Carnival: Sadie M & Damian W + Open (1)
The last year of her life had taught Sadie a lot when it came to looks. While by no stretch of the imagination was she a Master of the art, Sadie had learned to pick up on things. She could spot interest, appreciation, hungers for things that were less than food, and the eyes of men who thought themselves wolves. There were essential skills really, thing to keep her out of harm's way and keep the need for her non-musical talents to a low. Still, she wouldn't flinch when surprised by it in the passenger seat of a car and that skill was more than doubly useful when the man stood and approached her as he did.
About the worst part was when he ignored her hand, but that was easy to step past. She often bumbled her way through trying to decide if hugging or shaking hands was better and so there was more experience to pull from on not making too much of a fuss about his disinterest. Mostly she was just pleased he hadn't told her she'd dawdled too long and that now she'd missed her chance and needed to get out of his tent. 'Course she hadn't properly realized that she'd been holding her breath until he'd asked her a question and told him to go right on ahead and get on with her audition.
"Right then." She smiled and set about looking over the room for a second.
It was another skill had also come by way of her watching people. When crowds would gather around her on sidewalks, Sadie always paid attention. She tried to, at least by ability of recognition to place things, to size people up. She tried to guess what songs they might like, or hate, though she rarely had the ability to test her guesses beyond what they threw for coins in her case. Sometimes, things like pop-culture in its most recent incarnations sometimes went over her head. Sometimes she'd miss the books in hands or the stickers on coffee mugs. However things like a Turkish Coffee cup? Even if Sadie might have never used one herself and had only seen them on shelves, she knew what that was.
Now she just had to wonder if it being used for an ashtray meant it was something she should avoid or aim at. Ultimately she'd chosen to use it as an anchor point instead of sidestep it. Though really all it would do was give her a general region of the world to pull from. There was a list of songs, a gift from her past that scrolled in her head while she got ready. They were mostly tunes from her Gran'pa'pa, whom Sadie had never met that, and they had apparently been songs her Grandmother had quite liked to hear -- so of course Sadie had learned them.
It didn't hurt that, by taking this route, she was offering him up something a bit more of a performance than the way she'd bounce around doing jigs while playing highland tunes. She'd get to those, perhaps, but first she'd set about getting herself ready for the piece.
Jacket went first, neatly folded and set aside before shoes would be kicked off her and Sadie set about pulling off her wool toe-socks. It might have been a bit unorthodox to go barefoot without explanation but, well, Sadie figure he'd said perform and wagered it was best to not exhaust that opportunity. So it was that she'd quickly skip back over in front of him, swiveling her toes to get a feel for the ground underneath her as she came to rest with the violin.
That bow would set to strings and the song would begin without further delay. Sadie thought it was a good choice, if perhaps a bit long, but it had a lot going for it too.
First and foremost, it was a piece that could be easily unaccompanied and one that showcase her talents in a variety of ways. It could show off the way she could switch her styles quickly, comfortable picking the opening notes out with fingers and quickly switching back to her bow. More than, it could show off her ability to play in a variety of less-traditional poses as she began to move her feet around. Bare feet would shimmy hips this way and that as needed, showing a strong departure from anything that even resembled mousy as jingling the bells just so to fill in the space for percussion where needed.