Months of planning, weeks of sweating it out at dank gyms, failed rehearsals, injuries to some, eating less than they should to keep the weight down, some fainting as often as twice a day, and on Saturday morning they were jostling for shade under one ageing coconut tree with no water and no volunteers to assist them either.
It doesn’t get easy for these dancers picked to put on a show on the morning of the T20 World Cup final, and still tried to make small groups to get their moves aligned. It was going to be a five-minute routine, not more, but they couldn’t have lasted longer anyway.
As the mercury surreptitiously crept towards 31 degrees Celsius and the humidity level rose to nearly 80 per cent by toss time, fifty-odd dancers had to get their act together. They had trained all night the day before, the day before that, and several before that. All for these five minutes.
Actually they only got four minutes and 23 seconds out there before being told to exit the ground. They were not very pleased, naturally, but even as their makeup bled into costumes made of polyester, bedazzled with eye-popping sequin, all of them looked like they had run a marathon, and yet they were beautiful.
As they realised that their moment in the sun was finally done, they didn’t mind rubbing the makeup off with their bare hands, they couldn’t care if they were not presentable at this point. They were done.
They had trained to get used to the morning sun when they were used to dancing under lights. No training can help you here though.
“I just need a drink, a cold drink, could someone help?” Shari Preston, the team lead, called out to a volunteer, who obviously turned a blind eye.
Just as they did manage to get someone's attention, which was a good ten minutes or so, one of the youngest members of the group at 15-years-old - Crystal - lay down on the concrete unable to get up. She wasn’t unconscious, she was just dehydrated.
The medical crew had to step in at this point, but first, they had to move all the other dancers away. Their concern was actually making things worse for Crystal, and as she was taken away for some intravenous therapy, Shari said: “That girl has been working on these drills for the last few days now. See, her mother is right there and she is worried, man, but these people don’t seem to care.”
As it turns out, Evelyn Paige, Crystal’s mum, was not as worried as she seemed. “That girl gonna be alright, man. She has been fainting since she was a baby. The girl was born to dance so this is nothing. She’ll be back in a bit. I don’t know about myself though. I’m lost.”
Even as Evelyn laughs about it, you know she means it. The crew walks around trying to find shade when there is none. Eventually, they just decided to leave the premises and walk over to the cafe across the street. There were a few tents put up so they sat there, buying water, trying to change into something more comfortable in the open.
These dancers were meant to give people something to remember the Kensington Oval with. They did.
Sadly, the organisers at the Kensington couldn’t give these dancers what they deserved. Hell, needed.