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DOG DANCING The Difficult Art of Working as a Group By Emmy Marie Simonsen |
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Dogdancing is dificult. If anyone claims otherwise, it's either due to ignorance or arrogance! It is fun and challenging, and at times almost euphoric, but it is difficult! To unite all elements in perfection (music, the dogs movement and the handlers timing) requires not just training and talent but a good portion of pure luck...and yet for some all this is not enough...there is always someone who wants to aspire higher and do just that little bit more....
In our case it was at the Border Collie Clubs dogdancing competition in October 2005...We were going to show the world how we would perform a fantastic dogdancing routine - but we wanted more than just a single dog and handler to do it - we were going to achieve this as a group...how hard could that be??? Just because there would be 3 dogs in the ring at the same time....
Actually the entire process started long before October. And in the beginning we were 2, not 3. It started in a cold riding hall filled with barking dogs and agility equipment. Jannie was playing with her tri sheltie, Cody. I was watching them and I realised that Cody's working style was similar to my border collie Whisper's. So why not make the most of it? Jannie and I decided on the spot to create a duo in dogdancing for the competition 10 months later...
We were extremely enthusiastic and talked on the phone for hours to find a piece of music we could compromise on. We chose an instrumental from the soundtrack "Sisters Act". It was a great piece of music - beautiful and dramatic all in the same package...Unfortunaltely we failed miserably in our attempts to learn it by heart and as a result we were incapable of remembering it from one training session to the next. On one occasion we listened to it for 1 ½ hours solid on a trip north to visit my puppy at the breeders. Yet despite this - WE STILL COULDN'T REMEMBER THE TUNE!!! This did not fase us. Like true soldiers we met on a regular basis to coreograph and practise. We had fun, but at length it was a bit tedious having to start from scratch each time because we couldn't remember the routine or the music...We never made it past the first 30 seconds of the music...But Whisper and Cody learnt a multitude of fantastic moves. We thought up new moves each time we met and our dogs learned quickly how to do the moves - but we never ended up with a complete routine. Our enthusiasm faded slowly in indirect proportion to the length of time that passed between our practise sessions - in the end we felt very guilty each time we met because we had no routine - and weren't even training for one anymore.
This is the point were we were saved from further misery...
Johanna and her merle border collie Spooky asked if they could join the duo
to become a trio :-).
As Jannie and I were not becoming budding stars with our dream show we had
planned everso meticulously we could see no reason for us not to invite them
to join. So now even though the three of us were even more psyched to win
the competition - we didn't actually get to the basics - the training!!!!
All 3 of us work, and Johanna and myself work odd hours so it wasn't easy
to find time to practise.
A month before the competition we actually began to realise
that there was no time to lose. We had already sent our entries and chosen
a (new) piece of music - so we only lacked a few insignificant details:
1. A choreography
2. Train 3 dogs to work in harmony
3. To learn the routine
4. To teach our dogs the moves we had chosen
5. To practise together so we could syncronise the parts needing syncronising.
PIECE OF CAKE!!!!!
To sum it up: 1 month before the competition we started
talking about doing something about it.
22 days before the competition we actually did something!!! I was designated
choregrapher for "Danser Med Drenge's" beautiful song "Vi skal
nok får gjort en mand ud af dig". It is a wonderful piece of music
with great lyrics about life at Sorø Academy's boarding school in the
1960's. It wasn't particularly easy to interpret so I was grasping at any
morsel that could fit into our routine and make sense. Jannie and Cody were
cast as the new kid - frightened and homesick. Johanna and I cast ourselves
as the thugs - who made life rough for her. It proved unnecassary for us to
rehearse for our bully roles - we were naturals ;o). The dead poets in their
graves were illustrated by Spooky and Whisper - playing dead by lying on their
backs. " The hand that strikes in the name of wisdom" was shown
by us lifting our hands "threateningly" at our dogs and them backing
away quickly to avoid "the smack".
Not the worlds most original intrepretation but at least we had demonstrated
that we had given thought to the music. And by the way - 2/3 of the judges
could not speak Danish so any interpretation in Danish would be nonsense to
them.
20 days before the competition we met up to practise. Most of the time
was wisely spent learning the routine and grasping which moves the dogs had
to be trained in the next time we met up.
12 days before the competition. Everyone worked very efficiently and
we succeeded in running through the entire routine. We had endless (and pretty
pointless) discussions on whether or not the judges table was positioned where
Johannas car was parked or if it was by the sendaway markers.
8 days before the competiton was the next practise. Johanna was now
paranoid over the fact that the music was longer than the 4 allowed minutes
stated in the rules. I was thinking more in the lines that we hadn't as of
yet actually done the routine completely without faults! But those of you
who know Johanna will know she does not give up easily once she gets an idea
into her head. So we changed the ending and shortened the routine. Our dogs
hadn't quite learned all the moves 100% - Whispers dead poet bore an uncanny
resemblance to a dead chicken that had just had its head chopped of... and
Jannie's Cody who was supposed to run under Whisper and Spooky refused flatly
to perform this trick but would jump gladly over both border collies. Our
sessions were on a dark training field with Johanna's car doubling as the
soundsystem and Jannie's car provided the lighting...unfortunately this meant
that Jannie's car needed jumpstarting to leave the field for home due to a
flat battery. Ofcourse we had our obligatory "Where's the judge's table"
discussions - by Johanna's car or Jannie's - or on the far side of the dark
field? We had to give up on Jannie's car because we were blinded everytime
we looked in that direction...
The next meeting was in the hall at the competition. In the morning, very early, we performed the routine with no dogs. We seemed to have remembered all the changes and the routine didn't look embarassing. We were lulled into a false sense of security.
The group competitions started in the early afternoon. The first
group was a handler with 2 dogs. We were warming up so we didn't see their
routine. The judges spent some time on their evaluations and we went onto
the floor. It is always nerve racking to enter the dog dancing competition
floor. But when expected to perform a choregraphy only trained on 3 occasions
- with 2 other dogs and handlers - nerve racking just doesn't cover it...
We got into position in our own corners and the music started. Zigzag across
the ring preferably without crashing in the middle. Almost syncronised turn
and Whisper and Spooky took their positions as dead poets...more dead than
wriggly chickens...Jannie starts....down on hands/knees and Cody jumps onto
her back... was Johanna and my clue to start moving around Jannie in opposite
directions. "We will turn you into a man" was the point of the lyrics...and
the signal for the hardest part of the routine to begin...and this is where
it gets complicated...Jannies was to sit in the middle of the ring with Cody
on her back. She just had to look small and frightened. According to the lyrics
Johanna and I were to surround her. I went on the inside round - clockwise.
Johanna and Spooky were to go on the next orbit, just a tiny bit faster, anti
clockwise. And on the outer orbit was Whisper, running, in the same direction
as me - clockwise. When there was a change in the music, everyone ( 2 and
4 legged - except Jannie and Cody ) were to turn and change direction. Things
weren't less complicated by the fact that Whisper enjoys running immensely,
and started barking (loudly) - or that Spooky took a sudden and unexpected
dislike to Whispers hysterics and was keen to stop him. Spooky's undivided
attention to Whisper stopped Johanna from doing her turns on time - which
I interpreted as her inability to hear my cues as a result of Whispers barking.
So I found myself continuing nevertheless, hissing between my teeth "Johanna
back. Back Johanna. BACK. BAAAAAAACK!!!!!!".
The running bit well over with and a quick uncomplicated zigzag to our designated
corners. We had specifically agreed who had which corner - but in the heat
of the battle such small details can't be taken seriously. I picked the closest
corner. Which turned out ot be Johanna's corner. Johanna desperately tried
to get to the next available corner which proved to be Jannie's and she was
not prepared to give it up just like that, no matter how angry or threatening
Johanna was looking. In the meantime I had reached my corner (which actually
was Johanna's) and Johanna was still somewhere in the periphery searching
for an available corner.
We made it to "The hand that strikes..." without further casualties...but....Whisper
didn't think he could keep backing away from the threatening hand..."Now
she has tried to hit me 20 times" he apparntly thought "and I have
backed away each time...so now I need to stand up and take it like a man..."
so instead of backing up further, he elegantly stood up on his hindlegs and
moved challengingly towards me...well maybe that's not what he did...maybe
he just mistook by "back" signal for my "stand" signal...but
it was not suitable for our routine or interpretation for that matter...
Except for a couple of near misses, where Cody instead of running under Spooky
and Whisper chose the shortcut around, we mad it reasonably safely through
the final part of our routine. We were to walk in a small circle with our
dogs at heel. Once around and then leave our dogs in a sit/stay for another
handler round, and then and extra circle with our dogs again before completing
(thanks to Johanna) within the allowed 4 minutes. In the meantime Jannie and
Johanna seemed to have decided a suitable revenge for the now notorious corner
incident...Whisper was the only one left in the sit/stay - the other 2 remained
standing - which made it seem as of Whisper was the one doing it wrong...that'll
teach us to stick to our own corner!!!
After our performance there was one last group - 3 handlers and a dog.
The fact that we won this class was not due to a precisely performed routine - but more based on our fantastic talents as actors - which allowed us to continue unfased and without showing panic - despite the fact that our routine was a textbook example of Murphy's Law.