Day 21: Under the weather, and completely over it.

I woke up this morning feeling absolutely horrible! I decided it was best not to go to my morning classes. So instead I slept in all morning until around 1:00pm. I felt a little guilty not going to class, and also missing the ribbon cutting of the new studio, but I also knew that I needed my rest and that I need to be careful that I don't wear myself out before the kids come. Besides, I am already doing so much- I think my body just needs to rest. 


With all the changing weather, it has become difficult for my body to adjust. It's a completely different weather environment down here. It's extremely hot, all the time and also very humid. And whenever you walk into a building it is just constant AC. Actually not ideal for my body, or a dancer's body in general. You prepare for a hot day so you wear not a lot of clothing. Then you walk into a room and its freezing cold. And then after you get warmed up you sweat, and then your body's sweat gets chilled by the cold AC air, and in turn makes you even colder then when you first walked in. It's pretty inefficient which is probably a main contribution as to why I am not feeling well. 


Anyways, I still made it to Repertory however. We didn't do much, but we did add a few sections to both groups' work. The showing is this Friday at 7:00PM. I want someone to tape it for me so I can put it on the blog. We'll see how that goes!


I then spent the rest of my evening watching Breaking Bad as well as walking over to Francesca's Dessert Cafe and having a delicious Chai Tea Latte- may be one of the best I have ever had and doing some cleaning of my email as well as writing this blog. Tomorrow will hopefully be a more productive day! And then on Wednesday is the 4th of July! I have big plans to go to Wilmington and stop by Wrightsville Beach! :)


Tootles 
<3

Day 19: If you can't take the heat, stop cooking.

Today was HOT. No exaggeration there. But luckily, I was in a room full of Air Conditioning for the majority of the day. This 106 degree weather with intense humidity is taking a toll on me... 


Anyways, I woke up late- probably because it was so hot - which makes me feel pretty tired in general and didn't make it to the Hubbard Street Master Class. I didn't feel too bad about it- they were teaching Ballet...which is pretty standard. I actually wasn't able to sign up for the class anyways because I was in class when they put up the sign up sheet ( now they are only allowing 50 people per class)...a little unfair. I could of gone early and tried to sneak in without anyone looking..but I decided to instead take advantage of the opportunity to sleep- something that can become a habit here at ADF, so I have tried to avoid..but I also don't think I should get too overwhelmed. 


Anyways, I went to Forsythe Rehearsal at 2:00PM in The Durham School of the Arts Stage. It was a nice space. We got there and immediately started to go over the Forsythe solo. I still have no idea what comes next in any of it. I didn't really take the time to go over it with other people in the class ( which was my fault ) which made it difficult for when we ran it. Elizabeth Corbett still doesn't remember my name! She was giving everyone individual corrections for a section of class- she gave me excellent corrections but still doesn't remember my name. The funny part is that she gave me a super silly nickname. She calls me "Olive" because there's another girl in the class who is named Olivia and she didn't want to confuse us..I told her it was okay to call me "Olive" but I never registered how odd that sounds.. ahah. The funny thing is that there are two "Christinas" in the Project and they have no differentiation. 


Anyways, she gave the class in general a lot of things to think about. Some of the popular things were: "freeing the head and neck", "elongation of spine in the movements", "to get deeper in the joints" and to "have differentiation in the weight of the steps". She also talked about the importance of thinking about "moving in the space behind you" when we performed the Improvisation Technologies exercise. Oftentimes, when doing the 9-point exercise and she brought up a point that actually made a lot of sense to me. She said, "If you feel like you are repeating yourself: slow down, let go, and copy others." She pointed out how differently everyone in the room is moving, but how it all looked like "Forsythe" work because we were thinking about the technologies. She said, if you copy someone in the room, you are most likely not identically copying them- but you are still accomplishing movements through Forsythe's ideas within the technologies. She also said that Forsythe's 9- point exercise, is just a form and from that form you can go out of the box and make it your own. After being "in the box" for so long- I began to identify what it felt like to skew outside of the box and create from the idea of being in the box- but to allow my movements to free themselves. Anyways, then we applied our studies from the box while including ballet technique as well as partnering in the mix. Me and Johnnie were partners and we created this scorching HOT Improvised duet. I wish we had taped that because it felt great and probably looked very interesting. 


This project has brought me so much insight- I am so thankful to be part of this project. ( Thanks Johnnie :) ) 


Tonight, William Forsythe is receiving the Scripps Award from ADF, which is an award that includes a $50,000 grant for a lifetime achievement of being a choreographic genius. 


More about the award: http://artsmeme.com/2012/02/14/the-great-dance-artist-william-forsythe-recognized-in-the-u-s-with-scrippsadf-award/




How awesome is that. Maybe to be me someday! haha.


Anyways, I then spent the rest of my night having a date night at Elmo's with Vincent and Emma. Oh how I love Durham, NC!

Day 18: A day full of surprises..

Today was really interesting and had a lot of unexpected events occur. So I woke up this morning, surprisingly feeling extra refreshed. Emma and I had our breakfast, got ready and made it on the bus to DSA. As soon as we arrive, we come to the door of the gym to see that DSA is on lockdown. Apparently the doors were locked and the fire alarm was going off. So we waited for quite a long time, outside in the hot sun ( even though it was only 8:00 AM...the temperature was probably in its 80's or 90's already.) Eventually, come 8:30AM, the maintenance people came to open the doors.  The alarm had stopped making sound, but the lights were still flashing. We came in and still had our usual lengthy warmup sequence of rolling, crawling, walking, standing, plies, tendues, partnering lunges, and across the floor sequencing. What made this portion of class nice was that we progressed through the entire warmup rapidly and all through the usage of our bodies and communication through body language. The entire class was asked to stay silent until we got through the whole thing. I really appreciated these moments. It really was a beautiful experience. Communicating with everyone just through the sensation of our bodies, it's really powerful stuff. It was refreshing to not have to speak to communicate. I wish that we could take more people to be a part of this experience everyday. 


Then we went into African, which we spent a lot of time today performing the Kassa, ( The Hunting Dance from Guinea). We practiced a new warm-up and spent time refining movements from Kassa as well as adding a few new ones in and stringing them together. I learned about putting accents on our dancing to help inform the musicians today. Something that I am admitting of making the mistake of doing is to follow the beat of the wrong drummer. In order to stay on beat- obviously you need to keep with the beat of the bass drum, instead of going along with the other individuals. Also, I learned today that it is unacceptable to follow off of the drummer. The drummer is often looking at the dancers to inspire the rhythms and beats. Kathryn and I also figured out that the only types of dance we need in our life are the ABC's... African, Ballet, and Contemporary! Haha. But seriously, we started thinking about the ABC's of ADF and decided to make one. As soon as I have put it all together I will be posting it- hopefully with some pictures!


Then we got to partnering after a lovely lunch with Vincent and Shanna :) I love Ming! He is great. He spent a lot of time on my trio with Raphael and Rachel today. It was excellent. I found myself really investigating and learning more about how to negotiate with my partners and their bodies. I just want to have a mini- sized Ming to put in my pocket and keep with me for when I have partnering issues. He is so great! We also decided our group name would be "the Swag Shop"...it used to be called "the Sweat Shop" because we were so sweaty...so this is definitely a step up. A lot of people in my group actually wanted the name Swag Shop mainly so that Ming would have to say Swag Shop anytime he wanted us to do anything! How funny. 


Then after Repertory, Shamar was nice enough to drive us back and get out of the HOT Durham sun. So Emma and I did a few errands and got Snowballs again! Delicious! And only $2. After we spent time getting ready we went to the Tobacco Campus with Vincent and Sam and ate at Cuban Revolution again- mainly because Tyler's Taproom was full and had a 20 minute wait...and because Cuban Revolution is super cheap with $3 drafts. After dinner we walked over to the Hubbard Street Performance and got an unexpected show.


We started the show off with Quintett, choreographed by William Forsythe. I was super excited before the show started for this piece, and as it progressed I got continually frusterated with it. The song was extremly repetitive and annoying. There were also props on the stage that the dancers barely touched or manipulated. In my opinion, if you are going to have props/set work you either need to forget about it and not acknowledge it or really build it in your repertory of movement to manipulate or pretend to manipulate. They failed to do so...it was just "eh". The movement however as beautiful and flowed together when the quintett was partnered up. But as far as being a quintett it really didn't feel like a cohesive quintett to me...maybe it wasn't supposed to feel that way- but the title is misleading, as well as the added props. 


Then we moved into a completely different piece. It was absolutely gorgeous and made sense to me. It was called Little Mortal Jump by Alejandro Cerrudo. It was brilliant. They actually used four square box walls that spin and move around stage and blend in with the background. The dancers in this piece utilized them really efficiently and well. It was a very thoughtful piece. I also appreciated the progression of the piece and the flow from group section to duet, so on and so forth. I also felt a connection to the music. Each piece, each duet, each group section..the movement in my opinion matched the musical sensation- which is something that I really want to try and capture in my work...so I think they accomplished that well. 


The final piece was tricky for me as far as feelings about it. It was called "Too Beaucoup"  or ( too too much). It was a piece with movements repreenting a "robotic" feel with everyone dressed in white unitards with different gels of light and patterns shining down onto their unitards. It was such a smart lighting/costume choice. I felt like the piece felt underrehearsed and oftentimes was rushed, sloppy in the footwork/speed, and was not in synchronization. I think that also this piece was extremely long and needed to be cut off in one of the six times earlier that I thought the piece was done. Ending the performance on that note was disappointing to me, especially since I was SO stoked to see them. But in all honesty the show was a good one- regardless of some of the choices they chose that I do not agree with. 




Anyways, tomorrow is a long day so off to bed I go! Yay for Forsythe....!

Day 17: The Rhythm of Life

Today was a pretty normal day. Nothing too exciting occurred. I had the hardest time waking up this morning though, I have no idea why. I have had a lot of sleeping problems while being here. I think a big portion of that has to do with the amount of caffeine intake I have been taking since I have been home. Every morning I have a cup, every night I have a cup of decaffeinated ( which still has some caffeine in it) and sometimes I have another cup during the day. Now I am drinking no coffee! It is a big change, my body really isn't used to it. Anyways...


So I woke up at 7:20 and hauled myself to the bus stop with Emma for Paul's class. The energy was especially low today. We spent 15 minutes doing our walking meditation. I tried really hard to focus more on the sensations of the feet rather than outside thoughts and plans. It was very therapeutic for my tired morning and overactive brain. I found that picking up the pace of my steps in my walk actually helped me to refocus my brain at times where it would wander. Another thing that we worked on was our combination phrase of the three combinations we had been working on. Today was our last day with the material. We worked on finding pliancy and working on the connection of "partnering with the floor", which is good mental imagery for making sure we stay pliant in our jumps and shifts of weight. I thought a lot about how I can still be dynamic but gently give my weight to the floor so that I am not tossing energy to the floor. 


Then we had African, which started out with a nice warmup stretch against the wall. At this point I was more awake so warming up became easier. I am somehow always being picked on by Sherone. I guess I am always right next to him right up in front, but he always finds something that I am doing wrong- which is great don't get me wrong, but the whole time I thought I was doing it right and then he comes up to me with a crooked smile. I need to think about having a closer relationship to the floor in my plie position and to find a way to bend farther down so that I can access my high knees more. The class as a whole is also still struggling with the rhythms and the counts. To be fair, a lot of times we miss the break in the music which is what informs us to when we should start a combination, but the acoustics in the room are terrible! Mainly because of it being a gymnasium and having weird shapes in the ceiling which don't echo back in an accurate way. However, a lot of people just can't even identify the "down" beat or the break in the music. I think that I know what it is, but I am having trouble identifying that within my own body, but at least I know what they are!


Then after lunch, I walked over to the Arts Warehouse in the hot Durham sun and had rehearsal with Ming. We started putting together the order of the piece based on the different trios, duets, quintets, etc. We spent a large majority of the time working on the trio between Raphael, Rachel and I. We clarified a lot of transitions and steps so it was helpful. 


Overall, it was a pretty standard day. Nothing too fancy or out of the ordinary. As soon as I got home I showered and fell asleep for like 4 hours. I think I am catching up on the lack of sleep I am getting at night. And I am for sure sleeping early tonight so that I can wake up tomorrow feeling refreshed instead of exhausted. Anyways, ttyl <3

Day 16: Brain Overload

Today was a very laid-back day, surprisingly. I woke up around 10:00, thinking that I had rehearsal at 10:15 at the Ark. In the WFSS schedule it didn't say we had rehearsal, but in the overall weekly schedule it said we did at that time. So, I showed up with Christina, waiting for rehearsal when in reality, we didn't have it. 


Then after a few minutes I left and went to Brodie Gym for a little bit to watch the Shen Wei Project audition. Shen Wei Dance Arts is doing a show at the North Carolina Mueseum of Art and was looking for 13 dancers to dance in the performance with the company. Because I am now in the Forsythe Project, I cannot be in the Shen Wei Project because of overlapping rehearsal times. My roommate, Emma auditioned but unfortunately got cut. The people from Shen Wei originally had said they were looking for 30 dancers, but all of a sudden, cut the number by more than half. And out of around 100 people auditioning, you have a 13% chance of making it in...not so good. Kind of disapointing though!


Then after I ran a few errands, I walked to rehearsal in Brodie Gym. When I got there Elizabeth Corbett was showing everyone how to create the "Laban Cube" on paper. It was a day of learning William Forsythe's "Improvisation Technologies" and how to use a system with 9 points in space. Ideally the cube looks like such:

Basically, the idea is that you are imagining yourself placed in a cube, and from there are making diagonal and straight lines from each of the 9 points. Here is my cube: 

The idea is that between these points, one should think about the connection between each relationship developed between the 9 points and 9 lines formed and then add different layers to each relationship. After we discovered the 9 points on paper, we explored them through movement sequences that soon got added with a sum of layers to make it naturally occuring movement, as opposed to a scientific exploration or collection of data. The different layers we added onto the 9-points are as follows:

• snapping fingers at each point
• extrusion of arms from point to point
• rotation of arms to iniation of a new pathway
• video scratches ( retrograde/reverse of a pathway)
• classical ballet arms form in each pathway as opposed to relaxed/contemporary arms
• broken limbs, cut off lines from exclusion of part of a limb ( ex. using only your elbow as opposed to the entire arm from shoulder to fingertip)
• residual swings in the arms/legs/torso ( shaping)
• challenging fronts, using your feet to define the points in space as well as the pattern and facing of the upper body
• low and high curves for placement of the feet

We then moved into a exercise where we applied all these layers with a partner. One person thought about inscribing the space, and utilizing the 9-point method while the other thought about avoiding the other person however they pleased. Then after switching roles, space was created in between the inscriber and the avoider, but a relationship between both peoples' movement remains. Eventually, there came an awareness where both partners would trade off each role of being either an avoider or an inscriber and a constant communication was being given. 

Anyways, after this intense class, my brain felt crazy.

Then Kathryn and I walked over to the Ark for Elisa Clark's class. She taught us Lar Lubovitch Repertory as well as Robert Battle Repertory. I had asked her a few days ago if she could teach us some Lar Rep, and of course the Rep she taught was from North Star, which is first of all, one of my favorite pieces, but second of all she taught Jenna's solo- which she now performs, but is the solo I remember from seeing her last year. That solo was crazy from what I remember. It was a dialogue between the left and right brain and the differences between the two. I remember being in love with that solo. Elisa showed it to us briefly while demonstrating, and of course was amazing doing it. Then we all gave it a go. I don't think I did a horrible job with it, I actually felt pretty good about it- but at first it did strike me as being something I could potentially feel uncomfortable or vulnerable with. The first part is excessive shaking, with sharp vibratory movements- something I am not typically comfortable with. Elisa talked to us when we were learning it and about to show it and basically told us that it's okay to feel vulnerable. She made an excellent point. She said that all artists have to be vulnerable sometimes, but she thinks that Dance is one of the hardest forms of art that you can accept yourself with. Not only do you have to feel and be vulnerable when giving the world your work, but its something you cannot escape. You can be a fantastic writer, and write ridiculous things and send it off and hide from the vulnerability, but as a dancer, the skin you are in is your medium. Whether you like it or not, people will know more about you from the moment they see you dance and they will of course know it is you. But then again you think about that, and how powerful is that? No other medium in art will ever be as personal. You are basically using your own flesh to express yourself.

She also made it a point to explain that artistry is not something you can force...a statement I really appreciate. So often, I see so many people force the artistry within them, when really it should just come naturally to those who are comfortable enough with themselves and their own body to then test it out and show who they are as a person. 

Then, after learning Lubovitch Rep, we learned some phrase from Battleworks ,a work commissioned by Juilliard in 2001. It was difficult because it focused on the intense rhythm and beat of the music. I have really enjoyed Elisa's classes at ADF. She is such an amazing person also. I really appreciate artists that I look up to, who end up being such great people in real life. I am hoping to cross roads with her again in the future sometime soon.

After class, Emma and I went to the bank and then went on adventure to try and find Walmart, and instead found an AMAZING snowball place. They have over 100 flavors of snowballs, and the shaved ice literally feels like ice cream soothing on my tongue. Ah. I got Pink Lemonade and Cranberry- I might have to go back tomorrow. It was only $1.50 for a Kid's Size! 

Then we came home and ate pizza and food that was bad for us and chilled. I love ADF. I never want to leave, I am so content.

Day 15: I Love to Move.

Today I spent most of my day admiring movement.


Living in a world where I can dance all day long as my career, how lucky am I?
I had Paul's class today. We didn't spend as much time warming up. We started class with a quote from Hokusai, a famous Japanese artist:


At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of animals, plants, birds, fishes and insects. Consequently when I am eighty I'll have made more progress. At ninety I'll have penetrated the mystery of things. At a hundred I shall have reached something marvellous, but when I am a hundred and ten everything I do, the smallest dot, will be alive. (Katsushika Hokusai)

This really resonated with me. It made me believe that a masterpiece only comes from progression and from working hard every single day of my life. We spent some time with our walking meditation. I have been thinking a lot about my life, and after Paul talked about having a daily practice, the more I want to implement some sort of daily practice in my life. I am a very impulsive and random person sometimes, but I don't think it would hurt to add some sort of daily routine to my life. Some sort of constant. 

Anyways, we worked on combining three of the combinations we have learned in class together. Stringing them together has been harder than I thought it would be. I need to think about how I can change the dynamics and energy between each individual phrase that's connected to connect all three together to make it a cohesive phrase instead of a chopped off block of random dynamic qualities thrown together. Also, Paul adjusted the speed of the phrase, so now it is on hyper speed. A lot of people in our class cannot count the beats also- so they are always off the beat, which can at times become frustrating, but hey what can you do?

Then we moved into African. I am trying SO hard to be successful in African, and it is just getting increasingly harder. I am not used to the different rhythms being produced by the 6-10 drummers present drumming for us. They are all amazing musicians, but with a ll those drums, it can become quite intimidating as well as confusing when there are so many different sounds in the room. One point that Sherone made, was to make sure that we give as much energy in our dancing as the drummers to do their drums. Like dancers, drummers face the same types of hand injuries/callouses/soreness/pain, etc. So to not take advantage of them. Then we began to learn parts of a new dance today. We are currently learning the "Kassa", which is a dance originating from Guinea which is about hunting/gathering. 

Then afterwards, I had a meeting for Dorm Counselors which was long and not necessary to write about in the blog. But I walked over to the Arts Warehouse with my Rep Partner, Rachel. We got there and spent most of our time working on our trio phrase. We had Ming look over it to see if he had any suggestions on how to make the transitions smoother. We have been working a lot of finding ways to partner one another without creating stress in each other. Ming is such a partnering genius. You give him any challenge and he's got it. He knows exactly how to handle it and what to do. He gives great suggestions without changing your ideas and thoughts about how you want the dance to be portrayed. 

After Repertory, Emma and I got ready form Kyle Abraham's show, which was indeed incredible. The show was called, The Radio Show. Kyle wanted to highlight how the Radio Show was a huge childhood memory and the fact that Pittsburgh got rid of his childhood radio station affected him, along with memories of his Grandfather suffering from Altzheimer's disease as well as a general note on how people listen to tragedies happen over the radio and never really understand the context of the situation. His work is so pungnent. It is first of all filled with exceptional dancers with such beautiful technique, but also with such great performing ability. There was not one moment during the show where I was bored or waiting for it to end. I loved the movement choices Kyle made as well as the audience interaction. Not only did Kyle have a "Pre-Show" where he picked out people in the audience to dance with him briefly, but he also had someone walk around in the audience with a telephone in the middle of the performance and asked fellow audience members questions a radio station would ask. It was a really engaging performance. Even eliminating the audience interaction, I think Kyle has a talent of attracting to the audience that doesn't understand dance as well as to the group fo dance artists who understand and appreciate it more than anyone. 

After we returned, Emma and I were bad and ordered Domino's and watched the Domino's tracker the entire time. It was crazy. We had a Parot/island theme, hahha. 

Anyways, that was all for today. Deucessss

Day 14: Daily Practices

Today was a pretty standard day. Nothing too exciting happened today. I woke up, went to Matteson's class. We started our day the same way we always do...rolling across the floor for a few minutes, then crawling back the other direction, which eventually led into our walking practice. It was nice to get back into routine after a crazy weekend! In the beginning of class Paul was talking a lot about daily practices, and told us his adventures about his silent retreats- which were basically meditation sessions and workshops, where he would literally sit and walk all day long and then go to sleep. I can't imagine doing that for seven days straight without anything else! I bet you really learn how to clear your mind and focus in on certain details. 


I have been thinking a lot about daily practice and daily routines, and what I would consider to be daily routines worth adding to my day. I already don't like having the same schedule or routine in life, because I think that it's fun to mix things up, however some consistency in my day might not hurt? A lot of people do things such as yoga, meditation, a walk, a trip to the gym, etc...and as a dancer this might be something I should consider, considering I need to keep my mind, body, and soul healthy for when I get out there in the real world and all sense of consistency will have escaped from my life. 


We also worked on our combination from across the floor. I was apparently tensing up my jaw which seemed to have an effect on the mobilization of my pelvis, according to Paul..you know he might have a good point. I think also that because of the way I have been feeling all weekend my daily mood and personal life, really have an effect on the way I act throughout my day.. 


African was good to get back into. We had felt like we didn't know what we were doing anymore because we had the whole weekend without African, so getting back into the steps felt sort of like a foreign language to us...but we made it through it. 


and Repertory was the usual except now we are located in the Arts Warehouse- which really sucks...we worked on our solos and then Ming gave us an assignment to put a trio together with Raphael and Rachel. He gave us instructions to manipulate my movements as I individually perform my solo. We made a lot of good choices, it was frustrating at first to figure out..but we even got some intense partnering moves in! I think we just need to go over it a lot. I am really excited for the showing!


Anyways, it was a good first day back after a long weekend- looking forward to what the rest of the week brings!