"Last Night's Rehearsal at CUE Space"Gregangelo, Jeffrey, and I walk into CUE in the middle of a belly dance class. Within thirty minutes, the space is buzzing with forty artists here to rehearse for our Embarcadero Ice-Rink Opening and Tree-Lighting Ceremony onNovember 16th. Gregangelo, our artistic director, is shouting orders as usual. My part in the event will be small, so I wait in the background until I hear my name. "...Karen's going to be the Mother Dragonfly, so I want all the background characters to look at her for acting cues, you know, react to the fight. Yes there's going to be a fight."I sit and talk for awhile after the first announcements and warmups start. Taiz, Courtney, and I wonder what we will be doing at this rehearsal. And then the tree costume arrives. Jeffrey tells Taiz that he will be a giant tree . . . on stilts, of course. "Karen, you're going to be like a kind of fairy, walking around with him among the guests.""But I thought I was a Dragonf-!”. He doesn't hear me. How could he? There's too much going on. Two girls on blinking rollerskates with wooden staffs are practicing a routine in front of the dance troupe who is also rehearsing. In the next room a bunch of men are swordfighting. Andie Rose is doing an aerial hoop act, while Gregangelo and some new artists are twirling in the air on ropes, and the Taiko drummers are going nuts in another room. I wait. Group rehearsals start. I look around and find myself in the middle of a warehouse in Oakland, surrounded by four trolls and a prince (all with samurai swords), a young aerialist, and a giant tree-creature. The Taiko Drummers are still pounding away, the dancers are still dancing, the roller skaters still rolling, and now Marisa has started her opera singing. Gregangelo is putting us all in our places. He just came from one rehearsal to this one, and has another one to get to in five minutes, all in the same building, all in the same night. "Okay, trolls, I want youover here. Innocence, you're behind Karen's wings. And Karen, you're like, Mother Nature. So just react to the fight. Protect your children. They'll all be under your wings." Idanna begins the act with an acrobatic, contortionistic dance routine. The battle between good and evil ensues. Idanna retreats to the umbrage of my, um, wings and murmurs, "Gotta improv. I don't know what to do." Embrace the chaos. Welcome to the circus. -10/30/07