Wednesday, October 15

I started off the morning with a Pilates class, taught by one of the 2nd-year directors (Director C.), and it put me in a good mood the rest of the day. She's going to hold them Wednesday and Friday mornings for an hour before our Movement class. I'm really rather excited about it. :)


MOVEMENT
We're still working on our "psoas rolldowns", and now on our "psoas sit-ups". And since it often takes people over a year to be able to feel their psoas muscles working, it's just as frustrating as ever.

We've also been working on what my professor calls "Circus Stretches". They involve stretching out a partner, and also have a lot to do with connection and balance. I'm not particularly good at them, as I'm apparently too flexible in my back and my rib cage. I'm not great at moving within just my side plane, or moving too much with my lower back... That sort of stuff. Form is difficult for me, just as flexibility and opening up are difficult for other people. It's a trade-off, I suppose.

This week we're also focusing on mirroring exercises with a partner, making use of the qualities that we've been learning in Acting class (molding, radiating, flowing, and flying).


VOICE
Today we went back to our consonant work. I've been working really hard on my "s" and "t" sounds, and they're pretty good if I'm paying attention to them (particularly "s" sounds at the fronts of words and "t" sounds at the ends of words). But today I learned that my "k" and "g" sounds are too far back in my throat, so I have to work on moving them forward (which, after "s" and "t", is a relatively easy adjustment to make).

On the upside, I'm definitely making my "r" sounds correctly! Woo-hoo!

Tonight we're practicing the following phrase:

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
With stoutest wrists and loudest boasts,
She thrusts her fists against the posts
And still insists she sees the ghosts.

This is NOT to be used as a tongue-twister. It's not about speed, but rather about clarity.

Because we're just starting it (and it's incredibly difficult to enunciate it with the level of precision that is expected of us), we're allowed to take off the final "s" sounds for tonight ("Amidst the mist and coldest frost", etc.).

Tomorrow is our destructuring (tremoring) exam. I'm really not worried about it. I know that I know the positions... and if I were doing things wrong, she would've corrected them by now. I'm sure it'll be a piece of cake.


ACTING
We started class with an exercise called "The Golden Hoop". I remember doing it in undergrad, but it has taken on completely different significance here. The group stands in a circle, and envisions a golden hoop (of changeable size) at their feet. Then, as a collective, the group leans down and picks up the hoop, raising it up high. The group then lowers the hoop, expands it, and throws it into the air, following it with their eyes as it floats away. It has helped us to feel more connected to each other. It makes me think that there is energy flowing between all of us.

We moved into a bunch of exercises where impulses were coming out of us as a group. There was one in which the group had to decide to all run/walk/sit/gather/stand at the same times. There was another in which we were on a "stage" and whatever was being created had to arrive organically out of the group as a whole. Both were a lot of fun.

The rest of class was spent doing the silent etudes. They turned out pretty bizarre today, but they were interesting. Iceman was a crazy cross-dressing kleptomaniac and Thrill was his drug dealer brother. D-Train and O.D. were brothers whose mother had died and they were trying to make sense of her things. The Pro was an OCD father and All-The-Way was his belligerent teen daughter. Big Show was a drunk and Killer was his freeloading caretaker. It's interesting how many different directions a scene can go when you give yourself complete freedom to do (or NOT do) anything.