Nebunele.com

Dinner, music (I get to play percussion this time!), training. Holy shit I forgot how hard training is. Had moments of feeling connected, in tune, and not caring that my shoulders were burning; many other moments when I was longing for it to be over. I came in in the middle, so the group is already working with big objects, costumes, and props, the latter two of which are hard for me to stay present around.

We had the assignment to create etudes (little studies, little solo pieces based around a big circusy object) and I got totally lost. We were supposed to work with an image or an archetype, and I was playing with a mermaid image that’s in one of the Chagall illustrations for Arabian Nights (which is what the summer spectacle will be based on). I had this whole complicated idea about finding a daisy in the ocean and looking for the sailor who dropped it and trying to get his attention, and Matthew came over to me and said “you need to use the training. Right now your idea is here” (he pointed to his head) “and it’s not anywhere else.” He was right, and I worked a little longer without finding anything, and we sat down to show our pieces, me sad that my first impression on this group of fellow trainees was going to be a vague, made-up thing that didn’t have much oomph to it. I watched several people present theirs and listened to Matthew’s feedback, which was mostly about being present with your object (something you have to work to interact with–balancing, or hanging, or lifting, or climbing–hard), really doing what you’re doing (having a real action) without pretense, finding images, and having a beginning, middle, and end. I realized I could do all that with the material I had generated during training, and I got up and did it, and it worked out all right. Whew. Saved by the guinea pigs who went before me. But then, all I did in this case was fit the assignment to the requirements, and I didn’t reach much outside of that, which made the piece not super exciting to me. It was almost like cheating. So there’s something else to work on.

This is fun and hard! I like it here. I’m going to bed now.

xoxo
Alissa