Hong Kong Auditions (pt 2)

[Continued from Part 1]

Now, the character auditions were a little different from the dancer auditions, largely because of how many people there were! I think it was close to forty, whereas the dance auditions didn't even reach twenty people, I don’t think.

It was also a morning audition (versus the dance audition that started at 3:30pm), so I left Shenzhen at 6am and arrived with easily an hour and a half to spare. 😒 At least I wasn’t late.

The audition location was right next to a busy highway;
you can see a little of it on the right.

The weather was just so nice and Hong Kong is such a neat city :)

China and HK both have TONS of these overhead passes, and it's something
I think we should adopt more of in the US, frankly.

And here's where I auditioned! We were on the third floor
(which is actually the fourth floor because UK and US levels are different)
(so therefore HK and US levels are different)

All forty or so of us lined up and gave our basic information to the staffers (who included one woman who I was now encountering for the third time), had our picture and height taken, and then went to a large studio. Because there were so many, we had to sit in lines of ten (I was number 27).

The staffers explained the audition structure to us: warm up, fitness test, dance combo, and acting. The warm up was lead by one of the HK choreographers, and she was super tiny, super fierce, and clearly American-trained, and I loved her.

The fitness test was just doing 100 jumping jacks and counting all of them out loud, and that wasn’t super fun, but hey, I did it. The dance combo was simple, as most of the auditionees weren’t trained, but it was really fun! The music sounded like it would be something in the Animal Kingdom part of Disney, so I got to bring a lot of intensity to it. We learned it in a big group, but demonstrated it across the floor in groups of two. Each group showed the combo two times as they crossed the floor, and I had a really good time with it.

After that, we split into groups of 5 to do the acting portion, which was just to show (without words) the story of someone waking up, realizing it’s very cold outside, getting dressed, and then realizing they’re late for something. Watching everyone else was a really good time; I’m not sure how I did, but there was one man I remembered who was a little bit older than most of the applicants, and he had the very deliberate, tense kind of energy I associate with trained actors, and his story was really good and clear.

And that was it! After all the “tests” were over, we got sheets to fill out with more info and turned in headshots/resumes, and that was all. The staff didn’t make any cuts, but said they would only contact those they wanted to hire. The parts available are, of course, all very specific, they said.

So yeah! It was a good time, but nothing’s come of that yet. Still, I’ve now given the Disney corporation my resume three times, so they definitely have it on file, and maybe they’ll throw something my way someday, haha.

After that audition, since it was so early in the day, I decided to wander around and get lunch in the city. There was a public park near the metro station by the audition location, and there were some historic buildings in the park, so I decided it would be a great place to spend a few hours.

However, I walked directly past the park without realizing it, and only ended up moving farther away as the way went on. Luckily, I was in a historic part of town, so there was tons to see, and I found a really good hole-in-the-wall noodle place for lunch! (I also treated myself to an ice cream cone later, shhh.)

Hong Kong-style noodles with three toppings and soy milk!!!!

Brace yourselves for all these pictures I took.....

I found this church! St. John's Cathedral (I think)

The church was on a raised area that I thought was the park because of all the greenery,
but alas, it was not.

EMPTY ALLEYWAYS!!

LOOK AT THIS

Respectfully @every other city I've visited:
Get on Hong Kong's level

Or: elevate your game

(get it)

hi I almost screamed I love trees

It was a lovely day with perfect weather, and I didn’t mind walking, even though I was wearing fleece-lined leggings because the morning had been a little chilly, whoops. 

T R E E S

 After realizing I was never going to find the park, I got back on the metro and headed home!

Love the border at sunset :')

Peace y'all!

Hong Kong Auditions (pt 1)

Hey howdy hey folks!

Last week I went into Hong Kong twice for two different auditions, both for Disney!

The first was for Shanghai Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and they were looking specifically for dancers. The production is essentially a full Broadway show, just playing at the Disney park in Shanghai.

The second audition was for character performers in Hong Kong Disneyland—more of a “interact with the guests and join the parades” kind of deal.

These two were three days apart, and I only found the HK Disney one after coming back from the Shanghai one, haha.

Anyway, the Shanghai dance audition required auditionees to sing as well, which 😱😱😱

I’m not trained singer at all, and I have trouble singing on-key with accompaniment, so I decided to take some voice lessons. Unfortunately, I only saw the audition posting a week before the actual audition, so I only had time for two lessons 😳

Because the musical is entirely in Mandarin, of course I had to choose a musical theater song in Mandarin, and so of course I ended up going with a Disney song because I didn’t have time to delve into the history of Broadway getting exported to China.

I ended up with “A Whole New World” from Aladdin largely because I already know the tune, and maybe just a little bit to vindicate my eleven-year-old self who didn’t get the part of Jasmine in our 6^th grade musical because I was a horrible singer…..

So: I frantically memorized the song, started daily dance workouts in my tiny studio apartment, practiced my expressions in the mirror, and woke up confident but nervous the day of. Then I miscalculated my transit time (AGAIN – getting through customs is a wild card every time), caught a taxi from the metro; the taxi driver made a wrong turn JUST before I was supposed to get off, so I had to sprint a block on my own in an unfamiliar part of Hong Kong, praying that my last glance at the map had been correct (I don’t have cell service in HK), to arrive at the audition and find that I was blessedly Not Late. 

The audition process itself was fairly straightforward: we all fill out our forms, provide resumes and headshots, have our photos and heights taken, warm up a bit, and then head to the dance studio, which is a huge, gorgeous room.

Interestingly, I recognized two of the staffers from a previous audition I had done for Hong Kong Disney, but I’m not sure if they remembered me, haha. Even though the show was for Shanghai, since the audition was in Hong Kong, I guess they were there for extra support.

We learned a combination from the show choreographer, a sweet bubbly white woman who also speaks Mandarin. So she gave all the instructions in both languages, and that’s pretty fun. The choreography was actually from the show itself, and it was pretty basic, but involved a lot of direction changes that weren’t totally intuitive, haha. I did alright though!

After that, she separated the men and women, gave the men a rest, and had the women all do a turn combination across the floor. I was pretty excited because, to calm my nerves the night before, I had spent maybe fifteen minutes straight doing nothing but pirouettes, so I was BALANCED. Anyway, I killed the turn combo and I could feel it, but……

After that they cut people and I….was one of them…..

The director giving the usual speech about “thank you for your talent and passion” etc. did make DIRECT and unmistakable eye contact with me though, so I’ll take that as a positive sign.

But I. Didn’t. Even. Sing.

I sulked around the venue for a little while after because they had free wifi and met some fellow auditionees (Soey and Nicole, both from HK, I think). Soey was leaving, but Nicole was auditioning more as a singer, so she stayed around even though her dancing hadn’t been up to par. And Nicole was, I kid you not, singing the Mandarin version of “Reflection” from Mulan. And tbh that alone made the whole experience worth it.

Anyway, as I was leaving, one of the men who had also been cut saw me and called me over to say, “Don’t be sad! Maybe they were just looking for Asian faces.” Which was really quite sweet of him.

So I headed home, letting the bitterness have its time—I really want to move to Shanghai, you guys. It’s glamorous and historic and COOLER THAN SHENZHEN.

Photos from the commute back:

It was golden hour, so that means I was walking around
in Extra Tourist Mode admiring the cityscape.

Also I'm perpetually charmed by bamboo scaffolding

Now that's what I call a city!

The MTR line that connects to Shenzhen is all outdoors
and I LOVE MOUNTAINS YOU GUYS

After getting home, I checked the Disney audition website because, I don’t know, I’m a glutton for pain, and then I saw the Character Performer listing I went, “….well, no harm in trying.”

To be continued! 😛✌️

Splendid China Theme Park

Well hey howdy hey folks, it's been a while! I took a month-long trip back to the US and did some auditions, but nothing much has happened with that, so I'm back in China with no excuse not to work on this blog haha.

So this will be part one of a loooong series of me catching up on some posts I've wanted to make.
Up first, we go back to the first week in April when my parents came to visit!

We went to Splendid China, a theme park featuring displays of traditional ethnic minority culture (China has 54 officially-recognized ethnic minorities, but that's not a complete list!) and famous sightseeing places scaled down to all fit inside one amusement park. We spent the first part of the day wandering around the national monuments and then caught a bunch of different shows in the culture display part.

I only really took photos in the first half, though.

Dad investigating a man-made cave!

Mom regards the scenery

I didn't think to get the names of any of these places whOOPS

That third picture was a really cool display that had little scale models of people in some kind of military parade or celebration.

Then we went to the "Great Wall of China."

You can see the buildings in the background, ruining the illusion of the natural parks, haha.

On the right you can see the miniature walls of a palace/garden complex

THIS ONE I REALLY LIKE
I want to go to this place irl

We also went shopping the day before, but it was a little overwhelming because I took them to one of the hugely crowded wholesale markets where everything is just packed together, so the highlight of that particular trip was the food!

Unfortunately we didn't have much time to do anything else because my work schedule was unexpectedly changed for a national holiday, but I think it was a nice introduction to mainland China! They should come back again sometime considering all the hassle that goes into getting a tourist visa, haha.

And away they go.... See you next time!

Peace~