Friday, February 27

Voice
We had Voice class first today (the 2nd-years were doing some sort of Commedia dell'Arte performance with Movement Professor at that time). It was a little weird to have Voice first. I guess we'll have to get used to it, as our schedule is flipped in our second year.

Voice Professor thinks that people use too wide of a vowel on the word "like" because it's a happy word, so it pulls some kind of psychological trigger to smile. (Which provoked me to make up the sample sentence, "I smile psychologically while saying like."

Our homework is to work sentences using the diphthongs of "like", "pay", and "oil", as well as our "ing" combinations (the "i" should sound like "sit", not "green").


Movement
I did forward rolls from standing! I was a little worried at first, so Movement Professor came over and spotted me, but it ended up just fine. In fact, I think I'm actually BETTER at starting them from standing than I am at starting them from the ground.

Movement Professor let some of my classmates begin dive-rolling... over her. I was nervous for her, but they did really well!

We also worked on backward rolls. I'm kind of a disaster at those, actually. I can roll backward, but apparently I'm not doing it in a safe way. And when I try to correct it, somehow I end up sideways... No idea how.

There was also a new variation on cartwheels today that involves you springing up with an arched back. My body couldn't figure it out.

We were getting into "bridges/arches" at one point. It's really easy for me to bend over backward from a standing position, but Movement Professor doesn't want me to for right now. She'd prefer that I get up into a bridge from the ground, as it will help to strengthen my arms.


Acting
We continued our "story time" method of going through Three Sisters, and shared some of the images that came to us. I didn't say most of mine, because I was worried that they didn't make any sense. "A giant chicken with its feet cut off," for example. The ones I did mention were "water flowing out of the cracks in a vase," "smoke from a chimney joining smoke that was already in the air from burning houses down the street," and "a fish bowl with water and sand, but with fish painted on the outside of the bowl instead of fish inside." No, I don't know what any of those things mean (or IF they're related to Three Sisters), but that's what came to me. Fortunately, my classmates came up with some images that seemed just as disconnected as mine.


Theatre
I went to see Visiting Mr. Green tonight, and I'm so glad I did. It was really a beautiful play about two men finding common ground in their dissonant lives, and trying to find a way to handle the dissonance that religion and ideals can create within families.