9/16/08

Tuesday, September 16

VOICE
My Movement professor has the flu, so we had a super long voice class today instead, and we were combined with the 2nd-years for part of it. It was so crazy being in the room with them for tremoring. The 1st-years are still working on finding spontaneous breath, but the second years are now on vocalizations while tremoring. And they do a bunch of tremor positions that we haven't learned yet, including one where they're STANDING UP (totally crazy!). I think that most of the 1st-years were pretty distracted by it, but I thought it was kinda neat to see what we're aiming towards.

We did some jump-roping, but only for like 3 minutes. Totally a piece of cake. D-Train says he's pretty sure that we've been jumping for 7 minutes every day, not the 5 that my Movement professor has claimed...

We got our tests from Friday back, and I totally rocked mine. I was relieved, as my first test grade in that class was a bit of a disappointment. We also got some homework back. I disagreed with my professor on the pronunciation of the word "fissure" (I think it has a "zh" sound in the middle, like "pleasure", but according to her pronunciation dictionary it should be an "sh" like "pressure"). We also took a practice test on IPA consonants, and I'm now confident that I know what I'm doing with that, which is always good.


STUDENT REP MEETING
The only real notable thing was that the head of the program told us to congratulate our classmates on our auditions. He said he was pleased, and that everyone had done well.


ACTING
We started off with a couple more Physical Memory exercises. Thrill did "a round at the shooting range" and D-Train did "making tea".

We spent a fair amount of time doing an exercise sitting in circle. Two people were in a pair, and one had to ask the other a question. But not just ask it; ambush them with it. The goal of the question was to get past the superficial level of question-asking and ask the other person something that would surprise them, and that they'd have to have some sort of a connection to.

As the exercise went on, we got better at it. Things that seemed to cut through that first layer included, "Do you have a hair color preference on girls?", "When was the last time you cried?", "Why do you need to be perfect?"... The question I asked that seemed to work the best was, "How do you think I feel about you?"

I totally denied an impulse when I was answering, though. I felt so weird about it that I actually went and confessed to the professor a couple hours after class had ended. He said it was alright, but to try to follow my impulses tomorrow.

The question series that I wasn't completely honest to was something along the lines of "Do you get a sense of security from your hair?" (I said "sometimes") and "Is that why you're afraid to cut it?" (I think I said that was partially it).

I won't tell you the thing that sprung to mind, but I will tell you the reason I censored my response: the first thing I thought of made me sound pathetic. It made it seem like I have really low self-esteem. I didn't want them to judge me for it.

I have to get over that fear of being judged by my classmates/colleagues. We're going to be an ensemble. I have to be able to trust them. I can't close myself off from things or try to protect myself. I need to allow myself to be vulnerable around them.


TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
I turned in my paper on Oedipus Rex, which was horrible. I disagreed with my own thesis, and I know that I did a horrible job of proving it, despite my best efforts.

I think I spoke too much in class. I'm just really not sure what our professor wants from us, and I didn't want to just sit there and act like I did. I hate feeling helpless like that. I know I'm a pretty smart cookie, but I just don't always know how to prove my points. I'm so much better at disproving things and filling the role of devil's advocate. *sigh*

We started discussing Women of Troy by Euripides (also called The Trojan Women). I have to admit, I was a complete basket-case when I read the play yesterday. I was reading it aloud, and I was weeping so much during one of Hecuba's early speeches that I literally had to put the play down for an hour and come back to it with a clear head. I have absolutely no idea what the action of this play is going to be... "To make people miserable?" "To destroy lives?" "To make Trojan women weep uncontrollably and mutter incomprehensible vowel sounds like oeee and eaaa?" No clue.

We were assigned groups for presentations in the coming weeks. I'm in a group with D-Train, Two-Shots-Up, Wifey, and one of the 2nd-year directors to present the biography of Ibsen. The other groups have "naturalism" and "conventions of 19th century theatre".

I stayed after class to talk to the professor for a bit. I told him my concerns about my paper. He assured me that he thinks I'm closer to getting it than I think I am. He also said that if I missed the mark completely, he'll let me re-write it. So at least that.

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