[I wrote this at some odd hour last week and forgot to post it!]
I wish we could all visit India and Bali and learn this stuff together intensively together throughout the summer because it would be the most authentic like Francis was going for and I don't want this class to end.
It was interesting what he said about different ways in which to learn something, to learn through oral tradition because that is the traditional way to learn it and the most authentic way to learn it. And then he said something about transforming the mudras? or the caks? or the songs? or something like that and how this material is always giving and then I was thinking about the evolution of an art and how the original is beautiful but the evolved form is as well, and isn't the way in which we learn it, can't that be a form of evolution? I guess it's picking and choosing which things to evolve or modify in order to preserve the natural beauty of the purest art...? Can they even be compared, the way in which something is learned and the product of that learning?
Francis said something about us uniting and being together in mind and spirit and I just remember how it would look if that kind of connection materialized (I imagined a wispy white smoke going between and through all of our centers... I'm pretty sure that image is taken from some book I've read or movie I've watched... the concept of a daemon popped into my head and how the human's and the daemon's souls are connected).
Initially, I was excited about getting in groups and performing something together, and then I was nervous. I was nervous because I didn't know everybody very well and what if our tone together isn't creative enough and what if we don't work together well? But then I got excited again because I thought about the diversity of our backgrounds and personalities and how we all have something unique to contribute to the group and to the way we will express ourselves and the Ramayana and how it will be a neat challenge just to experience that group dynamic, working together.
I think my reluctance to pronounce correctly different languages' accents (especially French, learning Chinese) in a social, English setting is related to my apprehensions with performance and acting. They're the same, in a way... the way you have to transform yourself into something that is external to you and outside of yourself to perfect a certain expression or sound. There is you, and the audience or everybody else. I don't know why I care so much, it's sooo weird. I mean, why SHOULD you be nervous about doing something right or well? Especially if you CAN do it right or well--it's admirable, something accepted and aimed for by those around you. How frustrating, the power and comfort of conformity!
Last Thursday, I met Menar.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Rustyyy
Mannn, it's been a while. I'm losing my groove! I need to get back on track! Pick up the brain waves!
(It would have been nice to have class outside today; it was so beautiful outside.)
Anyway yes, I was not ready for class today. I wasn't ready to do the whole CAK-off and I felt overall kind of awkward and uninspired especially at that moment when the sound died down. I also feel like I can't harness the battle very well, especially since I feel redundant picking up a bow and arrow since that's the only thing I know how to do and haven't quite learned enough (mentally, creatively) to channel the character in other ways.
I liked the exercise/discussion/meet-and-greets we did in the beginning of class, though, especially after reading Rashmi's post about building a community. Yeah, I feel like I am more comfortable in a group if I have had some kind of personal connection with everyone in the class, whether it's sustaining a scene with someone or shaking their hand or sharing a joke. (Side note: I find it difficult to lock eyes with someone across the room when there are more people on one side of the room than the other!) I mean there's a connection between people just sharing in the same experiences in the same class for 3 hours a week, but I feel like that can be so shallow sometimes, especially with such a large group. It's kind of like when it's an off-hour between classes and there are only a few people walking around and then someone you kind of know is walking towards you (the only person walking towards you) and then you're forced to make some kind of connection.
So yeah, I wish we could do the 2-4-perhaps8 grouping until we everyone gets to know everyone. I don't think it's necessarily the best way to connect with every single person because ideally we would do that in interacting with each other theatrically but it's hard when everyone knows someone to go to. It can be too formal and forced, but it can be sincere, too.
Anyway I don't know if I wrote this on my blog before or not but one reason why I was apprehensive in the beginning about taking this class was because I knew or knew of so many people and I felt like the best situation is if no one knew anybody or if everybody knew everyone else. But we're all on different levels here and have to build our own platform, in a way (if only it were that easy!).
Reminder to self: Rewrite goals/objectives when you reach equilibrium again (I should have done it before break... I can't do it now because my self-expections are so much lower now, i.e. "get to where I was before break")
BAH I feel like such a regressive BUM! I need something to do. Apply some pressure, apply myself.
I forgot to mention I (formally) met Kishan.
(It would have been nice to have class outside today; it was so beautiful outside.)
Anyway yes, I was not ready for class today. I wasn't ready to do the whole CAK-off and I felt overall kind of awkward and uninspired especially at that moment when the sound died down. I also feel like I can't harness the battle very well, especially since I feel redundant picking up a bow and arrow since that's the only thing I know how to do and haven't quite learned enough (mentally, creatively) to channel the character in other ways.
I liked the exercise/discussion/meet-and-greets we did in the beginning of class, though, especially after reading Rashmi's post about building a community. Yeah, I feel like I am more comfortable in a group if I have had some kind of personal connection with everyone in the class, whether it's sustaining a scene with someone or shaking their hand or sharing a joke. (Side note: I find it difficult to lock eyes with someone across the room when there are more people on one side of the room than the other!) I mean there's a connection between people just sharing in the same experiences in the same class for 3 hours a week, but I feel like that can be so shallow sometimes, especially with such a large group. It's kind of like when it's an off-hour between classes and there are only a few people walking around and then someone you kind of know is walking towards you (the only person walking towards you) and then you're forced to make some kind of connection.
So yeah, I wish we could do the 2-4-perhaps8 grouping until we everyone gets to know everyone. I don't think it's necessarily the best way to connect with every single person because ideally we would do that in interacting with each other theatrically but it's hard when everyone knows someone to go to. It can be too formal and forced, but it can be sincere, too.
Anyway I don't know if I wrote this on my blog before or not but one reason why I was apprehensive in the beginning about taking this class was because I knew or knew of so many people and I felt like the best situation is if no one knew anybody or if everybody knew everyone else. But we're all on different levels here and have to build our own platform, in a way (if only it were that easy!).
Reminder to self: Rewrite goals/objectives when you reach equilibrium again (I should have done it before break... I can't do it now because my self-expections are so much lower now, i.e. "get to where I was before break")
BAH I feel like such a regressive BUM! I need something to do. Apply some pressure, apply myself.
I forgot to mention I (formally) met Kishan.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Schwippy
Ever get to that point in the middle of the night when you're so deathly tired but you're online and for some inexplicable reason, you feel that you need to keep on surfing the net in spite of the fact that you're so tired you would do anything to sleep and so then you think that you almost need to be surfing aimlessly in order to sleep...? That makes so sense but I'm online searching for "Sleepy Haha's" on facebook and laughing aloud at the group picture so I will write tomorrow.
-----
I almost forgot about this post. Last Thursday's class was more than week ago now, goodness.
1. Being home reminds me of "back home" (using my parents' words) in the Philippines. I'm taller than my mom, almost as tall (maybe as tall, now) as my dad and taller than every female on my mom's side in the Philippines. Obviously, then, nurture is more important than nature in regards to my height here. That means it's the growth hormones and the steroids injected in the meat here that contributed to my height. That's GROSS. (That also must mean that I eat more meat than my older sister.)
2. I was channel surfing a couple days after coming back home and one of those telethons for PBS was on: it was a special on 60s music. My parents really got into so we ended up watching it for an hour or two. They had performances from the 60s and more recent performances from the same (but older) 60s bands, and then in between they would talk about what it meant to live in the 60s. The people described it as a time of unity, when love and the community were priority, when people cared about others, and how there was an air of togetherness, a positive energy. It just made me wish I'd lived grown up during that time. And then it made me think about this class and how we've got that, in a microcosmic sense.
3. I don't remember much about last class... I remember that I thought it was reallyreally neat to watch Francis quite literally sculpting Kishan. Agatha reminded me of a mermaid with her legs wrapped together in green cloth. I remember wishing that I'd gotten in character and that I probably should have moved because I couldn't see from where I was sitting but I was stuck and I should have just done it. I also remember accidentally hitting that same stick and paper sculpture after class that I hit a week or so before. And I remember thinking that it must say something about my spatial and self-awareness if I accidentally whack something with my foot only a few seconds after leaving dance class.
I'm trying to finish the Ramayana by the end of break! Except I'm only about halfway through the 200's and I want to read The Places in Between by Rory Stewart, too. I love this about break, just being able to relax and read a book or Time magazine without feeling guilty that I'm not doing homework.
-----
I almost forgot about this post. Last Thursday's class was more than week ago now, goodness.
1. Being home reminds me of "back home" (using my parents' words) in the Philippines. I'm taller than my mom, almost as tall (maybe as tall, now) as my dad and taller than every female on my mom's side in the Philippines. Obviously, then, nurture is more important than nature in regards to my height here. That means it's the growth hormones and the steroids injected in the meat here that contributed to my height. That's GROSS. (That also must mean that I eat more meat than my older sister.)
2. I was channel surfing a couple days after coming back home and one of those telethons for PBS was on: it was a special on 60s music. My parents really got into so we ended up watching it for an hour or two. They had performances from the 60s and more recent performances from the same (but older) 60s bands, and then in between they would talk about what it meant to live in the 60s. The people described it as a time of unity, when love and the community were priority, when people cared about others, and how there was an air of togetherness, a positive energy. It just made me wish I'd lived grown up during that time. And then it made me think about this class and how we've got that, in a microcosmic sense.
3. I don't remember much about last class... I remember that I thought it was reallyreally neat to watch Francis quite literally sculpting Kishan. Agatha reminded me of a mermaid with her legs wrapped together in green cloth. I remember wishing that I'd gotten in character and that I probably should have moved because I couldn't see from where I was sitting but I was stuck and I should have just done it. I also remember accidentally hitting that same stick and paper sculpture after class that I hit a week or so before. And I remember thinking that it must say something about my spatial and self-awareness if I accidentally whack something with my foot only a few seconds after leaving dance class.
I'm trying to finish the Ramayana by the end of break! Except I'm only about halfway through the 200's and I want to read The Places in Between by Rory Stewart, too. I love this about break, just being able to relax and read a book or Time magazine without feeling guilty that I'm not doing homework.
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