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Slovak National Theatre Ballet in Bratislava, Slovakia

I had just finished an audition in Madrid and had an audition in Vienna the next day. So after the audition I rushed to the airport. There I waited eight hours because of a delayed flight.

I eventually had to stay the night in a hotel in Madrid. I rescheduled a flight at six in the morning but had to stop over in Amsterdam.

I got into Vienna airport with two hours to spare before my audition started. I waited for my baggage on the carousel for about 30 minutes. Eventually the carousel stopped and my luggage was no where to be seen. I rushed to the lost luggage desk and they informed me that they couldn’t trace it.

So I gave them all my details and caught a taxi straight to the audition. I rushed in and informed them that I couldn’t take the audition because I had lost all my luggage. They told me to wait and sign up and they’d see what they could do.

Out of the audition room came a principal dancer who happened to be on the panel. The staff informed me that he could lend me clothes. So I had to do the audition in his unitard, support and ballet shoes two sizes too small.

I was cut after barre. Never was I so happy to get cut and go back to my hotel and laugh/cry and sleep.

A month later I auditioned for Gauthier Dance Company in Stuttgart. I ended up partnered with a girl for the repertoire round who managed to land on my toe. The blood rushed out of my face and I looked down to see my toe had completely changed shape.

I couldn’t even walk. The audition was put on hold while everyone was rushing around taking care of me. Eventually they decided I had to go to hospital but there was no one to take me so I went in an ambulance.

Two hospitals, two doctors, one osteopath, two x-rays and one ultrasound later they figured out I had ruptured a joint capsule in my toe and needed to take two to six weeks off.

Samuel is a graduate of the Australian Ballet School and 2014 Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship winner. He is now in the corps of the SNTB.

This article was first published in the June-July 2014 issue of Dance Australia magazine.

 

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