Day 5

Sticks and keep me ups are today’s highlights. During the break Ahlam takes the ball and starts doing keep me ups - shoulders, knees, head, feet, chest - she is brilliant.

A couple of women are pregnant and are told they can’t come any more as they will be too heavily pregnant for the performance, and if anything were to happen to them our company is responsible - they are practically begging the director and producers to allow them to stay, one of them wipes away a tear as she turns away.

After a quick warm up I bring out the bamboo sticks, which I had hunted down from some random factory. Somewhat nervously, not knowing if they are ready for sticks or how they will react, I want them to explore spacial awareness and learn to work as a single unit. At first, they can’t focus and behave like children wanting to use them as weapons or fantasy dance partners (which I secretly enjoyed!). After the first exercise though, they get really into it and by the last they are fully focused and actually doing it with incredible skill for their first attempt. I was very impressed - this is only day 5!