In memory of Zhao Ziyang

By Barbara Florio Graham

The death of China's exiled former leader, Zhao Ziyang, brought back fascinating memories for me. Ziyang visited Ottawa when Trudeau was Prime Minister, and an elaborate Gala was presented at the National Arts Centre in his honor.

Unfortunately, everything had to be arranged over the holidays, as the visit took place in January. Quite a cast was assembled, including Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Maureen Forrester, the Canadian Brass, the percussion group Nexus, and a couple of others.

I received a call in mid-December, asking if I could assemble 48 square dancers to perform in the finale. As the P.R. Director of the National Square & Round Dance Society, I couldn't pass up the opportunity, but the timing was awful! The dance clubs had just taken a hiatus for the holidays, but I was able to call a couple of key people and it all began to come together.

The NAC wanted me to select a caller, give him the music (on a cassette) that the NAC Orchestra would play, rehearse the dancers myself. We were given a rehearsal hall and parking vouchers at the NAC for the two weeks before the show.

It was an amazing challenge. Knowing a bit about Chinese values, I managed to assemble an entire square of seniors, another consisting of two families, and color-coordinated each square. Because of the angle of the audience relative to the stage, and the presence of TV cameras, every woman was asked to wear two crinolines, which meant a lot of swapping and borrowing from other dancers in their clubs.

My caller was terrified. In addition to having to call in front of an audience of 2400 people (most of them invited dignitaries), on live TV (also broadcast live to China!), he was working with the NAC Orchestra and a live fiddler, rather than the records he was used to.

Paul, an elevator repairman, owned only one jacket. It was grey corduroy, and when I found out, I just nodded my head, hoping it would look like suede or velvet against the black tie and tails of the orchestra behind him!

Rehearsals went beautifully. I've never worked with a more cooperative group of people! I knew many of them, and made fast friends out of those I hadn't met before. Among the dancers were the Chair Couple of the 1980 Nat'l Convention (held in Ottawa), the President of the Nat'l Society, and the President of the Ontario Federation. That would prove significant as we moved into the final rehearsals.

It turned out that our dancers would come onstage and perform their routine, and then be joined by the rest of the cast for the finale. So Brian Macdonald, then director of Les Grands Ballets and the Director of the Gala, came into a rehearsal to watch us perform, then showed us what he wanted us to do as the rest of the cast joined us.

So far, so good. One thing about square and round dancers is that they're used to following directions from their caller. Tell them to do something and they respond, without question. And all the dancers in our group were experienced (even the 9-year-old and his 12-year-old sister, children of the caller).

As soon as Brian arrived, he treated me as if I were one of his underlings, rather than the director of this troupe, but I didn't mind that, and just ignored him when he told me to "count down" for him, a job dance directors assign to the lowest of the low.

But the dress rehearsals were something else. When we moved onto the stage with the orchestra, Paul's nervousness began to surface. He told me later that it was the hardest thing he'd even done in his life.

The first time Paul stumbled, Brian stomped onto the stage, shouting, and that was enough to unnerve Paul even more. And Brian noticed immediately that when Paul stopped, the dancers stopped.

Brian stormed over to me. In a loud voice that everyone could hear, he said, "These dancers know their routine, and they can do it whether they can hear him or not, right?"

I knew exactly what he had in mind, although none of the dancers did. He was planning to cut off Paul's microphone!

I stood up to my full five feet two inches, caught the eye of all the elected dance officers in the room, and stated, firmly, "My dancers don't dance without their caller."

Brian looked at the dancers, all of whom, steely-eyed, stood their ground and nodded.

I then turned on my heel, went over to the sound man, and asked him if he would put a double-mic on Paul. These guys at the NAC have seen everything, and Brian Macdonald's reputation is legendary.

"Don't worry," the sound man said, reassuringly.

While this was going on, Brian Law, former conductor of the Ottawa Symphony (and someone I knew from my years as Entertainment Editor of What's On in Ottawa), turned around to talk to Paul. They were standing back to back, so Paul couldn't see the orchestra, but Law assured him that he and the entire orchestra were intent on helping him as much as they could, and that he should relax and just let them follow him.

The night of the show, everything went perfectly. Brian Law and several members of the orchestra made a special effort to give Paul a thumbs up, Maureen Forrester left her dressing room door open and smiled at every pair of dancers as they lined up in the wings, and the rest of the cast was gracious and helpful.

Members of Les Grands Ballet were particularly pleasant. Guess they knew what it was like to get dressed-down by Brian Macdonald!

I've directed a production of Benjamin Britten's "Noye's Fludde" with a cast of 100 kids and an amateur orchestra (which I had to conduct) made up of grade 7 & 8 boys, but nothing has compared to the Ziyang Gala.

The lovely end to this story is that I was invited upstairs to the "hidden" reception room behind the Governor General's box, to meet Trudeau and Ziyang, along with the "stars" from the cast. In the line waiting to greet the two leaders, both Canadian Brass and Nexus told me they recognized my name as connected to Simon Teakettle, who had often requested their music on the CBC.

Trudeau was effusive in his praise of the dancers, and Zhao Ziyang grabbed my hand in both of his and held on, smiling broadly and repeating something that his translator interpreted as "Wonderful."

When I returned to the rehearsal hall where the dancers had assembled, I was presented with a huge bouquet of red roses.

Brian Macdonald, of course, never said "Thank you" to any of us.

ISSN 1710-6788
Published by: be smith designs
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