"Insomnia" wasn't a terrible movie...

...but it's a bitch to have.

Have been kept awake the past week longer and later than expected, continually due to, I expect, undue stress from school. We'll start Week 9 of 10 on Monday, and at the end of it we need to present our 8 minute piece. I've been worried about it, and in true fashion I've given it more importance in my life than it probably deserves, staying up late at night/into the early morning trying to figure out how to nail it. Consequently I've been exhausted most days and a little more irritable than I'd like.

I also have two other projects I need to start this week, to be presented at the end of Week 10. The first is a three minute solo piece of our own devising, where we use something we have (either on the physical body, or something about ourselves) as the stimulus. I really want to resist doing something deep and humanistic, since I believe that to be my reputation in class--though classmates told me today this is not completely true (sometimes I even funny, apparently), which is nice to hear. I thought I'd focus on something a little more flip. So far I have come up with my complete adoration of fried food ("In three minutes I will consume an entire bucket of KFC!") and my current need for David Tennant to be my boyfriend. I need a rough draft to show in class on Thursday, and so far no real revelation. So that's whatever.

The other project is another ensemble piece, this time only amongst other performers. We've been split into two groups, one of seven and one of nine. I'm in the former, and our assigned stimulus is a section of a speech from Heiner Muller's HAMLET-MACHINE:

HAMLET:

I don't want to eat drink breathe love a woman a man a child an animal anymore.
I don't want to die anymore. I don't want to kill anymore.
(Tearing of the author's photograph.)
I force open my sealed flesh. I want to dwell in my veins, in the marrow of my bones, in the maze of my skull. I retreat into my entrails. I take my seat in my shit, in my blood. Somewhere bodies are torn apart so I can dwell in my shit. Somewhere bodies are opened so I can be alone with my blood. My thoughts are lesions in my brain. My brain is a scar. I want to be a machine. Arms for grabbing. Legs to walk on, no pain no thoughts.

We haven't started work on this yet, but should have some time during classes this week.

And now, at 4:51 AM, I going to try to go to bed. Again.

Holy Homicide, Batman!

Bullshit.

It's the third Thursday in November...

If you were wondering what I was up to on Thanksgiving, let some of that question be answered here. The North American Stronghold (the phrase I came up with to describe the massive clump of {mostly} Americans in the program who also pal around with each other) hosted a fine dinner for themselves and some guests at Bostonian Caitlin's flat. Heidi took on the turkey, and bless her, it came out so well. I baked sweet potatoes and apples in a maple syrup and brown sugar glaze, which went over very well. All in all, it was a great night with a lot of food, a lot of wine, good music, friends, and hand turkeys: truly all the things that Thanksgiving is all about.

I just wanna say/I haven't been away/I'm still right here/Where I always was

Give it up to Morrissey, sad as he is, for lyrics that made up the title to this entry. They're appropriate because they're to the song "The Loop," which is the topic of our assignment that will run for the next two weeks. Not the Morrissey song, mind, but the concept of a loop. Here's the brief:

This lab is an experiment in intermediality. It encourages participants to work collaboratively so that their processes both speculative and live can be witnessed.

The materials and the spatial conditions are prescribed so that the focus of the experiment becomes on ‘how’ materials are improvised with and structured to create sequential temporal images. Choreography and music have many models that use these techniques as methods for exploring compositional practice.

There will be 4 companies. Each company is asked to prepare 4 minutes of material that have the same start and end point- hence The Loop.

Basically, the 46 of us have been broken up into four groups and given the same space and same materials in order to complete the assignment. The playing space is set up traverse-ly (unsure of the realness of that word), with the audience on either side of a set that is structured as something that can be likened to a hallway. The objects in the space we've been given and are required to use are:

• One minute of projection
• 3 one minute sound cues
• One men's suit jacket
• Two chairs
• One bucket of water
• One newspaper
• Three screens that can be projected onto and moved

Here's part of the space:

Now, look to the right:
And from the other side...

It looks almost as two playing spaces sat next to each other. I've taken pictures from either side of each "space" to show the different view points of the audience.

We have to use everything, create a piece that is four minutes long, and then repeat the piece with two different performers (hence the loop). Everything has already been set in the space for us, and it is in those original places we must leave everything at the end of each four minute segment (again, we see the loop). The second group of performers also must conduct the same actions that the first group does in their four minutes--again with the loop!

So the challenges are how to use all of these materials (bodies, objects, media) wisely and well, and create a well-rounded piece. Another idea of focus for the performers is to keep in mind how to make repetitive action distinct--is it simply a matter of making a different person/body perform that action, or are there other things that can/should/need to be applied to bring different meaning to the same moment. And can we get some text in there already--I'd like to talk on stage at some point. ("Someday!") Another thing is the relation the performer has to the audience--in a space that very nearly surrounds the actors with "4th walls" how does that change how a body functions in a space? Or need it change anything at all?

Lots of thoughts, lots of thoughts. Below is a video of some of my group members (including myself) moving around the space during a discovery exercise. Basically we were just trying to get a feel for what we could do in the space and what shapes the space could take on by deconstructing and constructing different environments. The sound you'll hear in the background are some of the cues we're meant to use. Enjoy it--I'm out.

The next time you think about giving some one change...

I know, I've been away. Please don't hate--absence makes the heart grow, and all that. More will come, and soon I promise. But for now, please enjoy this.