Life on the road #2: Miro’s new toy!
I earlier mentioned touring Germany with a bunch of ukrainian colleagues. Well, let me introduce one of them. I give you Miroslav!
Miroslav, or Miro for friends, which is anyone who smiles at him, is a 2 meter tall man from Siberia. Although probably almost double my age (I never dared to ask his age, he can be quite a dramatic fellow), he is still doing lead roles for the company, long blonde curls waving as he dances (he’s really brown-haired, but bleaches his hair to appear more prince-ish. I shared hotel-room with him for the whole tour – I know!).
Apart for being fund of ballet (and vodka!), Miro is much of a handyman. He likes to work with wood, and (apparently) built a garage onto his house last summer vacation himself.
Miro’s saw
But enough background! Story goes we’re touring Germany, and have one day for recreation between our shows (we were dancing Spartacus. It’s tiring!). So our driver plots in a shopping mall to his GPS, and off we go for some serious retail-recovery.When we get there, it turns out “the mall” was more like a huge house-and-garden store, with all kinds of tools and machines for all kinds of housekeeping and gardening. I see a spark lighten in Miro’s eyes as we turned into the parkinglot. Then he disappeares for 6 hours. Most of the dancers were quite disappointed with the choice of “mall”, although it got a little better by finding the McDonalds connected to it. 5 hours in McDonalds – never been as stuffed in my life!
Back in the bus half a day later, we have a headcount. Miro’s missing. But before anyone gets to upset, he is coming into the bus, asking 4 guys to come out and help him.
You see, he bought a saw! But not just an ordinary saw; A big-ass, heavy-as-hell, plain-metal, 3 meter tall band saw. The monster were (of course) way to big to fit the luggage-room, leaving Miro with no choice but to bring the saw into the two-story bus, up the stairs (it fitted. Exactly), to place it lying in the aisle of the bus, sealing off the only way of exit for anyone sitting behind row four.
Miroslav has this aura around him, it seems people can’t really get angry at him. He’d do all kind of crazy things, quite annoying things, really, but somehow the dancers just seemed to find it perfectly normal. Most of the people in the bus settled with the saw being there in 10 seconds. We still had 6 more shows in 5 cities, plus a 1500km drive back to the east of Ukraine, but then again, Miro had his saw. As I was climbing bus-seats on the fourth day, just to get to the bus toilet (the saw was of course situated between me and all important features on a tour-bus), the only thing I could think of was: don’t you think he could get one of those cheaper in Ukraine? I think so!
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More posts on Tights and Tiaras up soon!
Ta-ta!
H
