospital. We mobbed Eric, the awesome social worker who arranges all sorts of things, and is just really... awesome. Anyway, we mobbed him to find out if he knew any exciting/interesting places in the hospital that we could include in the hospital jaunt that we're planning. We want to find that tunnel again (I told them about the painting on the wall), and possible visit an old office that is supposed to be cool, and of course visit 4-1400, the unit that we were all in at one point.

Then we went back to our lovely lounge and got ready. For my make up Heather did a really nice, kind of subtle gold and black thing with my eyes, and I didn't do lipstick because lipstick and flutes just don't mix. :)

My costume was just all black, which was enough because of the stuff being dropped on me.
Everyone's costumes were so well done. Paige with Dorothy, a Dorothy-ish dress, rainbow striped socks, impressive red high heels, and a cool head scarf. Jessica was all out glamour, with a sparkling dress, long blond wig, fish nets, and plenty of glitter. Bryn's show, with sequined dress, arm fishnets, shiny gold leggings, and awesome top hat. Micaela's angels, with a pretty pastel colored dress and scarf, with light blue eye makeup. Bethany's safeness, looking wonderfully cozy and comfy. Brittany's soccer cleats, with her Live Strong hoodie, soccer shorts, socks, and shoes. Amber's two sided person, with her blue overalls, white dress, and amazing pink eye makeup. And Leah's boat, with her night gown, gigantic green rain boots, and green makeup.
You girls, you're amazing. <3

Eventually it was time to wait backstage, in the little creepy-ish "green room". We sat in there and tried to feel ready, some of us whispering, joking, or just being quiet with our eyes closed. We passed a squeeze or two around the circle, thanks to Bryn for suggesting it. Once it got started, everything went pretty quickly (unlike at the dress/tech rehearsal earlier that day, of course. ;P ). We noticed how much the mood was in the air, just by stepping part way up the steps to the stage.
It was incredibly emotional, for lots of people, in different ways.

One by one, we went out, performed our piece, and came back. I was near the end, though before Bryn and Paige. For some reason I wasn't really nervous. I stood in the wings, as Bethany was on. I hung on to my flute, and blew air through to warm it up. Then the stage was empty. I walked out and sat down center stage. Picked up my flute and started playing "The Icy Drive", a tune I wrote a while ago. The lights were bright, I could barely see all those faces. But I could see the candles, their little flames sprinkled all over the place, one at every table. And of course the little red lights of the camcorders. :)
The shadows crept onstage, circled around me, crouched. I kept going, ignoring them at first. I played about one and a half times through the tune, but then they had stood up, and started dropping gauze on me. I could barely hear the sound effects. I tried to keep playing, but faltered, and stopped. Anyway, it was basically the same as my description earlier.
I was having such a good time, sitting there playing flute while stuff was dropped on me.

I guess in a way I'd missed being on stage, with real lighting and everything. I was diagnosed about 2 weeks before my last dance recital ever (we do recitals every other year, alternating with a tech year), so I didn't get my stage fix this year.
It went really fast. I had a bit of a hard time standing up, since my balance is still a little iffy, and I was holding my flute, but I managed. Carried my flute off-stage, but stayed in the wings.
There's more about the next pieces, and stuff, but I'm tired, so I'll post this and write the rest later. :)