Tuesday, October 21

Thanks for the comments on my last post (Theatre Can Change the World). I'm glad to know that some of you were so moved by it. :)


CAPOEIRA WORKSHOP
Today was the first day of our week of Capoeira workshops. We worked on our kicks (I think we know about 6-7 of them now). We also learned the Capoeira version of cartwheels (which involves facing outward instead of in the direction of movement, and requires that your legs be bent with your feet close to your body). We started learning to walk on our hands (Two-Shots-Up and O.D. were already doing pretty well with it). And by the end of the class, we had our very first Roda. So exciting! But man, was I tired when we were done!


MOVEMENT
We continued working with Viewpoints, as we had last week. Today, though, things were clarified a bit. Apparently we're not supposed to do anything that creates a story while working with these elements. That involves not using facial expressions and not touching each other. It turns out I was doing it completely wrong (I thought stories were sort of the goal). Oh well.

We did more of the circus stretches. I know that they're probably really increasing my flexibility and removing tension from my body, but I have to admit that I don't love them.


ACTING
We continued the discussion of our etude test from last week. Our professor said that he thinks in our previous conversation we focused too much on what we lost during the test, and not at what we've gained. While we may have taken a step backward on Friday, we've taken twenty steps forward since we've started working on the etudes.

He tells us on a regular basis that it's vital to practice exercises in following impulses at least 15 minutes a day on our own. When you're working on your own, you're working for yourself and not for an audience. That's when you truly have growth in your work.

He said that saying "this technique doesn't work for me" is the lazy answer. The technique works; perhaps YOU'RE not working hard enough.

He also said that we are rushing our exercises right now. We WANT there to be pauses. By eliminating them for the sake of being interesting, we are not indulging the beauty of every moment, including transitions. He says that grand moments are the easiest things to play on stage, and it's more important to rehearse finding truth in the little moments between the cataclysms.

I did a couple of etudes with Iceman. The first one had potential, but I don't think it really got up on its feet. The second one involved us jokingly fighting over an ottoman and a blanket. I thought it went pretty well at the time, but when we finished the etude it turned out that we'd sort of been on different pages (for example, I had no idea that we were outside, although that seemed clear to Iceman... and to most of my classmates).

Also, my professor called me out on dropping an impulse near the beginning of the scene. I cleared my throat when it began, which informed me of having a sore throat. But as the etude went on, I completely forgot about the sore throat. My professor said that, while the etude was good, he wanted to see where it would've gone if I'd stuck to that first thought and let it play itself out.


ANALYSIS
We're discussing Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson. We're paying far more attention to images in this play than we have with any of the others. It has elements of "magical realism" (which D-Train equated with the movie Pan's Labyrinth and I suggested was like a José Rivera play).

We were placed into four teams to each track one of the major images throughout the play. My team is me, Wifey, and D-Train, and we've been assigned "song". The other teams are "shining", "binding", and "relation to the road". I think the goal is to see how the image shifts, how it expands, and what it means to different characters.