"...and I realized as I was talking, that I was boring myself."

That title is a phrase I have sadly uttered when recounting a couple bad dates to friends afterwards, where I realized I had been going on and on and on because the guy wasn't offering anything up, so I just kept talking, and at some point realized that I was even boring myself working so hard for a reaction. This is one of the many reasons why I never date.

After blogging CRAZY consistently at the beginning of this month, I went on a brief hiatis. Part of it had to do with my schedule, which did not allot for enough time to make a thoughtful blog entry, which I try to achieve when writing here. But another, larger part was:

Blogging about Suzuki bores me.

Now, don't get me wrong: Suzuki itself does not bore me. Not in the least. But the specificity it was taking to discuss the method made writing the entries not only remarkably time consuming, but also really really dull for me to write. I like discussing the theatre, I like discussing performance method, I like sharing what I learned, but these things I like doing IN PERSON. To put it here, to do it so much and in such a detailed, crazy way just makes me lose interest. I may go back and blog specific stuff, but not today, not right now, and maybe not ever. So don't hold your breath. But here's an overview of what I've been up to whilst away.

One: I bought my plane ticket. It actually cost about $120 less than I had anticipated, partly because I bought it through STA Travel, and acquired the below card, which is meant to get me discounted rates for various travel-type things. (And 10% off at the Mac store.)

Not the most fetching picture of me, true, but I was unaware that they'd be making the card up right then and there and had no other picture to give them.

I was so happy about the plane ticket being so cheap that I went to Forbidden Planet and bought this:

I still say I'm not a nerd, but probably just a fangirl. And it was only $6.99-->I needed it!

It also turns out that I will be able to go to my bff's wedding ceremony, but will need to leave IMMEDIATELY after pictures are taken, and go straight to the airport to make my flight. Intense.

Two: I cut Suzuki Monday night to do a scene for my roommate's directing class at HB Studios. I haven't acted in a while, despite my prowess as a GPS unit, and it was both fun and foreign to go back to a script and try to build a character and whatnot. It was the first scene in Proof, a play I love and would kill to be in. I actually played Catherine in another friend's scene in college, so it was fun to revisit her in a different place. Maybe someday I'll play the whole thing...

Three: I did more Suzuki. Tuesday and Thursday night, I was back, marching, slow tempo-ing, and learning a dance that dealt very interestingly with focus. I will try to backlog these later, but again: I just don't feel like doing it right now.

Four: I talked to someone who knows better. I went to see Hamlet this past Saturday, and after being rescued by my friend Tim, an electrician at the Public who brought me to the electrician's office to wait out the rain, he invited me to go for drinks with the crew once the show was called. An older actor in the cast, who's pretty successful on the NY boards but who will remain nameless here because name dropping annoying, stopped into the bar where we were at and sat next to us. Tim introduced me, mentioned I had gotten into Central, and the actor congratulated me and started to give me advice on what to look at in terms of British acting when I was in England. It was a great chat, he was a super cool guy, and I felt reassured in a way I haven't been in months to go on this adventure. It was totally needed, and I feel really lucky to have friends who garner me the chance to have these opportunities. So, thanks Tim and Heidi.

Five: I found someone else going to England for grad school this fall. We had gone to HS together, and had known each other, despite the fact that she is two years older than me. She already knows where she's going to live, and pointed me in a couple directions, which was great. I happy to know someone else going over, to maybe bounce travel ideas off of, and to have as a "safe person" if trouble happens overseas. And I could always use another Facebook friend, which is where she located me. So here we go, Liza.

In my spare time, I've also been seeing some friends, giving feedback on some one's play (like a good little dramaturge), wondering about BSG, trying to figure out who would be reading my blog in Austria (I see you, thanks to Google Analytics) and trying to make myself read Pinter. Could I really do all these things and sleep, and write about Suzuki with such specificity while at work?

I don't think so.

Yoga Certification Progress: Anatomy Done! (Maybe.)

(ABOVE: Diagram of Jason Brown, labeled with anatomy; BELOW AT LEFT: A doodle)

Well, probably. Most of it, at least. I must admit, I went a little crazy trying to make up hours of the anatomy intensive that I missed the last time around--I had a table reading of Much Ado one day, and rehearsal for The Accommodation the other, cutting both of my six hour days short by about three each day. So I went Saturday, determined to get through the whole weekend with and open mind and excitement about the human body.

I failed.

By the four hour mark of the first day, I was falling asleep, and bailed to go home and take a cat nap before seeing my friend Melissa's dance show. Today I couldn't bare it almost at all, and after two hours headed out.

Part of it is the heat--NY is especially oppressive lately, and even an early morning jog feels like moving through butter. Part of it is the repetitiveness--having done part of this before, there was a bit of information I was already familiar with some of what Jason (anatomy & yoga teacher extraordinarie!) was discussing, so it was easy to zone out. And another part is being back in the classroom after so long, I've yet to build up the tolerance for these kind of situations. I also have a habit I developed my senior year in college of walking out of classes I don't find interesting, wandering around for about a half and hour, maybe getting a snack, maybe checking my e-mail, and then meandering back in at some later time. And anatomy, to me, is only so fascinating, unless it involves the use of this book, which is awesome.

But in any regard, it's over now (I think--there may be a stray hour I need to account for), so I'm a touch closer to having my yoga diploma.

NY Event Number Eleven: Finally seeing modern dance again.

My friend and yoga cohort Melissa is a dancer and relatively new to New York (that's her, above). She's been here since September, and after a few frustrating months things are starting to come together in terms of her career. On top of her three jobs, she also takes class, rehearses for the couple shows she's in, and even occasionally goes to yoga. Whenever I get upset about my schedule, I think about her, and my life suddenly seems just a little bit easier. After months of promising her I'd catch her work, I finally made good and caught her show Hearsay at Dance New Amsterdam this weekend.

I know almost nothing about dance, and actually have some personal baggage regarding modern dance so this won't be any kind of review, or even an informed reflection really, but I would like to identify the elements I really loved about the work, the same elements I'm going to try and include in my own work as I go on with my life.

One of the interesting things about a lot of dance work is the use of space. Many choreographers seem to have an understanding of seeing the whole space, and they don't isolate movement to one specific area, unless very much intended. This is harder to do with intricacy in a dance show than with staging a play, which can be made easier through the usually realistic movement of the actors, and an understanding of their motivations: "He would move away here because she said something nasty and he became intimidated." That sort of thing. An idea of shape does come into play, but not nearly as much as it does for dancers, who are constantly creating it--in the scope of their movement through the space as well as, of course, within their own bodies. What's also interesting about the use of space is how you can create little pictures--groupings of people doing different specific actions, put together to make one larger picture, noticing how those actions compliment, inform the others. Anyone who's ever seen a musical's opening number probably has an understanding of this visual. But here it was terribly apparent, due to the abstractness of the gesture and movement involved. And very interesting.

The director/choreographer used sound in voice overs and pre-recorded lesson plans of tips on how to get through your business day. I thought that was pretty interesting, and hearkened back to an idea I had had about my grad school auditioned piece that I didn't fully realize. I hope to go back to it in the future. (<--is that phrase oxymoronic: "back to it in the future"? Or just ironic?) However, she did have the dancers speak a couple times, and I was reminded that this is an art form that does not usually train a person how to speak on stage. Conclusion: Dancers probably shouldn't talk. (At least, not on stage.)

The lighting was great--oh, the power of gobos! And predominately from the side, like any good dance show. (General lighting rule: When you light the body, light from the side; when you light the face, light from the front and above.)

Another aspect of movement that was terribly affective and aesthetically interesting was having the dancers do small gestures en masse. This is something else I want to play with, particularly with a piece I'm currently working out in my head, set to Muse's "Map of the Problematique." Having a group of people do one small gesture all at once gives that gesture added value and brings focus to it. That's what I got from it, anyway.

Lastly, I was reminded of the overall bodily control of a dancer, and was reminded of my personal awe of it. It made me miss working out and all the yoga I used to do when I had a consistent practice (I was in killer shape last summer), and it also made me want to take a dance class. It also reminded me how important this kind of thing is to me now, as an artist, in terms of trying to use it as a means of expression. Which is good when you're going to grad school for physical theatre.

So thanks for letting me in on the not-so-secret, Melissa. Merde!

I just can't get expelled from Hogwarts...

At least if things don't work out in England, I can always move to Orlando.

Suzuki: Day Three

Long marching session today, and I was actually picked out with a bunch of other students who had previous experience with the form to actually demonstrate for the newer ones. I had a lot of pride in being selected, though it caught up with me right away--> I lost my focus, which is never stronger than when I'm doing this work, because I got concerned with looking good, and consequently made it harder on myself, caused me to mess up my footing in one of the marches, and in the combination during the recitation of "O splendour." I should explain: there are a series of movements we do while counting to three in Japanese, and after specific points we freeze and recite this piece of text.

O splendour of sunburst breaking forth this day
Whereon I lay my hands once more on Helen my wife. (breath)
And yet it is not so much as men think
For the woman's sake I came to Troy, (breath)
But against that guest, proved treacherous,
Who, like a robber, carried the woman from my House.
(Excerpted from Menelaus's Trojan Women)

We also work on moving slowly from a squat position to a standing position using that text, or instead replacing it with the second piece:

O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! (breath)

Then with a passion would I shake the world,
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy (breath)
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, (short breath)
Which scorns a modern invocation.
(Excerpted from King John, Constance, 3.4)

So yes, my ego got the best of me, and I screwed up some of the movement. But when we were working with the Constance line, I found a breakthrough with my breath that I had been looking for--we'd just been working the "O splendor" line lately, and I always feel bombastic when I do it. Volume is my strong point, and is one of my tricks. I'm trying to work away from it, without abandoning it, use it but not be dependent. It's a hard balance to find, especially given who I am in life: usually a very loud person. So it was nice to finally find where the breath was supposed to be, properly supported, and not taxing my voice. It was, as I like to say, "a small grace."

We also need to have learned by now a song in Japanese, "Suteki Da Ne," which, along with seemingly everything else in my life, I have put off in really getting to. Hopefully this weekend. At some point. Someday.

My group worked with Robyn tonight on slow tempo. Slow tempo is not slow motion--usually in slow motion there's an idea of restrain in order to create movement of that quality, and also that when you are doing slow motion you are seeing something that is slowed down from our normal sense of time. In slow tempo, you are actually respecting a different idea of time all together: what you can accomplish in one minute of slow tempo time takes ten minutes of real time to show--if "real time" even existed to be gauged against. But the idea is that it doesn't. I saw a production of The Water Station some years ago, done by Robyn and Steve's company, which utilized slow tempo for essentially the whole show. It takes a little getting used to, if only because an audience's sensibility is so geared towards realism these days that anything from the norm takes about 15 minutes to even accept. But in the end, I was really affected by the form and it heightened my relationship with the whole piece. I can honestly say if that had been done in "real time," I would have cared much less about the whole evening.

Slow tempo is hard, especially when living in a city that is so geared around goinggoingoing, and is pretty physically taxing in its way. I will feel it tomorrow no doubt. But there is a sense of serenity when entering it, and maintaining it is almost a form of meditation. Again, though, it's something as a performer you miss, when really focused on the doing of it, as most of our work is. Which is sad sometimes.

Next Monday's class will be cut short for me, as I am doing Heidi's scene for her directing class, the first exchange between Catherine and Hal from Proof. I'll be sad to miss, but it will be nice to do a scene after such a long absence from formal acting.