By Elizabeth Zhang
The last week leading up the final performance was. Busy.
The students were still taking their finals when we got back from our trip, so we decided to work on our individual preparations for the final performance first.
On Monday, everyone worked on finalizing formations and music with transitions.
After a group meeting with the No. 9 staff, we started working on our individual group performances and tasks assigned to us. Everyone besides the film and journalism classes had to create backgrounds to go with their performance. Because we were performing at the TV station this year, we were able to perform on a nice stage with air conditioning, real stage lights, and display images and videos on the background screens on the stage. These took a lot of time and effort because it had to be synced with music as well, but in the end, it looked amazing.
I was in charge of making the program, so I brought a draft of the program design to the teachers in charge to discuss anything I should change. Because the teachers are so busy, they have limited time to meet with us in person during the school day. We wanted the program to be eye catching and meaningful, especially because there will be hundreds of copies made. At night I continued to discuss with the teachers over WeChat about the program design, but 30 minutes into the conversation they asked me what I was designing LOL because they thought I was designing a background to show at the beginning of the concert for the audience to see while walking in. This made me confused because earlier that day they told me in person that I was designing the program LOL. With Yanan’s help, we then made another version of the program cover design for the background that they could project in the beginning.
The next few days were filled with individual group rehearsals, Duke group dance rehearsals, and singing rehearsals for an act Jinjie and I were asked to be in. The No. 9 staff asked for 2 Duke students, a girl and a boy, to join a few other No. 9 teachers who would perform a Chinese opera song. It was decided that Jinjie would be the male Duke representative because he could A) sing B) speak Chinese so hopefully he could sing in Chinese too. Out of the girl Duke students, none of us were exactly opera singers, but we did have 2 people who spoke Chinese: me and Karen. But we all thought it would be better if I went because I did not have to take care of a group of students since the films were already completed and our film students would not be physically performing. The first singing rehearsal was...interesting. I have never had any vocal training and my voice is pretty low, but all the other female teachers were sopranos. It was a struggle because I really just could not hit those high notes LOL. But they were nice about it and just told me to practice because if I couldn’t do it, I could just sit out of this performance and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
The next day, I was told to come in early to practice, but due to miscommunication between the teachers, the singing teachers already practiced our song and would not be able to practice in the morning. After talking with them, we were able to squeeze in a quick rehearsal around lunch time, but we ended up missing some of our own Duke dance rehearsal because of the last minute scheduling. This second singing rehearsal was with 2 other teachers we didn’t rehearse with the first day (there are 4 teachers in all who would be singing but because they’re all busy it’s hard to get everyone there at the same time). This time they told me it was okay if I sang it an octave lower which made me relieved because I really just can’t sing high notes LOL. The next day we went to a professional recording studio to record all 6 of us singing so we could just lip sing our recording on stage. When we arrived, we rehearsed as a full group for the first time. This was kind of problematic because we never heard how we sounded like as a whole group. Some teachers thought it would be strange if I sang a lower octave (which I thought so too), but others said it was okay. So we went inside the recording studio and ran it through once or twice. After listening to the recording, they decided to just have another teacher just sing for me in the recording. So I just practiced lip singing for a few hours while they finished recording. I’m very glad they got someone else to sing for me because I would never have been able to hit those high notes, but also I wish they just decided that sooner so I could help out with other final performance preparations instead of getting caught in miscommunications :’)
Besides music and backgrounds, we also needed to have lighting instructions for each group. After putting all the lighting instructions in one document, we helped translate them so the lighting technician at the TV station could read it. Everyone had very detailed lighting instructions with lyric cues and time stamps for specific lighting they wanted throughout their performance. When I was translating part of this I knew that this would be hard to communicate with the light technician just because we only had ONE dress rehearsal with lights, sound, and background, so I warned everyone ahead of time to prepare a plan B, which is something I’ve learned here. You always need a plan B and learn to compromise. There are many ways to get to the end goal, but you don’t have to follow your exact plan. There will be last minute changes and problems that arise throughout the day.
When we had a full run through of most of the performances in the school gym, I was blown away. It was my first time seeing the full performances for most of the classes, and they were all SO good. I’m so impressed how much these kids have learned in one month. Both the Duke student teachers and the students have worked so hard, and their hard work really paid off.
On Saturday, we had a dress rehearsal at the TV station without any lights, sound, or backgrounds. We had to bring our own speakers to play music because the school could only rent everything for the day of the performance. We got to school at 2:00 pm and took school buses to the TV station. Everyone was allowed 10 minutes on stage to rehearse, but of course like most dress rehearsals, we ran behind schedule. There had to be many adjustments made for all the formations because we were not accustomed to such a large stage. The singing act was the last act in the whole show, so I had to stay a little longer to run through our formations on stage. By the end of the whole run through, it was 7:15 pm and I was starving. We ended up eating with Kristie’s friend, Cindy, who was also a DE Zhuhai participant in 2015. It was really interesting talking to her and seeing how the program has evolved through these 10 years.
All of the No. 9 staff have worked so hard for this performance, and I am forever grateful for them, especially Joan and Cam! They really work 24/7. After I finished editing a speech for Joan, I did not expect her to still be up, but she replied to me and sent me another speech to help edit. It was almost midnight, and she was still working tirelessly, preparing for the next day’s performance.
The next day I got to school around 8:25 AM to print more lighting instructions for the lighting technician. This would be the only dress rehearsal with the sound and backgrounds before the performance at 3:30 PM. I planned on staying in the sound/light room to help communicate things with the light technician. When he saw the thick packet I handed him, he told me that it was too specific and that he would try his best. Lighting was definitely a struggle because it’s hard for the light technician to get all our specific instructions in such a short time, but luckily Evan and Yanan were there to help everyone. The dress rehearsal ended up starting an hour late because the performance hall was locked and not opened on time, so we were running late. Not eating lunch, a lot of people kept working on the lights because we wanted the best results during the actual show. The backgrounds that everyone prepared also had problems. Apparently they could only play 100 MB videos, so many of our backgrounds were too big. We had to compress videos, take out pictures from powerpoints and convert them into videos, and cut videos into smaller videos to be able to meet this requirement. This was definitely a huge headache, but we did it!! (Pro tip, macs are just so much easier to use: iMovie & airdrop 😩😩). During the performance Evan helped communicate with the light technician, and I helped notify Cam when to change to the next background. Most of them went pretty, but of course not everything went according to plan and that’s okay.
Because I was “singing” in the last act, I had exactly 6 minutes to change into my dress. They took us to a costume shop to rent out outfits for the performance. The dress I ended up picking was a beautiful sparkly black dress, but it had the most complex lacing ever. This made it extremely hard to put on plus I was in a time crunch because there was only one performance in between the Duke + No. 9 dance (blue Duke t-shirt and shorts) and the song I was supposed to sing in (basically a giant black prom dress), so I definitely needed help. Right when the lights turned off at the end of the Duke + No. 9 dance, I SPRINTED to the dressing room. Shelsea and Tessa helped me lace up the back (which was super complicated, with many zig zags), Karen helped with last minute hairspray, and Kristie helped me with earrings and shoes. I honestly felt like I was a movie star backstage with my whole costume/make up team!!! I’m so thankful for them because there is no way I would’ve made it on stage without them. Standing on stage lip singing was honestly so FUN. To be honest I was slightly nervous before I went on stage because I was afraid of forgetting the lyrics. When I walked on stage, I was blinded by the bright stage lights. After my eyes adjusted, I saw Professor Ku in the audience and smiled, this was it, the last performance in the whole show, the final cultivation of our past two months of hard work. I had a lot of fun “singing” with the other teachers, and I honestly can’t believe I stood on stage really pretending to sing those high notes LOL. And the best part was people actually believed it. I showed my host family and they all thought I actually sang. The next day so many students messaged me saying I sounded amazing 😂😂😂
The day of the final performance felt like a whole year. It was honestly one of the longest days ever, and by the time we got home I was ready to just SLEEP. Watching all of the kids perform and actually be excited to show their friends and family what they’ve been working on these past few months was amazing. I’m really happy the performance went well and we got through all the glitches along the way. After the performance, everyone started leaving and there was almost no time to say goodbye to the all students and teachers. It honestly didn’t feel like it was ending yet, but in reality that might’ve been the last time I was going to see some of them before we head back to America. Before I left the building, one of my film students, Celine, ran up to me and handed me a small gift. It was a clear mold of the banks of the Zhuhai beach near the fisher girl statue that she made herself. I felt a wave of happiness and sadness at the same time. I’m going to miss Zhuhai. I’m going to miss walking down the hallways of No. 9 and climbing the three flights of stairs to our office. I’m going to miss seeing kids pop their head in the window of our office, asking to hang out with us or just to stop by and talk to us. I’m going to miss the security guard by the gate of the school who always greeted us in the morning. I’m going to miss playing legos with my host siblings. I’m going to miss eating as a big family. I’m going to miss walking down the busy street across the school, looking at the fresh fruit, vegetables, and bread stores are selling. I’m going to miss 仁恒星园. I’m going to miss 珠海, my second home.
