"Vacation, all I ever wanted..."

The first week of break turned out to be not very break-like, but more of a preparation for the rest of my time off from school—time off that seems like it will be pretty full, dominated by work that is going to lay the foundation for a lot that I need to accomplish in the upcoming third term.

The first few days were pretty loose and relaxed. I slept A LOT, napping more than once a day on occasion. I read the Guardian most mornings, and plodded through the web-based copy of the New Yorker I receive (thank you, online subscription). I spent a lot of time in coffee shops, trying to convince myself to go do something, then failing and not caring. One of the more productive things that hasn’t got anything to do with schoolwork: my friend Max and I have taken up jogging together on Sundays (we were at it again today). Max is a pretty big runner, and I can usually get myself out two, three times a week, but we’d both fallen out of the habit during our respective Stage Two Practices that essentially took over our hearts, bodies, and souls February onward. As one of my goals during this break was to get back into shape, having a running buddy seemed a very novel indeed, especially considering how much I loathe running. Truly: there’s nothing I dislike greater than starting running again after a long absence—but then after it becomes a routine, I start craving it like a crack fiend. Addictive, but at least it’s a healthier habit. But starting out is always so dreadful. Having company at least once a week is nice. And in all truth, we came to the decision to run together in order to “train” for a hash.

My friend Abby first told me about hashing when I visited her this summer while she was doing Doubt in Cape May, where she is huge. We got onto the topic of things I needed to do while I was over here, and suddenly she gasped and squealed out: “You have to go on a hash!” Now, before your mind wanders to illicit places, no, “hashing” has nothing to do with marijuana, though it does involve some kind of substance abuse. Essentially, you follow a path that has been laid down for you on the road with chalk markings or piles of sawdust (apparently) and you jog for quite a while. The catch is: the path always leads to a pub. So after you’ve jogged for a substantial amount of time, you drink. I think it’s genius, and all the more reason to bother with running in the first place. And I’m pretty sure Max agrees with this. Abby did tell me, however, that on your first hash, you’re meant to drink your first pint from your shoe, which sounds just awful. I’ll keep you lot posted on our progress.

In my effort to get into shape, I also registered for some yoga classes. The first day I went, I saw a London fox standing by the entry way to the studio. My deep-rooted affection for these little guys makes me believe this was a very fortuitous sign. The studio I’m going to is kind of a trip, in that the company seems to be the UK equivalent to the yoga corporation I used to work for (strange that phrase: “yoga corporation…”), which is both reassuring in its familiarity, and bizarre in some strange, almost cross-dimensional sense. “Yes, Spock—it would appear they promote the practice of yoga on this planet, too…” I hope it won’t take too long to get my practice up to snuff, and I think that the yoga will compliment the running nicely. I may even go to Pilates. But let’s not push it just yet.

But as I said, so many paragraphs ago: meetings. Wednesday I sat down with classmates Ariana, Poppy, and Loukia and discussed plans on developing work we’d started to touch on and generate during last term (a concept that is Ariana’s, so details will be scant here). Ariana is looking to have us present the piece in both London and in a couple towns in Germany this August, which means I won’t be flying home in July as originally planned. (The topic of when I’m actually going back to the states is a pretty hot one right now, but we’ll get to that in another entry.) The work that we’re doing with Ariana is new to me (here’s a hint: it’s largely NOT text based), is pretty exciting because of the newness, and I really like the concept she’s shooting for. Even the challenge of working in this manner is pretty freeing all on its own, and that’s been great so far. I look forward to more of the same over the coming months.

That evening I also caught The Lady From Shanghi at the BFI, and am once again convinced that I need a wardrobe akin to the women of Noir cinema. And a gun. Yeah, that would be good…

Thursday I met with Nick Wood, head of our course, alongside my fellow Space (in) Between cohort Mauro, to feedback on the success of the sessions, and in an effort to get The Space incorporated into next year’s first term offerings. The school is currently reviewing, revising, and re-writing the course as it stands, so there may be room to squeeze it in. Or there may not be. Either way, it was a good meeting, and it was nice to see that the head of the course would take the time out of his very busy week to discuss our findings and the possibility of adding this program to the schedule. We’ll see what comes of it.

Friday consisted of back-to-back meetings of my Stage Three Practice group, and my RMO group. In the first meeting, Chad, Maria, Hedva, Lisa and I basically discussed what attracted us to the project we’re going to be working on, and what our personal goals were as artists concerning our work for the piece. Then we generated a list of movies, plays, anything really that we knew about that dealt with a meal or consumption.

The second meeting with my RMO group was to discuss the upcoming "Great Orchidaceous Travesty," where THE BAND, our research experiment of beat-like quality, will be making its debut to an organized audience. I say “organized audience” because we always perform in public, gleaming our audience members from passers by, or unsuspecting produce shoppers, but this will be the first time we play in a venue where people will actually be watching us as part of an evening of bizarre cabaret acts. I am, admittedly, nervous. We’ve never really “performed” like this before, and will be short one group member, who’ll be replaced by another classmate who’s never seen our work and hasn’t rehearsed with us yet. It will all turn out one way or the other, I suppose. And if something does go terribly wrong, we’ll have a chance to redeem ourselves, as we perform again for a second time a fortnight later on the final night of the "Travesty." Anyway we’ll be wearing hats, so that’ll be good.

And speaking of hats, on Friday I also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum with my friend Caitlin to peruse a hat exhibit that is currently going on there. It was great, and if you’re in London reading this, please try to check it out before it goes away on June 1st.

Friday night I also caught the first half of a student production of Hamlet. I say “first half” because I left during intermission and held up in the theatre bar for the rest of the show. I may just be burnt out on the play (it is my favorite, and I even carry a miniature copy of it around in my purse—God Bless the Globe gift shop), so that may have been why I felt the need to leave. That being said, I have only ever walked out on two pieces of theatre, and this was the second. I actually have a lot of opinions on certain choices (mostly directorial) made during the time between 1.1 and the middle of 3.2 (they cut right after "Give me some light: away!"), but I’ll keep them to myself. I will say, though, keep an eye out for one George Taylor. He played Polonius and was by far the best thing up there in my opinion, and was the one actor that made me think, “Maybe I should stay...just until after the arras scene.”

The rest of the weekend was quite literally spent wholly confined to my dorm room, while I cleaned, read, and continued to sleep for a good long while, when not watching downloaded American television on iTunes. And touching on that briefly: some of you may have noted an absence in any blog entry relating to the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I have had so many random post-finale discussions, that to delve into one here just seems wasteful. Be that as it may, I will say I enjoyed it, though could have done without the coda, and that I also sobbed through the last thirty minutes or so. And no: I am not ashamed.

Rest in peace, Galactica.

This week I am meeting my RMO group to discuss how our dry run of our research presentation went, and prep a little for our final presentation. I have two meetings with the Ariana group scheduled, THE BAND will perform, and I’ll be catching the first part of Romeo Castellucci’s trilogy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Inferno at the Barbican. I also have a couple days of transcription work at Central, typing out some research presentation or other for £££.

That was a long entry and is probably just an indicator of what the next few weeks will bring: massive fullness. But this I vow: I’ll keep finding time for naps somehow.

A little something to tide you over...

I know I've been away, but look what I made for you while I was gone:

There's no audio, but I didn't have the time to score it. My apologies. Maybe someday.

For more information about the generation of this piece, please go here.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends.

Because art doesn't think up itself...

One of the Five Sentences for this week's Space (in) Between restrictions is: "You must use a chair in an unconventional way (IE: do not just sit in it)." I thought it up myself, thank you very much. Here's me in process, trying to work this out with the assistance of my MacBook camera. I'm putting it here because:

1. I think it's interesting showing the struggle people go through to make anything.
2. As an actor, I have to try to not worry about looking like an idiot. So here's testimony to possible idiocy.

Enjoy--even if it's only in a snarky way.

"There's thoughts in my head/like brass in my head/When I start to speak/it all disappears..."

I keep meaning to blog, and then I don't. Trying to engage in normal life more fully, as well as keeping a personal journal, as well as keeping an art school journal, as well as keep up this blog is...difficult.

My group hit a major snafu regarding our research project this week. We came to the sudden realization that there is no way to actually document the rhythm of a space scientifically (unless we had some mad equipment we don't know exists/don't have access to), and came to wonder if that was really necessary to have proper research. This idea in science of measurement is to have a scale to compare your results to--a control group or location, if you will. Makes sense. But what room has a neutral rhythm, and by whose definition? We lost heart for a bit, and decided to spend our time together on Thursday running small workshops for each other. We were each meant to bring in an exercise that would incorporate something we were interested in, in terms of our subject. Ronan had us cross the space a few times, creating a physicalized crescendo and decrescendo. Next, he had Lisa draw a line on a chart that rose and fell, followed by a physicalization of that. Then he had James play impromptu piano as inspired by the chart, and the rest of us (Ronan, Lisa, Maria, and myself) each wrote according to the tempo we heard in the music. I turned this out:

Slow December waltz, at home with Henry. Everything in order and children in bed--oh but Jeffrey's forgotten his teddy bear. Never mind it, he'll get it tomorrow, no doubt. And where did I put that--my knitting, I know, I know it was here somewhere, somewhere, I pricked my hand the other day, with my broach and stained my best day coat. Could it have meant something? Surely not. I'm just being silly. How foolish I was to cry over that. Just a little blood. Just a pin prick. It will come out in the wash. Just like a little girl, like a silly little girl, Rosie the other day over her bear and her milk all over her dress, silly girl, and the wailing the wailing, I never wanted to be a mother, I hate my children and I hate myself for hating my children but such a nuisance. Always under foot.

James had been playing something in 3/4, hence the waltz reference and subsequent Victorian/Edwardian dialogue. Also: I'm certain I have a woman of that era living inside me, somewhere, so I'm sure that has something to do with it...

For my part, I ran a short and somewhat bastardized Shakespeare workshop (I skipped over scansion completely--I am ashamed), trying to emphasize the rhythm found in his text by accessing the aural signifiers as well as the punctuation. It succeeded for the most part, which made me happy, but I don't know how much of that work has anything to do with our topic. This brings up a small problem that has me again revisiting the idea of not wanting to research anything, but rather just wanting to do something. Today it's Shakespeare, tomorrow it'll be aerial silks--I'm fickle like that. (Oh, and how I dream of aerial silks...) Then Lisa had us try to incorporate some of the Shakespeare work into a piece of modern text--namely from Sarah Kane's Crave, ala a workshop Martin Wylde, head of the MA Classical Acting program led a couple weeks ago.

After the mini-workshops, we met with company members of Present Attempt, Velna and Alex, both working at Central currently and having small experience in producing work from a place similar to our research topic. They assured us it would be all right to work from research that wasn't completely scientific in nature, since trying to replicate anything on stage essentially fails from the get go--you have to re-think what you're replicating just to have it come off theatrical, so why worry so much? It was nice to have this support, but I'm still trying to re-engage with this topic. Outside of my fascination with rhythmic texts, I don't really know where to go with this one, and certainly not in a group setting. As always: we shall see.

Friday was the second week of "The Space (in) Between." Classmate Mauro and I met beforehand to discuss what we were actually doing, what the purpose of The Space was, and what kind of weekly assignment/stimulus we'd be doling out. As suggested by Ronan, we continued on with the structure of providing restrictions and provocations, modeled off of the Toby Jones lab week. I also personally liken this to an aspect of Moment Work, but let's not lose ourselves in a realm of theatrical jibber-jabber for the moment, all right? Mauro had the idea that we would weekly offer five sentences to the group to create work for the following week. As the course goes on, more and more work seems to be piling up, and I am worried about The Space's success hinging on people's time to consider these mini assignments. But hopefully, if nothing else, The Space will provide an allocated time for people to try out their ideas, research related or otherwise, and will prove a comfort in that it will always be there. And of course, because it seems to be the only way I deal with anything these days, I created a blog for the function. If you want to know more about what we do and why we do it, just check it out here.

My last encounter with the London International Mime Festival is today. I'm seeing Familie Floez's Hotel Paradiso this evening, and I'm quite excited. I'm hoping it will be as great as the last show I saw at Southbank, also part of the Mime Fest's offerings, Tomas Kubinek. This man was simply amazing: funny, specific, engaging, musically talented (it must be said: I love a ukulele), and just sheer joy. So much joy, that I found myself crying at the end I was so happy. These tears varied greatly from those cried during a very mediocre circus show I'd had to sit through two days prior in the very space, called Circus Klezmer. I won't get into the reason for those tears (let's just say I have a very personal relationship with circus), but I will get into the mediocrity. The thing I hate about circus that tries to apply a narrative is how often that narrative is just there as filler. If you're composing a circus piece with a narrative or theme, I think you have two options:

1. You just let the acts be linked by a common idea, and don't try to add too much story wise;
2. You allow the acts to help promote and advance the narrative, like what makes a musical a musical, and not just a show with music and dancing and lights.

Or you can just do a show full of acts and antics--that's fine too, and is a big part of what makes circus circus. But these lack luster attempts at making a story are just awful: "Here's a scene, and now suddenly as if out of no where, an aerial silk act! And now another scene, that in no way refers back to that last act whatsoever!" And so forth and so on. And quite frankly: the show wasn't that funny. They company members did "funny" things, but it just wasn't funny. People laughed at antics, not at what was REALLY happening on stage. Most audiences can be bought through desperation, it seems. I grow more and more suspicious of this as time goes by. God, I kept hoping there'd be an intermission so I could leave. Luckily, it was only seventy minutes. Seventy minutes I'll never get back...

Yesterday I also saw The Kid for the first time, the last offering of the Early Chaplin Program at BFI. And thus ends the first, pretty full couple weeks back. I don't expect too much activity in the next few days as far as outings. Despite the incredible drop in the exchange rate (Britain has FINALLY entered the recession, whoo hoo!), I need to give my wallet a rest (I have entered my own recession) and try to re-engage a little more with school work (yuck).

It's raining, which reminds me I'm supposed to be reading King Lear today. Wish me luck! w00t!

Miss me?

I thought you might have.

I know, I know--I've been away. My apologies. I've been super busy since I got back, so let me give you the general run down, and I'll plod through specifics later.

Saturday, 10 January:
I land around 6AM--forty-five minutes before scheduled to do so--in Heathrow airport to light flurries and the sound of a screaming child (if I've learned anything from my last two trans-Atlantic flights it's that all children should only be permitted to travel by boat). I pick up my luggage, ride the tube to my halls, drop off my bags, get a shower in, go for coffee, and then head out to the first day of Devoted and Disgruntled. While there, I run into the costume designer from my senior year show in college--Amazing! Interesting discussions ensue. (I will actually do an entry on this, so fret not the lack of details herein.) I go home early from the event and go to sleep, as I'd been up for about 30 hours straight<--I cannot sleep on planes, especially when Braveheart or On the Waterfront is offered as entertainment.

(York Hall, set up for Devoted and Disgruntled goodness.)

Sunday, 11 January:
More D&D, including a session about doing theatre in elderly homes, which brought back fond memories of this book.

Monday, 12 January:
Last session of D&D in the morning, and then off to school, where I saw The Five Obstructions and The Perfect Human, to help put into perspective a future speaker's topic of discussion. Good movies, and I recommend you definitely check out Five Obstructions if you are into the film making process. And if you find the time, scroll down and watch The Perfect Human--it is on this very blog!

Tuesday, 13 January:
Class consisted of gathering with the other MA courses at Central and sitting through presenter after presenter, discussing topics they had spent time researching. We are doing major research projects ourselves this term (to take place of our weekly lab work), so this whole week of speakers, workshops and the like were meant to give us a framework of understanding what it is we're meant to do. Some of it was useful. Some of it wasn't. It's amazing how boring some people can make theatre when they're reading a paper they wrote about it, after they've spent fifteen minutes really engaging you while they set up their discussion. It's kind of a shame, really.

Best part of the day was when my friend Caitlin gave me a necklace with a Dalek charm on it. For those who don't know (and I am guessing many of you do not), Daleks are the greatest adversaries of the Doctor (Dr. Who, people: that doctor). Caitlin and I love Dr. Who, though it must be admitted the reason rests almost solely (if not entirely) on David Tennant. But we're fine with that.
I swear to God I'm not a geek.

Wednesday, 14 January:
First Wednesday back at Swiss Cottage meant the return of the greatest coffee I have ever found in my life. Jason is the man who runs the coffee stand in the farmer's market we have in front of school on Wednesday and Friday, and besides having great taste in books (he loaned me a Fante volume that I really need to finish...someday...), his coffee is impeccable. Seriously. I would not kid about coffee.

We met in the afternoon with the tutor who will be leading us through our research this term (and incidentally will be filling in for the performer's movement tutor while our course leader is off doing research on the history of movement directors) to present our topics. Each group had five minutes, after we'd all taken an hour to compose our presentation according to a graph model that was given to us. In research, it seems, people are very much fond of graphs, charts etc. It makes a person feel official, and it's fun to decide what color to make different parts of a pie chart showing percentages. The most fun part of the actual presentations for me was chiming out, "BONG!" at the five minute mark--Heidi was timekeeper, and a little sick, so I stepped in to BONG when the tutor reprimanded her for not projecting enough. A silly thing, to be sure, but it caused me much joy to participate in such a way, bringing about the full realization of the sneaking suspicion I'd had all week and month previous: I don't want to be an academic, and research for the most part bores me. But doing research is part of what makes this a master's program. Uh oh. This may become an "issue." We shall see.

Afterwards, I went to the first evening of our MA-ATP Speaker Series. The dramaturgs have been commissioned to bring in theatrical practitioners to speak (duh) about their jobs in the theatre today. That evening, we had as our guest Christopher Campbell, a very nice, interesting, and engaging man, who spoke to us about his job as Deputy Literary Manager for the National Theatre. No small fish here. He spoke about play selection, actor requirements when plays are selected for them, playwright insecurities, and why the National puts on so little new work--and it's not because every play they get is shit, either. It was a very enjoyable talk, and I look forward to more in the future.

On the way out of school to go grab dinner before Slumdog Millionaire that evening with friends, myself, David (dramaturg student who brought in Campbell), Campbell and my friend Poppy ended up in the lift together. The doors closed, and suddenly there was a mighty "THU-THUNK!!!" We had dropped a little, and then gotten stuck in between floors. The fire brigade had to come and get us out! Luckily it didn't take too long, and the company was very pleasant. David had given Campbell a bottle of whiskey as a gift for coming, and I kept joking her should open it up.

Caught Slumdog Millionaire, as already stated above, and may have found an affordable gym with a pool right by school. Very exciting.

Thursday 15 January:
I skived off ("played hooky"). I wish I hadn't because there were a couple workshops I heard about later that sounded interesting, but the sleep was very precious. I also had a really nice jog, and somehow ended up at King's Cross. Thought about checking for Platform 9 3/4, but decided to save it for another day. Also came to the realization that jogging in London is a near futile venture if you're not in a park: the sidewalks are WAY too narrow, and people seem confused/put out/ignorant of the concept of MOVING OUT OF THE WAY of the jogger who is going for time. Goodess sakes, people. It's almost as bad as people who smoke while walking, but never enact the common courtesy to move the cigarette out of the way when another person passes by closest to the hand holding said cigarette. I guess no one gets blinded by smoke, ash, or otherwise when room isn't made on the sidewalk, and surely no first degree burns are earned, but still: it sucks.

When I got home, I bought an impromptu ticket to a show for Friday night.

Friday 16 January:
More coffee. I love you, Jason.

Went to school to attend a function a classmate and I are trying to run every Friday called "The Space In Between." Basically, it's a big cross-sharing space for the different strands to come together and show off to each other what they're learned, what they already know, what they're interested in exploring. The hope is that out of these sharing sessions people will be able to find other students who are interested in investigating/developing the same kind of work, which would maybe lead to a collaboration for festival work. I should explain: during third term, our course puts on a festival of original work. A lot of the more noteworthy companies/practitioners that came out of this program moved their festival piece to Edinburgh the same year they were finishing their dissertation, so it's possible what we do here could lead to greater things. The sharing sessions would also hopefully be a place to showcase developing work for feedback, or to derive inspiration about your own work from what other people are bringing in. I thought it was a little ambitious to start off the first week back with a session, but I showed up with a Viola Spolin book in hand, ready to play.

I was the only one there.

I made use of the time by perusing the Spolin text (thank goodness I had brought Theatre Games for the Lone Actor<--I had a sneaking suspicion this was going to happen) and making a list of the things I had learned about living a theatrical life, in case, of course, I am ever called to give such advice. It's quite the list, I assure you. In any case, we hope that this week's SIB is more successful. We can only hope.

When I got home from school, I had a surprise package in the mail. My friend Logan had sent me Battlestar Galactica replica dog tags for none other than Kara Thrace! It came on a perfect day, as BSG premiered in the states that night. I did my part by honouring the occasion and wearing the dog tags to the theatre that night.

(Two science fiction accessory pieces in one week, is pretty geeky, I guess...

But they were gifts!)

The London International Mime Festival is running till the 25th, and Friday night was the first show I caught. I saw Seeking Oedipus by Theatre of Silence Ex Machina at the Southbank Centre. It was a pretty solid show, and I enjoyed the physicality. But the most striking thing about the piece was this HUGE inclined plane that made up most of the set. You really appreciated how athletic the performers had to be to work on that--they were running, jumping, leaping, climbing, and sliding all over that thing. And then at one point Oedipus walked up the rake backwards very slowly. His quads must have killed him. What was nice about the actual narrative of the story was that they basically told you all of the exposition covered in Oedipus as the stage action. There was no "mime chorus," though that phrase conjures an interesting image. The actor playing Laius was by far my favorite. He was also the hottest. (Whatever helps...)

Saturday 17 January:
Met with my research group around the corner from my halls at the Welcome Collection in the morning (more about our topic of research and methods at a later date), and then heading home to watch the premiere episode of BSG I had downloaded from iTunes. (Holy Frak!) Then I wandered down to the BFI to catch part of a program of Charlie Chaplin's early films. The double-reel contained Pay Day and The Pilgrim, and the event started by showing the audience some old footage of when Chaplin first came back to the UK from the states--throngs of people at Waterloo, crowds that really wouldn't exist in that size or clamour again until the Beatles. It was wonderful, and seeing the films was a wonderful compliment to the mime/clown activities of the festival as well.

Sunday 18 January:
I slept. I needed it. And read Othello. I realize I've been neglecting Shakespeare for a while now, and that has to stop. So I promised myself that every Sunday I would read one of his plays that I hadn't read yet--and no, having seen a performance doesn't count. Next week: King Lear.

And that's all for right now. Tomorrow a lot of the North American Stronghold heads out to a bar on Leicester Square to watch the Inauguration. I'll let you know how that goes, and I promise to try to be more diligent about updating you guys about my life happenings. I promise to try. I promise.