To Your Health
November, 2007 (Vol. 01, Issue 11) |
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From 7-8 p.m., I take a yoga class to clear my mind and focus. I balance out my body by stretching, strengthening and warming up. Then I put on my make-up, do my hair and get in costume.
At 8:30 p.m., the show begins. During the encore song, whether I need it or not, I stick my legs in an ice bucket up to my knees for 5-10 minutes. Then I go on stage and take my bow. That's the end of my day.
What did it take for you to become a dancer and later, a dance captain for "A New Day"?
The first step was auditioning. Auditions were held around the world, and I auditioned in Las Vegas. We rehearsed for nine months, the first five months of which were in Belgium. This was an amazing period of time. It was a big, creative world for us - we danced and trained in everything you can imagine from bungee to trampoline, gymnastics, percussion and singing. The director, Franco Dragone, wanted well-rounded dancers who could do all sorts of things because he didn't know what the show would be yet. We just played and created. I felt like a kid at summer camp doing all of these artistic, athletic and adventurous activities.
We then brought the show to Las Vegas for four months, working directly on the stage. The stage is a beast in itself. It's at an incline, called a "rake," which completely changes your center of gravity and how we normally work. We took all that creative material and tried to put it on stage and found that most of it didn't work because of the incline.
Your director of health services is a doctor of chiropractic, correct?
I believe in taking a proactive approach to maintaining my health, rather than a reactive approach. The health director is a firm advocate of that as well. Our health services department offers us Pilates, massage therapy, physical therapy, as well as chiropractic care. I'm definitely a firm believer in massage therapy to relax my tense muscles and to prepare me for chiropractic adjustments.
When you do a long-running show like this, you're doing the same thing night after night, and like I said, we're on a raked stage. So you can imagine the impact when we land from jumping, how it can change the alignment of your spine around and throw things out of whack.
As a dancer, I'm tremendously aware of my body. I can tell when I'm out of alignment or I don't have the proper range of motion or I feel pain in an extreme range of motion - things that I wouldn't normally feel. I find that chiropractic care is extremely important in maintaining my health. I see my chiropractor once every other week for maintenance, and then as needed. Sometimes I'll throw my head out of alignment from a turn and I'll feel my cervical spine pinching. I'll go to him right away to bring my spine into correct alignment in order to work from a solid foundation again.
