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!