Within the HoneyWoods

Bain recently launched an Inspirational Leadership model in the San Francisco office. The training asks each of us to build a “Rockpile” of four leadership elements that we want to develop to make us potentially inspiring leaders someday. In order of elements I need to work on, my biggest rock (boulder, even) is “Follow-Through.” While I’m great at initiating ideas, I’m not as great at seeing them through.

So I’m blaming Bain’s “Rockpiles” for my idea to fly from San Francisco to spend 96 hours at ALA to see my Creativity Class’s final performance through. Once I worked out the math during the flight, I realized I was earning 1.6 Joburg hours per traveling hour. Seemed like a great deal.

The Creativity Class was an experiment concocted at Mr. Gavin Peter’s desk, and the hook that brought me to ALA in the first place. I wanted to help start the arts program and Gavin wanted to unleash right brains, so we were a good match. “We must have a class!” he exclaimed one afternoon. “Now who will teach it…? Ahhh!” He landed on me with a smirk. And just like that, our little idea became a Monday afternoon class offering creative exploration and expression through visual art, dance, music, and drama. The fact that the teacher’s experience with dance, music, and drama were limited to nightmares of Mrs. La Porte’s metronome and a still-scarring “I forgot my line” in the fourth grade play didn’t seem to matter.

In February, I needed to return to Virginia to take my mother to a chemo appointment, and needed a sub for my Monday class. Conveniently, it also happened to be a lesson on performing arts. Since I didn’t have any intention of re-living my one-play “career,” I would have needed a sub anyway (trip home or not). Playing to Veda’s soft spot for his stage days, I convinced him to take over for me. Turns out I had unleashed a monster, as this one-time sub took over after I left ALA in April, turning my Monday afternoon “experiment” into a semi-professional production scheduled for Graduation week. I wasn’t going to miss this… and by the time I got into Joburg to surprise my students days before the performance, there was still work for us to do.

Sunday evening, we went to school for the rehearsal surprise.  I hid upstairs in the EL department until Veda had them all lined up on the stage for focusing exercises. “Tonight we’re going to speak LOUDLY.” He begins. “TONIGHT WE ARE GOING TO SPEAK LOUDLY,” I can hear through the doors of the Auditorium. Mid-speech, I slipped into the darkest corner of the Auditorium. Watching their faces flooded in Magnifique’s spotlights, I see Natalia squinting into the darkness, as her raised eyebrow drops into an open-mouthed stare, which closes into a scream… and then twelve more, before I’m engulfed by a horde of hugs. “MS. ALLI!! You didn’t tell us you were coming!” That was the whole point, guys!

I’m a guest in my own class, watching the rehearsal until midnight. “This is not high school drama. This is a semi-professional performance,” Veda begins. I’ve left my class to the Princeton perfectionist, and the results are staggering. Even in the rawness of the rehearsal, I hardly recognize them.

The next morning, it’s time to finish the set. Director Sunassee is envisioning a hole in the stage, which the set company comes to remove mid-morning. Turns out it suits our performance better than it suits the all-school Awards Assembly that afternoon. Nothing keeps you listening for your name in an Awards Assembly quite like knowing you have to cross a giant hole to receive your reward. As I join the EL faculty team on stage to hand Awards to students more concerned with their paper print-outs than their footing, I’m just waiting for the next viral YouTube to be born. Valedictorian falls in hole mid-handshake!

One of the great scenes in Veda’s vision is a group painting, performed as a dance on the floor to Nero’s Into The Past from the Gatsby soundtrack. Being the “painting expert” of the group, I’m expected to provide him a small 6 x 6… meter canvas and all the paints we need. So, Dave and I seek supplies and venture to Builder’s Warehouse where we sort through enormous muslin drop cloths and “bubblegum blue” paint cans. Could have sworn bubblegum was universally pink, but it seems they do things differently here. “Sorry, we don’t have 2 Litre containers of paint. Only 1 Liter cans. So I can’t help you.” Dave is incredulous. “Ahh, but you see, 1 plus 1 equals 2. So can we not just get two cans of each?” Dave asks. Then, shaking his head to me, “We could probably get away with one of each, but I’m never coming back here again. Make it two.” Good point. As we sort through muslin options searching for two 6x6m “canvases,” I’m tired. “Dave, Veda’s crazy,” I sigh, just as he texts me, “Oh, I also need two packs of marshmallows.” Of course you do. At this point, I’ve stopped asking questions.

Before we know it, it’s Dress Rehearsal Day, and I’m at my desk in the EL department engulfed in one of the two 12 square meter canvases I’m hemming with a darning needle and fishing wire. We order a fancy dinner (Nando’s) and are projecting The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly movie theater style, so I can appreciate the dramatic brilliance that has inspired our Director’s opening scene. Having written my American Studies Thesis on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and just watching this movie for the first time in South Africa five years later, I feel… pathetic. My thumb numb from the needle, I’m worrying about the choreography of this canvas-dance, but Veda assures me they’ve done it before.

But when we rehearse it with real paint and hoist the dripping draft from the stage floor, it looks like they've taken my Picasso lecture to heart a bit too much. The bulbous left nostril, amorphous eyeball and all-encompassing blue “beard” give me the urge to yell “I told you so!” but it’s 2am and frankly, Director Sunassee is starting to scare me.  We’re shooing the kids to bed (and to not have nightmares of the monster they just created), and I’m barefoot mopping – no, scrubbing- layers of paint off the stage. So glad I didn’t take the time to prime our canvas now, eh? With frostbitten toes and only the gray slosh of the mop to keep me company, I feel like jumping into the hole and never coming out.

Portrait of a Man in Blue Hat, Pablo Picasso

Wake up! Wake up! It’s the big day. The mandate I’ve been given is to “just fix the painting” so we don’t have a screaming audience on our hands when we raise the canvas. I spend the morning working with Tife to map out the face, protyping a 12-person performance painting by dipping and dancing my pinkie through a paper plate of paint. It feels like a stretch, but we don’t have a choice at this point.

It’s 6pm. Rosie and Faridah’s final art show is still unhung, Magnifique is exploring new discothèque techniques for lighting, and the Director of Security is complaining that the trees stuffed into the Auditorium are blocking the EXIT. Just hours before, The Director was barking orders to the dozen young lads lugging these massive pieces of pine onto the stage. He’s like a much less jolly version of Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as branches lash through the Emergency Exit doorway and the auditorium is stuffed to the ceiling with sap. 

Meanwhile, Dave is on a ladder feeding rope through an aluminum shower rod to support the canvas, and I’ve unrolled last night’s still-wet disaster, practicing painting styles with my performers, chanting “Feel the beat! Feel the beat! Less paint! Feel the beat! Be the brush!” If only Bain could see me now.

At 6:15pm, I don’t feel ready… for the performance, or for the cab that is taking me away to the airport the second the curtains close. But suddenly, Director Sunassee has transformed into a beacon of calm confidence. He lines the performers up on stage and begin,. “Tonight, let’s show this school what we can be. Let’s show them that art can be, and should be, taken seriously. Let’s raise the bar tonight, forever.” I want to follow up with a goodbye, because I know the aftermath of this is going to be too hectic for it, but I can’t stop the silent tears that are already rolling down my cheeks as I hide in the dark behind him.

Everyone’s seated. Three seats in the front remain. It’s time. Stress has knotted my back into a tangle of nerves, but Gavin’s warm smile puts me at ease. Within the HoneyWoods begins with the theme of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Alcides’s video starts rolling.

Four centuries ago, three artists, the world-famous painter from the Wild West, Carneisha Evans, the great dancer from the far East, Zheng Chun Long, and the incredible singer from Russia, Elena Alexandrov, had all individually reached the apex of their arts. One day, in their respective corners of the world, they discover the location of the Secret – which, if revealed, unlocks one’s potential to become the best artist of eternity.

Faridah’s gaze, her paintbrush dabbing the palette, the canvas, back to the palette. Nandi singing through bubbles at Emmerentia Dam. Eric meditating atop the fountain. And then the chase. Running, running, when they burst through the Auditorium on stage as Il Buiono, Il Cattivo, Il Bruto theme crescendos. Faridah paces in my Tory Burch boots. They look so much better this way. Nandi emerges from the hole, her face white with powder. Eric awes the audience as his umbrella snaps with the force of his movements. Once-quiet Lucas elicits roars of laughter with his “Soooo…” line. Faridah directs the group painting and lifts her arms to raise it… satiating the silent audience’s curiosity. And then a loud “OH EM GEE” from Gavin as I simply burst into tears. It's... perfect.

It was all a beautiful blur. “We did it.”

And then I’m sunk into the back seat of Henri’s cab, drunk with the flurry of goodbyes, tears, hugs, laughter, and pure joy that just sent me on my way. Off to Amsterdam to Bain World Cup, trying to connect the dots once again. But no matter how wonderful Amsterdam was, I just couldn't seem to get South Africa out of my system.