IMMORTALIZED - Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour by Cirque Du Soleil

Chapter 4: Dancing With The Stars at Gatsby's Mansion

November 6, 2011 - November 26, 2011
Vancouver, Los Angeles, Seattle, Spokane, Eugene, Portland, and Sydney, Australia

Three weeks later leads us to our last show in Vancouver. Vancouver has been a very interesting city to visit. We spent a lot of time exploring Olympic based places and even went indoor skydiving. That is what #tourlife is about. Exploring new places and enjoying life. Tomorrow begins an abnormal schedule. We are officially done with touring in Canada until March. Thank God. But tomorrow, select members of the cast are flying to Los Angeles to do a special performance on Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday, then flying back to Seattle the following day to do a show. Very active few days. I did have the boys go to bed at the normal midnight just because we still had plans tomorrow. Back in my room I had a quick meeting with the boys telling them that any worksheets they wanted for school, they should print out tonight and they can do it on the plane, or they can work on their school on their laptops while in the air. I just made it clear that I had expected them to knock out a bit of school while on the plane. The difference about tomorrow is that since we are not travelling as an entire cast, we do not have a chartered plane, which means the twenty five or so people coming tomorrow will be flying on an actual commercial flight.
In the morning, I woke the boys up at nine. I had them get ready for the day, shower, teeth, deodorant and then we went down and caught the last couple of minutes of the complimentary breakfast. It’s easier than buying room service. Plus, the service in this hotel is very slow, as we’ve learned in our five night stay here. After breakfast, we timed it perfectly. We got our carry on’s settled and then headed down to the lobby where all of the staff was meeting. The difference is that the majority of people were getting on the seven buses to bring them to the airport. We are getting on a smaller bus that will bring us to the opposite side of the airport where we have to actually check-in, go through security and wait at our gates for the commercial flight, something none of us have done since going up to Montreal in May. It was at this time that I found out that we were not going to bother bringing the school case with us. I’m very glad that I had the boys print out some worksheets the night before because the road case is just going to go directly to Seattle and not with us to Los Angeles. It’s not going to excuse them from school though.
Inside of our smaller bus, we took the rode to the airport. Once again, Adrian was filming. I want to say he makes a blog out of these things, but more of informational videos so his family and friends can keep up with the travels. A few days ago, I went onto his Youtube channel for the first time and say about twenty videos about our travels. Everything from overnight bus transfers, overnight plane transfers, going clubbing, exploring a city, hanging around the hotel to special events like this. He uses the Final Cut Pro program that I got him to put them all together. Once arrived at the airport, Tara, who was leading the trip of twenty cast members and six support staff including her, led us into the airport and she began to check everyone in. We were registered as a group, so she officially checked us in and we went up in a line to show our passports, ID’s and get our tickets. Since the youth are all younger than 18, we didn’t need to show our ID’s but I did have to pass out the passports. The lady at the desk seemed very nice.
After checking the twenty five people in, we headed straight for security and spent half an hour waiting in the lines trying to get through. Tara tried her best to keep the entire group together but as we went to get on the tram, the group was split in half. Ryan, Adrian, Marcell, Leo and I were in the first group, but the majority of the other dancers were in the group that we split with. But no worries, we met them at the gate just as the flight began to board. Being such a large group, the flight attendants had “The Immortal Family” board first. We all had the same side of the plane, starting from two or three seats back on the left side.
Once in the air and we were clear to put our table trays down, I told the boys to focus on homework. They can listen to music as normal, I don’t care about that, but no facebook, no editing video’s, no games. If they can get as much homework done now, the less they’ll have to do in Los Angeles. Of course I wasn’t going to make them do it in Los Angeles, but it’s a working threat. I did complete a lot. I was able to breeze through my English, then Social Studies then struggled a bit in math, having to put the last page of problems I was doing off until another time as the flight attendants asked us to return our tables to the upright position.
According to what the boys are telling me, they all had put off French, so they had to do that, then it was mixed in their other classes. Some Math, some English, all had already finished Science. As we exited the plane, we all gathered right inside the gate, waiting until our entire Immortal Family had exited ‘safely’ as Tara said. We then travelled by a group to customs. Once again, for many people on the trip, getting through was easy since we had American Citizenship. While waiting for the rest of our group to get into the country legally, I took a picture of the fancy interior LAX and uploaded in Facebook. “Los Angeles for a special appearance on Dancing With The Stars On Tuesday Night. Officially in the United States now until March! #TourLife”
We took a bus to the Hotel Wilshire, right down the street from the CBS Studios. It’s nowhere near the touristy part of LA though, so I’m not sure how much we are going to do. I don’t even know where we are. I’ve never been on the west coast, nevermind Los Angeles. This is all new to me. Tara checked us in as a group. Once again, room assignments are the same. Sometimes I wish that they were a bit different so I didn’t need to go into the bathroom if I needed to change pants or I can have someone near my age to talk to, but I didn’t complain. Leo’s cool, I can deal.
This is a really nice hotel. Like I really like this hotel. It’s stylish, laid out well and the rooms are spacious. Plus, it’s nice and warm in LA that leads us to some plans to spend some time at the rooftop pool. It’s just after three now, and we have nothing to do until late tomorrow morning, so we first wanted to go out and walk around Los Angeles. Even though we’re not in the touristy part of the city like I wished, we were in a nicer, non scummy party of the city. It was clean and nicely decorated. Plus it was hot! Before going out, I needed to unpack some of my summer clothes. For the majority of the past few months, we’ve been in the eastern parts that have gotten colder.
I can’t believe that on November 7th, I am walking around with shorts, t-shirts and sunglasses. A lot of things on this tour I can say “I can’t believe” for. A year ago, I had no idea this was going to happen. Neither did any of us. Now our lives are booked for the next three years. We take it one day at a time. Like yesterday we were in Vancouver. Last night we were on stage. Today we’re in Los Angeles. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be in National Television and then the day afterwards, we’ll be in Seattle.
Along with a few other dancers like Gianinni, Leeco, Pom, Salah and Mike, we took a few taxi’s and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, about fifteen minutes away by car. This place rocked! It’s totally decked out with stages, lights, amazing-ness! I’ve never seen anything like it. By far my favorite Hard Rock Cafe I’ve been to yet. And I’ve been to quite a few so far. We joined a group out on the dance floor after dinner before proceeding to leave making plans to go up to the rooftop pool.
At the pool, it was a party. People dancing to music, open bar, nice lights and a heated pool. It wasn’t too crowded either. It was a good time. I think I overdid it on the virgin Pina Coladas but I can afford it. We didn’t go back to the rooms until almost eleven, all tired from the day of travelling and then swimming endlessly. I gave the boys a 11:40 bedtime. They didn’t quite understand the exactness of the time, but I knew why. The earlier the better. “Be happy, if you were home with your parents, what time would you be going to bed?” I asked. They stopped arguing. They’d already be asleep, it’s Monday.
The next morning, I woke them up around 9:30. I had already ordered them a Sampler Breakfast which is a mix of a few different platters that we could eat while doing schoolwork. As normal, we all cram into Leo and I’s room, not showered, usually with just deodorant as we worked hard to do our best and complete our homework. Ryan and I are suddenly crammed with schoolwork. If we follow this tour, which we plan on doing, we follow the Quebec Education System in which we would graduate from school at the end of our 11th year in school, which would be a year earlier than we would in the US School system.
We worked on schoolwork until around noon. We stopped to give us enough time to shower and gather ourselves for the day before having to head out to rehearsals. It was apparently going to be a long day since we had to do a bit of restaging. I knew we were doing Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean. Well, Smooth Criminal is in Act One and Billie Jean is amidst the Megamix in the end of the show. How is this going to work?
Upon arrival to the studio’s, we were welcomed by one of the CBS employees and shuffled into a large conference room where costumes were already laid out. Sorry, large conference room is an understatement..... very large conference room. So it fit the twenty five of us perfectly. Tara explained the day’s schedule. “We’re going to start by choreographing the beginning and then where you will be placed for the chorus of Smooth Criminal, then the transition between Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean. The list is a portion of the Immortal Intro, the entire segment of Smooth Criminal minus the pre-chorus, then a switch to the pre-chorus of Billie Jean finishing with the last encore of Billie Jean.” She then went through who would be doing each part. She told us this: “Storm, Ryan, Adrian, Marcell and Leo, you’ll be doing the Smooth Criminal Dance and the dance during the bridge, it’ll only be the five of you so don’t mess it up.” “Tara, they don’t know the bridge, only Ryan and I do.” I stepped in. “They know bits and pieces from rehearsals, just help them put it together.” She told me. “We don’t know any of it. They cut us from it before we learned it.” Leo told her. She silenced for a second. “Shit....” she exclaimed. Everything is so planned out, she doesn’t have any extra people and she apparently has the right costumes fitted for them. “Storm and Ryan. You’re the new choreographers.” She said looking down at her watch. “You have two and a half hours to teach them the bridge. Go find the stage and start.” She said in a hurry. I looked surprised. We all just looked at her. “Ummm...go!” She said. We rushed out of the room. It took our group two days to precisely learn the bridge. The two of us have two hours to teach it to two eleven year olds and a ten year old. This should be interesting.
We followed the signs to the stage and began to teach them right away. I have no idea what Tara is going to re-stage to fit on the stage, but we winged it. Luckily, we guessed the lean on the steps correctly, so we started there. It’s quite simple for Ryan and I to do, but hard for us to explain, so we started at the very beginning, doing every little move with them, perfecting every move before we moved on.
I was very pleased. We were able to teach them the entire bridge, an entirety of thirty seconds of choreography in about an hour, then went back and worked on precision. None of us are professionals, but we go with the flow, which helped us. They have no idea what the fuck they are doing, so their instincts literally copy what we are doing. By 2:30, Ryan and I were very pleased on what we saw. When we brought Tara in and showed her, she was very proud and she only changed one slight thing. She moved us on stage a bit, but that was it. Then she handed us the shoes for the lean. “Teach em’ the lean.” she said. “Wait, isn’t this your job?” I asked. She ignored and went back to work. With the shoes came the button that controls the pegs that let us do the lean, which I held in my hand. The first time was a major fail as the boys anticipated it and started to lean forward. “You cannot lean forward! Stay straight, use all your muscles. It will do it for you.” Ryan told them. Maybe after the sixth or seventh time, they got it.
Tara came in with the rest of the cast and we did the transitions, re-staging which really wasn’t too different. By 3:30 in the afternoon, right before they kicked us off the floor to begin technical stuff, we were happy with what we saw. The studio provided us with food. During dinner, myself, Ryan, Adrian, Marcell and Leo all called home to alert them of what to look for. I also uploaded it on facebook. “At 8:13pm EST, Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour, including myself, {Ryan McGraw}, {Adrian Abiatelli}, {Marcell Abiatelli} and {Leo Wadd} will be doing a performance on Dancing With The Stars on ABC. The boys and I are set to perform Smooth Criminal. Look for us in the blue jackets!”
Within minutes, I had plenty of comments of people who said they’d be watching or had already planned on watching. With less than an hour until we were set to perform, we still needed to put on makeup and stretch, as if it was an actual show. We couldn’t just throw on the costume and do it. It still takes preparation.
After getting myself ready, Ryan and I had to help the boys into the smooth criminal outfit. They’re used to using the underclothes, such as the pants, the white shirt and the straps but they had yet to put on the jacket or the shoes. The shoes can be a real pain in the ass if you don’t know how to put them on properly. Once all of our costumes were on, just after five, which was a little after eight back at home, Tara gathered us all and took a picture. She tagged all of us in it, but I couldn’t check it. We sat all in costume in this room watching the TV feed of the news performance. Adrian walked around with his camera. He turned to do a selfie camera angle and that you could see us all sitting in the background. “Anything look abnormal?” He asked. Well, you could say that the masked green contortionist stretching in the corner could be considered abnormalal. Or the girls in sparkly dresses with wigs. Or Ryan and I with the blue smooth criminal costumes. Or how about our two straps duo, decked out in crystals. Nothing abnormal to see here folks. When the caller said over the intercom “Immortal, two minutes until calling”, I posted on facebook one last time “We’re going to be on Dancing With The Stars in Just a Couple Of Minutes”.
When the girl came to get us, she escorted us through a back hallway filled with various people. The show was in a commercial break right now so we had a minute to get set whether we started on stage or in the aisle’s with the audience. The boys and I had to split up and go into the aisles until the chorus of Smooth Criminal came on, as we rehearsed. The countdown started and the two hosts, which I cannot remember their names, started to announce us. After announcing us, a little portion of the Immortal Intro came on, before the start of Smooth Criminal. Right before the Chorus hit, about twelve others joined on the floor to dance to the chorus. After the chorus ended and the females did something quick with The Mime, the five of us went back to the steps to get set for the lean. That’s when we started. I was nervous. Not for me, but to see how the others would do. But I relaxed my body and we started the lean.
After the bridge, Billie Jean starts, in which we go off the floor, but re-join at the end of the song for the last couple of moves, something else that the other boys had to learn in about ninety seconds. It’s not hard, it’s like four moves.
We got a huge applause from the studio audience. Now I was just anxious to watch it. Once we got off the floor, we all went back to the conference room and applauded each other. I caught Adrian filming something along the lines of “We just got back from doing the performance, very interesting. We did a dance we had never done before and it worked out pretty well.” I heard him say. We took our time taking off our costumes, accessories and makeup since we had nowhere else to be. The costumes were handed back to the three costume assistants that had travelled with us who packed them up in these boxes.
We were out of the studio by six o’clock. Walking back to the hotel, I checked Facebook. I saw a lot of messages and wall posts of “I saw you on Dancing With The Stars...Awesome!” and such. It varied by person, but I had at least ten by the time I left the studio. When we arrived at the hotel, everyone dispersed into their rooms. We were getting quite hungry for dinner, so I told the boys to go online and look for something to eat for dinner. “I don’t want to walk too far, so find something close.” I said.
We had settled on going to this Bistro atop an office building down the block. It was a pain in the ass to find, but when we did find it, we were hungry. The point where we became cranky because we were that hungry. Then the food took forever to come out and when it did come out, it wasn’t the best. So we un-happily paid the bill and we went next door to McDonalds. We’re not supposed to have McDonalds. Tara considers it Emergency Food, only in an Emergency. This was an emergency. We paid a lonesome amount of money for terrible food and bad service and needed food before we starve. Later that night, I felt it in my stomach. I haven’t eaten the greasy McDonalds Food in over five months and my body reminded me why I stopped eating it.
The boys HAD to go to bed earlier than they have been. We have an early flight in the morning and there will be no sleeping in. Our flight is at 8:05 in the morning, meaning that we will be leaving the hotel at six fifteen in the morning. I don’t remember the last time I was up that early.
Waking up at five thirty was not my ideal situation. My alarm woke up both Leo and I up. I wanted it that way so he would be somewhat awake as I turn my shower. I walked to another room and made sure Adrian and Marcell were up. Adrian was up, but he wasn’t happy. “Make sure your brother gets up.” I told him. “Uhummm.” He told me. I exited the room, went back to my room and started to take a shower. I almost fell asleep in the shower, but stumbled out, changed and then got Leo up. He was up but just didn’t want to get out of bed. He wouldn’t budge. I pulled the covers off of him and opened the shades in the window which he really didn’t like. “I really didn’t want to do that, but you need to get up.” I told him. He moaned. I went in to brush my teeth. I came back out and he was still in bed. “Leo Wadd, we are leaving this hotel in twenty five minutes, get up and get in the shower.” I yelled at him. He moaned but swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor. He stumbled into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
When I checked on the other room, they were getting there, but real slowly. Real slowly. Marcell was up, but he wasn’t doing anything. He was just sitting on the edge of his bed. “Dude, did you shower?” I asked. He nodded. I smelled him. He smelled like soap. Okay. “Well, go get some clothes on, you’re not wearing your PJ’s in the airport.” I told him. He moaned and went to change. Adrian was changed and all set to go. “Storm, I think I’m gonna try some coffee this morning.” He said. “Okay, well we’ll go down to the lobby in a few minutes and get something to eat and you can have some there. Don’t make it now, it won’t brew in time.” I told him.
Switching back to my room, I passed Ryan who was putting his bags in the hallway. “Can you keep an eye on the Abiatelli’s and make sure they get ready?” I asked. He noddedd. We were all tired, over tired. I haven’t been up this early since.... well, when I was back in Bethel, I never had to get up this early either. That is how early it is.
Finally, the boys dragged themselves out of the rooms and we took the long half a hallway, elevator and U-turn trip to the hotel lobby where a complimentary breakfast was being held. We took full advantage of it. Though I needed to watch the boys as they began to drop things and was careless about what they put on their plate. At one point I smacked Leo on the back of the head. “Wake Up.” I said. None of them were awake. I wasn’t even awake but with my age, I could handle it, mentally.
They slumped in their chairs, eating their breakfast. I think I came to the conclusion at this time that they need a break. Even though it’s really early in the morning, and their attitudes may change by two this afternoon, I think they’ve worked to their limits. We literally just completed four months of intense rehearsals, and now we are travelling all over the place, doing all of these shows, it takes a lot of energy. I think they need a break. With another week and a half until break, we needed something to do. Well, I needed to do something. Even for the rest of the week (It’s Wednesday), they had to finish school, do two shows in Seattle and then a transfer to Spokane. Our next completely free day, which I call a Gold day which means no school, no shows, no rehearsals, no transfers is in two weeks, during our break.
Once we got onto the plane, the boys just crashed. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get them to finish any schoolwork. The plane ride is only half an hour anyway, so they slept all the way through takeoff, the flight and into the landing. I didn’t really fall asleep, I just listened to music the entire time. I had to wake them up when we landed in Seattle. This flight, we had to do no customs, no passport check, just find our bags and baggage claim and take our little bus to the hotel. “Do we have to do school?” Marcell asked on our way up to the elevator. “No, not today. You guys can finish tomorrow, today, just sleep and get some rest for the show tonight.” I told them. By the time we had gotten into the hotel, I had found the school case, hidden away in Cherylie’s room, and had settled into the room, it was only ten thirty in the morning. I would’ve just have woken up. Going in and checking on the brothers, I found that they had both fallen asleep, still with their shoes on. I had to take a picture. That was immediately uploaded onto Facebook. I tagged their parents and sister in it. “They are a bit tired......” A few minutes later, my phone alerted me that Melissa, their older sister had replied. “OMG haha” she said.
Even though I was sleeping, and cranky, I still answered the phone, because it was my boss. “Storm, I have big news.” She told me. “You’ve been hired!” She exclaimed. “Well, all of you guys have been hired!” She added. “Wha-what are you talking about?” I asked her. I... we already work for Cirque Du Soleil. “Have you ever heard of The Great Gatsby?” She asked. “No...” I told her. “Well, I’ve been called to get in contact with you and the boys, asking if you would like to choreograph/oversee the dancing for the party scenes in the movie they're creating.” I found out. “Give me the phone number.” I demanded. “Wow, someone’s cranky.” She commented. “Don’t even ask.” I told her. She gave me the phone number, I thanked her and hung up. I didn’t want to call right away, but curiously, I did anyway.
Just a couple hours later, when everyone was awake, I announced the opportunity to the group. “I don’t suppose that you guys have heard of ‘The Great Gatsby’, have you?” I asked. They hadn’t a clue. “Well then, long story short, we’ve been hired to choreograph and oversee the dancing aspects of the show. It’s going to be for a movie released in the end of 2012. Filming is in Australia. You guys in?” I asked. “When is it?” Ryan asked. “See, that’s the catch. We’d be filming during our November break.” I said. The enthusiasm went down. A couple of minutes later, after discussing, we decided to do it. Of course, we need to talk to parents first.
We first called the producers back, and told them we were interested. They said they’d be in touch very shortly. We then called Ryan and I’s parents first. We let them know what was going on, and they had no problem letting us go. It is our life. We then called Adrian and Marcell’s parents. They, as much as were disappointed for their children not to be coming home on their first break, wanted them to do what they wanted, which was the movie. Leo’s parents felt the same way.
In the past weeks, we have been in constant communication with the producers and the director, Baz Luhrmann about what exactly they wanted. It wasn’t much choreography, more of research and figuring out how we were to put a twist on it. Nonetheless, our contracts we signed is paying us a lot of money for two to three days of work. Now, we are boarding an early morning flight for Australia, completely skipping Sunday (pretty much) and arriving in Sydney on Monday, November 21st.
The plane ride was really relaxing, and we were completely awake arriving in Sydney early in the morning of Monday. It was as if we got a really (x4) good nights sleep. Plus, we were really excited to be in Australia and work on this movie.
I’m really going to sum up this week for you. The day we arrived, we couldn’t check into our hotel until after three in the afternoon, but they happily stored our bags for us so we could just walk around for the day. Exploring Sydney was pretty awesome. It was really hot, reminding us that the seasons are switched in the Southern hemisphere. When we checked into the hotel later in the day, I sent a message to Adrian’s Mom and Leo’s Mom on Facebook. It’s something have had needed to do. It was Tara’s idea. Once again, I asked if it was really her job. Her response was “You took over this job, it’s your responsibility.” I didn’t take over this job. It was just handed to me. Not that I don’t like it, but didn’t sign up for this, I signed up to dance. Anyway, I sent this message:
Anyway, since I’ve somehow inherited this parenting job, just some things that I’d like to say. First, thanks for trusting me with your children. I haven’t lost any of them...yet. They are all smart kids. They won’t get lost. Then again, we’re alone in Australia.
I’ve heard that you are coming to Las Vegas over Christmas. I think the boys are really appreciative about that. I know that we and you have been told not to book tickets for Christmas Day. From what information I can gather from Tara, she is getting tickets to both shows on that day. I do not know your plans, but I’m going to make a pretend itinerary that would work around our schedule. If you fly out to Vegas on December 23, you can watch our 7:00 show that night. Please do not come prior to the 23rd. There is some travelling amidst Las Vegas for a performance on NBC’s The Voice and we will not be in town. The following day, Christmas Eve is our day off. There is a Christmas Eve dinner for staff only, that the boys are expected to be at, at 7:00pm. I would like them to attend. It should be no longer than two hours, according to our tour manager. The following day, Christmas, we have two shows. One at 7:00 and one at 10:00. The boys must be at call time at 5:00. I know the boys are anxious about being able to bring you around backstage. We can do this before 5:00. I will discuss this with them as time gets closer. I’m also not sure how much time you plan on spending in Las Vegas, but the rest of our Las Vegas schedule looks like this: A 7:00 AND 10:00 show on both December 26th and 27th. The boys must be at work at 5:00 both of those nights. The following day, we leave for Phoenix. Again, I don’t know your plans, but if you’re thinking about it, you cannot ride with us to Phoenix. Sorry.
The last thing about the Las Vegas stay that has been brought to my attention that you should probably know about. Even though that you are their parents and Cirque respects them and you, rules are rules. Being that we on tour with Cirque, we need to oblige by their rules. The boys MUST stay in the room they are assigned to for their stay. Under no circumstances may other people stay overnight in the room. For example, my Mother cannot stay in my room, even if she is only staying for two nights. From some information I gathered, the five youth on tour, Adrian, Marcell, Leo, Ryan and I will be sharing a large suite-like room in the apartment during our stay. Though Tara hinted this to me. If we have kids coming to visit, such as I know that Leo’s sister and cousins are coming, and Adrian and Marcell’s sister is coming, it wouldn’t be so bad for the kids to have a sleepover sort of deal in the room BUT Cirque Employees must have the beds due to their physical health. If you have any more questions, feel free to call me, text me, whatever. If you don’t have my number, the boys have it. See you soon!”
We had received a whole bunch of things in the mail about a week ago, such as instructions, scheduled and more information, as well as passes on lanyards to allow us into the Fox Australia Studios. The following morning, a car picked us up, with our passes and the package of information and drove us the couple minutes down the road to the studios. At the gate, we had to flash our passes and the car was given a guest pass, since it wouldn’t be staying on site. The driver, a lovely man, drove his way through the lots, as if he has been here several times before. He drove us to a large building, a studio and dropped us off. When we were fully out of the car, a young women, couldn’t be twenty five, carrying a clipboard came up to us, introduced herself and then brought us inside and we had a brief meeting with the director, Baz. We then went and started talking to all the extra’s and some of the cast about how this would go, and some of the very simply choreography with a few select dancers. They were astonished at our age.
    After rehearsing and choreographing all morning, we filmed one full party scene on this day. The following day, we did the same thing, but for a different scene. But this was much shorter and much more low key since an important scene was going on during the party. On the bright side, for both party scenes, we made sure we were seen in costume on camera. We’re going to be in a movie!
    The final day of filming, we were working in another studio, in more of a tavern like scene, choreographing a ‘stripper’ like women scene, with girls, almost naked, dancing on the stage of this speakeasy. Very interesting, and we got to see a scene being filmed, without being in it, which was cool.
    In our three days of filming, we met very important people like Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby McGuire (Spiderman) and much of the cast from the movie. It was exciting to be able to work with all these lovely people. And after the three days, before leaving, we had to sign a confidential agreement to not release any information about the movie until it premieres. The exact date is not set yet.
    We spent our final day in Sydney at the beach, which was really cool. It was still November, and we were swimming. IN AUSTRALIA! What could make this any better? It was an awesome experience, though I don’t recall much of it since it happened so quickly. Before we knew it, we were on a flight to Los Angeles, and then to Salt Lake City to return to the tour, virtually going back in time and arriving Saturday, November 26th. We were only abroad for five days, and it was worth missing a vacation.