Bollywood Audition

Today was quite the eventful day!  Well, sort of... I sat around quite a lot, but a LOT happened!

I arrived at 1pm to the Princess Restaurant on the Southwest side of Houston and sat quietly with three other girls in a lounge as we waited for our Bollywood Fashion Show audition.  Although I arrived 10min early, I was the last of the four to arrive.  A woman named Arushi introduced herself and explained that we were still waiting on about 10 girls; then she laughed and told us she usually takes into consideration "Indian Standard Time, but that shouldn't affect us..."  Oye.  (3 white girls and a girl from El Salvador)  We waited a few minutes, but no one else arrived.

The entire audition consisted of walking... of course, it was for a fashion show.  I remembered the classes I took at Mayo Hill in high school and recalled seeing this done on America's Next Top model for casting calls.  They turned on the music, and we took turns walking across the small wooden dance floor... inserting turns and posing at the end of the "runway" as we saw fit.  Initially, I thought the whole audition process was a bit silly... I mean, really... walking, but after watching everyone, I could see that a few of us were more comfortable- whether it because we were in heels or because people were watching us.  We were critiqued and given suggestions for our walk (one man told me to put more bounce in my walk), and then we were all told we were in.  Cool!  I was an inch shorter than the prerequisite height, but sometimes showing up counts for a lot.  :)

By this time, more people had arrived- maybe 2 dozen Indian models who would be in the show, as well.  (They had begun rehearsals a couple weeks ago.)  I sat down and waited for my part of the rehearsal -I was cast in the "tunic section" AKA the tiny, high-schooler section.  Oh well, no complaints from me- I have a solo and am promised something really great to wear.  I am told my walk is very strong and I should really "make it spectacular" because I will be representing the East-meets-West.

I practice, I chat, I eat samosas, and then I head to Nikki's house (coordinator of another fashion show) where I watch rehearsals and wait to go to the fitting at the Kemaya boutique in Sugarland.  One of the guys made the mistake of joking with me to lead the dance I had just watched... I guess he forgot I was a dancer- maybe not officially trained in these styles- but I sure did get up and do it.  Nikki immediately asked me to be in her fashion show this April.  Hah!

The fitting went well.  I was first given a silver set: a long, tulip-style skirt and a dulled, sequined top to match; the designer was very proud of this piece, but our coordinators convinced her I needed something flashier.  I tried on a beautiful black beaded sari/gown... well, I shimmied into it.  ;)  It looked amazing and the coordinators were much more pleased with this selection... I did see a note, however, that our designer may be making something different- time will tell, the show is March 20th!