Friday, March 6

As of right now, we are officially on Spring Break. Of course, we still have a lot to do... but classes will resume in two weeks time.


Movement
We started doing backward rolls from standing. Then we started a new thing called "The Flopping Fish". It involves starting from standing, backward rolling up to a Candle position (legs straight in the air, balanced sort of on your shoulders), throwing your legs over your shoulder to complete the roll, and ending up with your stomach on the mat but your back arched and your arms out. It's a lot of fun.

By the end of class, Thrill was doing dive-rolls that made it look like he could throw himself over a car. It was incredible. And several people (like Big Show and Iceman) have gotten pretty good at walking on their hands. Two-Shots-Up did it across the full length of our mats!

With a little assistance, I can do a back-walkover. I think that if I keep working on it, I'll figure out how to do it on my own, but right now I definitely need a couple of spotters supporting me.

I got up into a handstand during donkey-kicks, and stayed up with the help of a couple of spotters. I think I could stay up on my own, but Movement Professor wanted to make sure that my back was straight.

I finally figured out how to do the special cartwheel that ends facing forward with an arched back. Very exciting.

My one-handed cartwheels are still pretty ugly, but I can get around. Movement Professor suggested that I grab the back of my shirt with the hand I won't be using, and that helped me to not follow my impulse to use it. I think the only thing that's holding me back is fear. Once I get over that and can straighten my legs, I'll be good.

It's unbelievable how strong we've all gotten in this tumbling unit. Wifey was whipping through her backward rolls today like they were nothing. D-Train has some of the most wagon-wheel-like cartwheels I've ever seen. Newbie and O.D. can do forward rolls really well even though they've both had significant spinal surgeries. Killer has figured out how to do a successful cartwheel despite his setback of having a heavy pelvis. All-The-Way makes every move she makes look graceful, no matter how awkward it may be when first explained.

I think we're going to do more acrobatics after break. Should be fun. I hope I'm ready for it, because it's so exciting when you can nail these things.


Voice
I had a thought today on how to say the word "north" with the Standard vowel that we're supposed to use. You say the word "gnaw" and then add an "rth" (yes, the vowel really does sound like that in the dialect we're learning). It works. :)

Here are my favorite example sentences of the day:
- "Be sure to fear scary star warriors." - Two-Shots-Up
- "Peering in the fair port, I see the scar on the cocksure captain." - Iceman
- "There are hairy pears." - Wifey
- "Look here. There is the poor little whore. How much do you charge, whore?" - Thrill
- "Here there are more poor people on tour where Northern beers are made." - Killer
(I'm a pretty excellent sentence maker, but I think Killer is my second-in-command... he used ALL the r-coloring vowels TWICE in ONE SENTENCE! Impressive stuff.)

Voice Professor gave us monologues from The Wood Demon by Anton Chekhov to work on over break from a Voice perspective. We are to look up the IPAs for all the words we are unsure of, and try to get as off-book as we can. After break, we will be having an oral exam to check our pronunciation work.


Acting
We worked with the first part of Act I of Three Sisters sort of in the same way we do études. Newbie and I traded off on who was playing Másha, and the other would play Anfísa (the nurse, who is a minor character). O.D. and D-Train stepped in for minor characters as well. Wifey and Big Show were audience members, as their characters hadn't gotten on stage yet (neither had O.D. & D-Train's characters).

It was a lot of fun, actually. I've been in classes since August, but today was the first time that I've done a scene in Acting class with more than one of them. It was so great!!! There's so much to receive and react to with that many people on stage at once. It really felt like we'd started creating a whole world. I can't tell you how excited I am to continue to work on this project.

Our homework for over break is to try to get off book for Act I and Act IV (which are the two acts we'll be working on for class), and to obtain rehearsal costumes that are appropriate for our characters. Másha is described as wearing a black dress in the first act, but Acting Professor recommended doing research into what the silhouettes would have been like in that time period.


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So, ladies and gentlemen, faithful readers and stumblers, commenters and lurkers, one and all...

If I'm not posting much in the next couple of weeks, you'll know why. I'll be homeworking, going over my understudy lines, and taking a little bit of time off. And I'm ready to rest... at least for a little while.

All good things,

~A~