As Easy as ABC

Watch our video Christmas card HERE

Our last show of the year at Sinner's Burlesque turned out to be a very special one. Every act was performed using The Artiste. 

Skye has took up the baton only a week ago and used her sequencer for the dance routines.  Sanne has been using the Silver for a long time now for sequencing but she has upgraded to the Gold and did her first palette fade on part of the set.  WTG girls!  I am sure we will see some very creative ideas in the coming months and its very thrilling.

Even though I have now been using The Artiste for 3 years (where did the time go?) it's still a buzz to try out something for the first time and get it right.  This time it was the new ABC feature of the Advanced Mover System.  It meant that I could divide the 5 of us up into 3 groups, each with their own sequence.  I chose not to use dances as I thought there was enough going on in the routine already. Instead I wanted to add an accent that would be memorable and so chose poses as a highlight in the dance where it fitted the music.

On the stage we are placed in a subtle V-shape with myself at the point.  I am assigned the A position which in this case was the lead.  Skye and Sanne, either side of me were assigned to B and Pepper and Yummy took C.  

I could have used different poses for each sequence but I had been demonstrating an idea to Yummy, during testing, involving timing offsets.  So instead of differentiating with movement the groups are each offset slightly in time to give a "Mexican Wave" effect.

My polar bear is a palette..in fact he is two palettes, one for the body and one for the head, so that I could get him to shake his head.  As he wasn't going to do that for very long I just used ordinary movements rather than repeated motion.  This also allowed me to make the moves slightly different each time so it had a more natural look.  The quips from the polar bear were just me going "Hang on, what am I doing..penguins are South Pole..."

We did also have a Santa in a sleigh zooming across the sky in the live performance but someone *coughs and looks a bit coy* forgot to send the palette back home between takes :P  *shrugs*  It happens!

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the music was originally from the cast of Glee...but we had to make it sound a bit different for upload so Sterling did his magic.  Just think Penguins, not chipmunks...

I was really pleased with the choreography on this piece, it all fitted together really nicely and I just love the little shoulder shrug just as they come out of the poses.  

So, THANK YOU to everyone who has supported Sinner's and promoted The Artiste in 2015. There is so much fun yet to come and we can all share it together.  I am just thankful to be a part of it all and to be surrounded by such amazing people who inspire me.

Special Thanks to:

Yummy for being such fun to bounce ideas around with..the inside of your mind is my Disneyland!
Sanne and Skye for letting me boss them around on a deadline and being such great fun to work with :)
Sterling for being patient with me and so creative and just...well Sterling!
MJ, Nancy and Zed for flying The Artiste Flag at MJ's Burlesque and letting me perform with them!
Kat Feldragonne for her promotion of The Artiste on her blog and elsewhere :)
The "Sexy Brits" for their incredible support at shows...always love having you guys there!


And many thanks to all of you who have watched our videos, visited the blog, read the FB posts and so much more.  I may not have named you all but your contribution is every bit as valued.

Happy Holidays and a Merry Solstice to all of you and here's to a very exciting 2016.  The best is yet to come!
Much love to you all,

Aura x