October 4, 2012

The zoo! It was fun. I studied a turkey and a tortoise (turkey and turtle!) and it was an interesting experience. First of all, getting to do something in nature was really refreshing. I spend about twelve hours a day in that theatre building and usually go straight from there to my house, where I do homework, eat, watch some TV shows, and go to sleep. I’ve been eating really bad and not getting enough exercise, so I’m gaining weight—which is dangerous and I hate it. I wish I had more chances to work out, but I keep telling myself I will work out as soon as Three Sisters is over.

Check up on me. Ask me if I’m working out so I feel guilty for not.

October 2, 2012

Zoo is on Thursday! I’m so excited. We did more monologue things today. I think? I’m blanking on what we did specifically. While I try to remember, I’ll talk about Commedia.

Thank you so much for working with us! Getting to learn the characters from the ground-up is super awesome and worthwhile. I love working with the battatio, and I’m excited to be better at all of these lazzi.

Oh yeah!  Rhythm and Tempo. First of all, I called that you were going to pick me to do the eighth beat by myself. I don’t know how I knew, I just sensed it. I felt special.

This was an interesting challenge, because I’ve never had a problem with rhythm, but I DO have a problem with hand-eye coordination. So.

I liked that you talked about character playlists because I always do that, always always. Every character has a playlist I listen to before each show. 

September 27, 2012

I was absent again today. I really didn’t mean to, I promise it’s not because I don’t like your class. College is hard.

We’re going to the zoo next week, though, that should be awesome! And I talked to some people and they said you did some stuff with bungee cords for tension and talked about power. Sounds interesting! I’m sorry I missed it.

September 25, 2012

Seeing Suzanne reading her monologue in all those different places was funny and made an interesting point. I hate performing outside, though, and it was definitely the worst for being able to hear her. Ray has had to give me the note to use more vocal energy (an embarrassing note to get at this stage of my acting development) though, to my defense, it was more of an energy problem rather than a vocal one. Also something that I need to address but more circumstantial than a problem that’s at the core of my acting.

Interesting fact: my jazz dance class and this class are sort of working together to give me better control of my body. The stuff in here is helping in Jazz and the stuff in there is helping in here. It’s awesome. I wish I could feel more of a growth, though.

Sometimes I feel like I’m letting Ray down in this show. Like he expected something different out of me, and I don’t understand what, or how to do it. It’s just silly actor insecurities, though. 

September 20th, 2012

Putting the elements into my monologue had mixed results. Adding water gave me some cool ideas with pitch, and the idea of a fire growing and gradually getting bigger helped me with pacing, but my monologue had basically no place for earth (or maybe I just have no place for earth, it really is my weakest element) and air wasn’t super useful in this case, but maybe it will be later.

The rubber band thing was awesome—making it into a story was really fun. Our group made ours into a western comedy, and it was one of the most fun things we’ve done in this class so far. I definitely would like more opportunities to do performance-like things in class using the stuff we’re learning. That always helps me the best, since I’m super goal-oriented. Same with dance; if I’m learning a combination for a song, I’m more likely to practice the steps every day than I would be to do a random exercise. 

September 18, 2012

 We moved like the elements! I was terribly bad at earth—Earth is not my element at all—but wind was so much fun. I started thinking about wind and personifying it in ways  I haven’t before. I thought of myself as one gust of wind, one wind-person, and when I was by myself I was a gentle breeze, playing through windows and over smells. When I collected in a large group with other wind-people though, the power was exhilarating. As a huge group we had so much power, the ability to move and destroy and rampage! It wasn’t malicious, though, and it wasn’t sad to separate from the group, just different. If the wind had that power all the time, we’d be in real trouble.

Water I was already suspicious of because we had to do that in the journey of the neutral mask with Thomas, and that was an awful, awful experience. I know I learned a lot, but doing the journey was stressful for all of us and we all felt like we were doing something really, really wrong…we saw him do it, and he did a good job, but if that was the payoff than it wasn’t something I felt like I wanted to invest my time in, really.

Fire was a lot of fun, though. Crackling and popping with my body was entertaining. I know you said no other group had ever made noise like that, but I never made noise the whole time and it kind of aggravated me when the other people in the class did. Maybe it was okay, but I felt like it defeated the purpose. If you have noise to help you, you can be lazy with your body and people will still understand.

September 13, 2012

I hate you for having a drum.

Thank you so much for telling us to do the walking warmup as fast as possible and showing that it can be done. When people had a real goal (Get it done now and quickly) they followed it. The problem was that previously people understood what you meant by “move the play forward” but no one wanted to take risks. When we had a definable goal other than just “get there” it was more like a game we wanted to win, and risks were fine. That exercise has been aggravating me for weeks because I’ll try to connect with people and they will have zoned out, or we will have been doing the same thing for so long that I lose focus myself. It was aggravating.

Having us do different things by gender was cool, and it was funny when you separated Nathan out. I wonder how that works when you define it by something not so easily discernible. For example, if you rattled off a list of names in the beginning that we had to remember while trying to change with them. It’d be harder, but it would be neat to see how we could do.

Sometimes I feel like people in our class aren’t trying to succeed, and it pulls the group down. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but.

September 11, 2012

Stage combat was so. Much. Fun. I enjoyed myself immensely—we got to punch and slap each other! We were merged with George’s class, which was a little crazy but was definitely entertaining. Some of my friends are in that class, so it was fun to work with them.

What I definitely need to work on: naps. Gnappes? Knaps? Who knows how you’re supposed to spell it, but I’m not good at it. The timing and the sound itself. I always forget. Also I wish I was more acrobatic—I feel like stage combat would be way more fun if I was better at doing stunts. I can dance, kind of, but I’m terrified of being upside down and I always end up panicking, even when I do something as simple as a somersault.

“Grabbing” their hair and flinging them around was definitely the most fun part. It’s awesome that the other person is completely in control of the movement—I never really thought about how you could do that, and use it to your advantage. 

September 6, 2012

I figure I can talk some about how the stuff we’ve been doing in class will affect my character, Solyony, in Three Sisters. My initial approach to the character was that he is “stiffer” than I am, which is a term that was thrown around a lot by my high school drama teacher (who…was terrible, but that’s not a story for this journal.)

I tried to pinpoint what that meant in Laban language, and I believe it’s mostly to do with flow and weight. It’s a very controlled flow with a little bit heavier weight than I normally carry myself. He’s an army man, but a mostly sedentary one—he knows how to control his body, but he’s not super strong or heavy.

I think overall he’s a wringer, but definitely a controlled one. Contained? Maybe that’s the word we used. I’m really, really awful at remembering what words go with what. I just need to get it in my brain better.

September 4, 2012

We did some Laban when I was in 3500 with Kristin, so it’s cool to be revisiting that in a more intense way. The names were picked so perfectly—even without knowing the different categories (weight, time, space) you can get a feel for the movements just by their names, which I think is pretty cool.

Speaking of which, I think Jenna is a puncher. I might be wrong, the jury’s still out, but that’s where my thoughts are on that topic right now. I really need to spend more time observing her.

The isolation/samurai activity didn’t go as well today—and we were even facing each other. I don’t know what was wrong, maybe we just weren’t in tune.

We worked with Thomas again on Friday during Commedia. We got to put on masks this time, which was fun, but also gave me flashbacks of the neutral mask workshop on Thursday. BANG BANG BANG.

Thank you so much for not having a drum.

August 30, 2012

Thomas was here again. We did the isolation progression/activity together as a class, and got complemented for it, which was cool. Feeling the whole class breathe in together and start those movements was awesome—hearing us all yelling together was really exciting and fun. It also helped with fixed point, which I welcome practice for. I went to his neutral mask workshop, too, and I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s more irritating than fun.

BANG. “Is that the body of the mask? No.”

BANG. “No. Try again.”

BANG. “No. Try again.”

BANG. “Too Fast. Try again.”

And so on. To get into the neutral body we did a warmup where we were supposed to embody giants—a warmup I still don’t understand. He said be a giant, but don’t be the stereotypical fee fi fo fum kind of giant, just walk like a normal giant would.

A giant human would walk like a human. They’re just proportionally larger. That doesn’t really make sense.

I’m going to stab that drum. Also working on Laban in class was fun—I hope we get to more of that.

August 28, 2012

(Sorry about that, took a break from posting them and forgot to finish.)

I was absent today, but apparently you guys worked with Thomas? I’m writing this on Thursday again (slipped my mind since I didn’t go) and I worked with him on Wednesday for Commedia, so I can reflect on my experiences with that.

We did fixed point, which was awesome. It is definitely a skill I want to master, because it’s super useful and also a lot of fun. Being able to successfully mime is going to be a difficult road, but I’m excited to get proficient at it. Commedia is going to be awesome, by the way. Thomas is helping us figure out a new direction, and I hear you’re going to work with us too, which would be amazing. I’m really not great at all this physical stuff, so I’m glad we’re getting trained before we jump into the fray.

Thomas showed us some work with masks as well, a Pantalone, an Arlecchino, and a clown mask (which is just a red nose?) He says it’s the hardest mask, but I don’t really understand what he means. I’m going to his neutral mask workshop, so we’ll see how that goes. 

August 23, 2012

Oh god, the stillness exercise was today. Being still wasn't the problem as much has sitting and watching everyone else be still. It was, what, an hour of sitting there so people could be still for three minutes each? It was awful. Everyone watching also felt we had to be still and not talk (though you told us at the end you "never told us not to talk" which was a stab in the heart) so as not not bother the people who were currently on display, as it were.

My particular experience being up there was interesting. The three minutes went by really quickly, but the whole time I was trying to keep my hands from twitching. They stiffened up while I was standing there, and my body wanted to loosen them by moving them. It happened a few times, out of my control, but I tried to remain still. I found myself getting really self conscious of my breathing, but after I settled into a rhythm I was able to kind of zone out and relax. It was nice. 

Nathan looked super depressed, and peoples depressions varied, but a lot of it was sadness and anger. No one looked really relaxed, and talking to people afterward showed that no one really was. We were all worried about our facial expressions moving, or our knees locking, or our hands jumping.

Being still is hard. Isolating muscles was easier, and I enjoyed that-- I like learning control of each specific muscle, and definitely think that's important. Also this will probably be useful for Commedia!

August 21, 2012

My sleeping schedule of the past few days has been as predicted. I tend to say yes to anyone who offers plans or something to do, and that can end with me not getting to bed until really late because of something my friends and I did. I haven't really been observing Jenna-- whoops-- because I immediately forgot I was supposed to be doing that. I'm a huge scatterbrain, this will probably not be the last time. 

The planes! I had a lot of fun with them. I've got pretty good balance, so the vertical plane was fun to see how far I could rotate and keep that one leg on the ground. Sagittal was the same way. Horizontal wasn't as fun as the other two. I can see why they're all important, though, and it's kind of cool to see movement broken down into building blocks. 

I've actually already been to a class this week, so I'll talk about it here. I went to Body Attack, which was fun but exhausting. It's a straight hour of intense cardio-- jumping back and forth, running in place, anything to get your heart rate up and your blood flowing. It would be great to be able to do these classes regularly, but I don't have the schedule for it or the money. I'll have to settle for running around the apartment complex where I work when I get the time. 

August 16, 2012

I could probably keep a log of my sleeping schedule and it would look about the same as if I wrote a bunch of random numbers now:

1283934 6545358 0732976 5653318 7653631

There's my next five weeks of sleeping. Probably.

We did the gift project thing today. I got Jenna (Are we supposed to write that in here? I don't know.) but I need a place to put it so I'll remember it anyway. So that's cool.

I am really excited about the different types of gestures you taught us about. I'd never had it broken down for me like that, and it'll probably be really useful for characters. I recognize that I have a problem favoring my right side-- I'll make lots of punctuative gestures pointing into nowhere, or throwing my right arm out as a way to convey STRONG EMOTIONS. Kristin pointed it out to me once when she asked me what I was pointing at during a monologue. I didn't have a good answer, I just have a tendency to point.  Asymmetrical gestures are my jam in general. 

I'm going to explore more symmetrical gestures in the next monologue I work on. Also I need to find places for descriptive gestures, I usually just use identity and punctuative.

August 14, 2012

I made a mistake and scribbled most of these journals by hand into random pieces of paper scattered through different journals and such while I was on the bus to and from class. I'm going to condense them into posts here, now, so that they're readable. Here's the first.

Tuesday, August 14^th 2012

I am excited to keep a journal the way I am excited to get teeth pulled, but I'll do my best to keep up with this. Let the records show that I am not a journal-er. I loathe it extravagantly.

I'm actually writing this on Thursday, because I realized I forgot to write one Tuesday. Whoops. I am clearly the worst. You'd better fail me now. Anyway, the thing I remember the best is the number-walking. I felt most comfortable around a six because I always walk quickly-- I prefer to get somewhere fast and have time to rest than meander on the way. 

Distinguishing one through three from each other and four through seven from each other is definitely going to be the challenge, especially as a group. I also struggled with not making one through three "slow-motion" walks, but then I started thinking of them as seduction or sinister walks of power and it was a lot easier to maintain a constant speed.

It's interesting to isolate this idea of speed and what it brings up in our minds. Maybe, in the future, giving a character a specific base speed will help me find them easier. Maybe not-- you don't spend a lot of time walking back and forth across a stage, usually-- but maybe so. I'll let you know if I find out.