My Olympic Experience - Into The Stadium We Go!

After two and a half months of rehearsals we were ready to ramp things up. It was time to move to the Olympic Stadium. 

I was so excited and could already imagine how incredible it would feel the first time we viewed the field of dreams (AKA the pitch). Unfortunately for me on the day of the first stadium rehearsal I was ill and could not make it. I was gutted!

I heard from all my Olympic friends how great it was to finally be in the stadium…but also how it had rained for 2 hours and everyone was soaked! This was something that would be a reoccurring theme throughout our rehearsals (to the point where people were joking if it didn’t rain on the night we would have no idea how to dance on a dry stage!)

The next week I was due to make my first appearance in the stadium but very sadly my nan died. All my family were abroad so it was vital for me to be at home to take care of things. I will always be sad that my nan never got to see me perform in the opening ceremony, but as a lot of people have said she in fact had the best seat in the house.

After juggling everything I was unsure if I would be able to continue on because I didn’t know how many rehearsals I may need to miss (there was a rule – two missed rehearsal and you were a reserve / out). But I was determined that after everything I had been through this year, everything I had fought through there was no way I was going to miss out on performing.

I do have to say that this tragic experience is really the only thing that slightly damped my Olympic experience. I had contacted  the organisers about my circumstances as soon as I knew I needed to go home because I was worried about my attendance and the outcome. (I knew I would miss at least 3 rehearsals at this point). When I eventually received a reply it was unsympathetic and disrespectful and I was fuming at the response. I don’t want to go into detail but it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Luckily I didn’t need to have any further contact with this particular person and I have to say that out of the thousands of people involved in the organising and running of the opening ceremony there was only ever this one person who I had a grievance with. Everyone else was so very friendly, enthusiastic and helpful – no matter how busy or under pressure they were. And I think that is testament to the Olympic spirit that everyone involved in the games has.

The next week I finally got my first glimpse of the stadium. Seeing the stadium for the first time was incredible. A real goosebump moment. I couldn’t believe in a few weeks we would be performing to 80,000. 

Once we started rehearsing in the stadium it was more important to learn our positions, transitions and entrances and exits. This meant there was a lot of waiting around, but when there are 1400 people to move that is inevitable!

This was also when we started practicing our entrance and exit . I would be entering on a human made tube train (so terribly iconic of London it was brilliant! Although we had joked that to make it authentic we should hold some sort of strike or delay on our way around the track – also known as the M25). Gosh! From where my tube entered the stadium to where we got onto stage was almost a 400m run. Well that was a shock to the system! And running around a 400m track, whilst holding onto the shoulder of the person in front of you, and for some of my friends whilst carrying a LCD tube to represent the train, was no easy feat! This is something that took a long time for us to get into a workable rhythm. I think this was probably the moment we were worried about most. But after sitting out to watch a rehearsal a few sessions later from the seats it didn’t look half as bad as we all felt it did (which was very reassuring!).

As I mentioned before once we reached the stadium for rehearsal was when the dread rain curse reared its ugly head. We had been lucky at Dagenham – there was only one session that had to be moved indoors because of pouring rain. But from now on that was not an option as we needed to be prepared for the possibility, and let’s be honest the probability, that it may rain on show day. I think it rained at nearly every rehearsal we had. The stage would become slick, making it hard to dance or run without slipping, and there were a few casualties. But eventually we were so used to this I think we were prepared for all eventualities the British weather may have throw at us come the 27^th July!

As the stadium rehearsals were a lot longer than the previous rehearsals we also were given food packs. You may think this is a very mundane entity to write about but the meal packs were to become such a talking point amongst the volunteers I could not edit them out! At first people were excited – we had something new at our rehearsals. The meal packs consisted of a bread-heavy, filling-light sandwich (AKA brick), plus some Pringles, a Nature Valley cereal bar and an apple. For every meal.  At every rehearsal. For three weeks. I swear if I see another Nature Valley cereal bar I will not be held accountable for my actions! I managed to accumulate quite a collection at the bottom of my bag!

Ironically the press have now started referring to the velodrome as 'The Pringle'. How it pains me to hear those words! (But to be fair they do have a point).

A week before the show we were informed that the ceremony was running 20 minutes over so 2 minutes needed to be taken from each section of the show. This did cause a frisson of panic as we were seven days from performing but luckily the changes to my section were minimal. I did feel bad for the NOW section as theirs was the most affected. There was one song that was shortened (‘Random Antics’ or as we all knew it as Rah Rah East London Madness!) that everyone was sad about! But when you look at the facts it was either two minutes from each section be or a whole section would be removed from the show. I am sure everyone would be more than happy for the former option when they look at it like that.

Unfortunately there was one section that had to be cut completely – a stunt bike team. Everyone was saying how devastated they were for these performers. To have rehearsed for so long and then not be in the ceremony is such a tragedy. But I hope that they know that everyone was sad for them and really respects all they had achieved thus far. 

The other great thing about stadium rehearsals were starting to see the lighting and effects that would be used during our section. Every rehearsal we would find out a little more and it would blow my mind every time! When it was casually mentioned that we would have fire jets during 'Firestarter' I think I nearly exploded with excitement! I would get to perform with pyrotechnics!!! How incredible is that?!

One of the moments that choked me up was the ending. I was lucky enough to finish standing on Glastonbury Tor looking out over the whole stadium. This is the only moment during our performance that you could really soak everything in. With Emile Sande's 'Heaven' playing, the house which is a central point to our performance would lift into the sky to reveal Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the World Wide Web. This is a man who revolutionised our lives and turned down making profit, instead deciding to make it free for everyone. As the house lifts up a message shoots across the seats saying 'This is for everyone'. The first time I saw this it made me emotional but it is a moment I will never forget. 

Once we had moved to the stadium everything had kicked up a gear and time seemed to be slipping through our fingers. Once we had practiced our tube trains, our ending, our transitions and practiced with lighting and effects the next stage were dress rehearsals. To 60,000 people...

 I would like to take time to thank Kenrick Sandy, Skytilz and all the dance captains. 

It was a huge undertaking to take people with such a vast range of abilities and try to train them to a performance standard. It would have been so easy to just two-step and sway your arms a bit and express that these people were volunteers and that explains the simplicity. But the fact that Kenrick and his team were willing to push for a higher standard and have faith in the volunteers is commendable. The fact that the dance captains always taught with a smile and spoke with kind words, always encouraging and not scalding us when they would have been under immense pressure it quite a feat. I have so much respect and love for these guys . Thank you for thinking big, being totally inspiring, nurturing us and helping us realise our dreams at the personal sacrifice of your time, I am sure huge amounts of stress and pressure. You helped us achieve the goal of putting on a great show and made a beautiful moment in everyone of our lives that we will forever treasure.

My Olympic Experience - The Rehearsals

Week two of our Olympic rehearsals and we were back at 3 Mills studios in Bromley-By-Bow.  This week we started to learn our actual choreography (the week before had just been to get us used to the style of the hip hop moves we would be learning, as this is something that was new to a lot of us – me included). I was nervous about how my body would cope as I was still recovering from my operation and visiting the nurse daily, but this week was a lot easier on me. In fact I think the rehearsals helped my body kick start getting back to normal. I was in a bit of pain and stiff for a few days afterwards but slowly but surely I was getting my groove back!

This was also the week that we got to meet our dance captain, the amazing Skytilz! I remember for weeks afterwards the first thing the volunteers would say to each other was ‘how awesome is Skytilz?!’ Everyone loved her, she made every rehearsal a lot of fun, broke every move down so we all understood and made a lot of jokes! I have to say the dance captains have really made the experience for me. All of them are incredible talented but so down to earth and approachable. I don’t think we could have been taught by better people. (Shout out to all our dance captains especially Nads, Nathaniel, Duwane, Theo and Rhimes!!)

My section was the 80’s and 90’s. I remember we didn’t know which songs we would be dancing to. Only after we had learnt some moves and eventually tried them to music did we find out what tracks they were to. This made our time at 3 Mills always exciting because you never knew what was coming next! It took about three weeks before we knew all the songs we would be dancing too and I loved the choices.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning a completely new dance style – and loved that most of the moves had names (this was a godsend when trying to remember routines!). With names like the Roger Rabbit and Steve Martin they were impossible to forget. Every Sunday was a five hour solid rehearsal of dancing and although tiring I always left with a smile on my face and counting down the time till the next rehearsal.

At our first rehearsal at 3 Mills we got to meet the main man, Kenrick 'H2O' Sandy, who was choreographing the whole Thanks Tim section. Kenrick is a huge name in the hip hop dance scene. He helped choreograph the ‘Streetdance’ films, he co-owns an Olivier award winning dance company called Boy Blue Entertainment and has been a judge on the dance show ‘Street Dance Stars’. We were working with the best of the best. Plus all of our dance captains are members of Boy Blue Entertainment. (Check them out in the video below)

Kenrick told us that our section was going to be the most hardcore and energetic out of the whole piece. He wasn’t lying! As he said ‘you can’t be two-stepping to no Firestarter’! Even though our rehearsals were early on Sundays morning we needed to bring energy. I can’t think of anything better to give you a rush on a Sunday morning than dancing, especially in preparation for the opening ceremony.

During our second week we also got taken to try our costumes on. I couldn’t believe we got to try them on so soon and it was awesome seeing everyone in their neon clothes and smiley face t-shirts! It really was a flashback and I can clearly remember people wearing my costume to raves in the 90’s.

I was pleasantly surprised that Danny Boyle attended every rehearsal. He was always there with an encouraging speech, a handheld camera and a look of excitement. Whenever we were waiting he would always make a point of speaking to us individually.

The thing that has always stood out to me is Danny Boyle’s enthusiasm for the volunteers. Realistically it is a huge risk to take 10,000 people, some of whom have plenty of experience and some who have never performed in their life, and use them to create a show, not just any show but one that is presented on the global stage. His reputation would be on the line. But not once did I ever get the impression Danny Boyle was worried about this. In fact I don’t think he even thought of any other option. He seemed to have his heart set on normal people representing their country. What a wonderful attitude. I have never seen such enthusiasm for a project or the people involved. We all came into this being overwhelmed that we would be part of Danny Boyle’s show. But Danny repeated told us this was our show. 

The 3 Mills rehearsals were purely about learning the choreography. Once we graduated from there we would start to transform what we had learnt into a show. After five weeks at 3 Mills we moved onto the old Ford plant car park in Dagenham, officially known as 1:1. This meant a two hour commute for me, from one side of London to the other. Although this meant waking at 5.30am on Sunday mornings I always woke up excited and bounded along to rehearsals like an excitable puppy.

This outdoor space had two full scale replicas of the Olympic stadium, both fields of play separated by a giant circus tent.  This would be when we would learn our coordinates and the transitions we would make around the stage during our performance.

The most exciting element about Dagenham was that each week our rehearsals got bigger and bigger as we were joined by more and more groups from our section. We started out week one as all 400 of the 80’s and 90’s dancer. We were then joined by the Now’s, making it 700 people. A few weeks after that all 1400 dancers came together. It was our first glimpse at the other sections and it finally felt like we were working towards a show rather than having a lot of fun in a massive outdoor dance class.

As well as cleaning choreography we also needed to learn funnelling (something I found difficult not to turn into a race as I am naturally competitive but would come hugely in handy when trying to get 1400 people into a tube station after rehearsals) and huge amounts of blocking. Although very time consuming the mass team, lead by the amazing Gina Chan Martinez,who were responsible in getting all 1400 of us into the correct places, always completely their tasks speedily. It is incredible what they do when you think about the scale of it. And this wasn’t just getting people into lines. This involved getting people into complex shape, like our awesome 90’s smiley face, which would be the formation my section started in.

Dagenham was also the place where we got to see more of the man who was choreographing the whole 'Thanks Tim' section, Kenrick Sandy.  Kenrick would often start and end the day with motivational, and hilarious, speeches that equally made us passionate about our performance but eager to get it right. Kenrick made sure we were under no illusion that we could just roll up and give a half ass performance. Although we would be working our usual jobs in the week at the weekend at rehearsals we would be expected to act like professional dancers, which meant paying attention and pushing ourselves to make the moves look as best as we possibly could.

What really help was having the awesome dance captains and Kenrick walking through us and if we looked to be having trouble they would always help us in a way that motivated us instead of making us stand out as ‘the one who is getting it wrong’. There was a definite sense of we are all in this together and working for the same goal. There was no ‘them’ and ‘us’. This gave us an environment where we all felt comfortable and didn’t need to feel like we would look silly if we needed to ask for help.  And if you were too nervous to ask the dance captains were always there watching and giving friendly tips when needed.

The first ten weeks of rehearsal were all about getting us ready to move into the stadium. By then we had learnt our choreography, learnt our transitions and learnt our coordinates of where to stand on stage. Now it was time to take things to the next level. Now it was time to graduate to the Olympic stadium...