Today was insane. How I am typing up this is confusing because I am sooo extremly exhausted and overwhelmed and just flat out ready to crash. Today was the conclusion of the preview weekend schedule as well as auditions for Footprints, MFA projects, and the Repertories.
I woke up today very early for my 8:00AM class in Brodie Gym ( my favorite....) to have classes with Pam Pietro, Mark Haim, and Jesse Zarritt. We started the class with Jesse who taught us a very lucid, floating warmup sequence that was based on the balance between feelings and experiences that your body sees itself doing, as well as what it can already do. Jesse described this as the spectrum of the possible to the impossible and teaching your body to move with that sense of delicacy. Jesse teaches a sort of fusion of Modern dance technique paired with "Gaga" technique, which for those who do not know...No. It's not Lady Gaga technique, but nice try. Taken from Wikipedia: Gaga is a technique developed by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin. The technique strives to establish a flow throughout the body that allows complete fluidity. In his technique, he has a series of words that signify particular ways to initiate movement and the parts of the body involved in initiating and feeling that movement. One example is “Luna.” When he says this, he is referring to the joint between the metacarpals and the proximal phalanges on the palm.
Then we took a class with Pam Pietro who taught a modern combination. It was good, nothing that I can see that stood out to me as being "especially different" or unique, but she sure is a little ball of fire, and I'm sure if there was more time, that I would be able to identify different types of her style. I then had the last part of class with Mark Haim, who is a character in itself. He taught us this phrase that I found pretty enjoyable, with a lot of focus on linear patterns, and traveling through space.
After our final preview classes, I came back to the room to rest before our Repertory auditions.
The first set of Repertory auditions were for Elisa Clark, Ursula Payne, and Paul Matteson.
We started with auditions with Elisa. We learned a phrase from Mark Morris' Repertory. I thought that the combination was a lot of fun. It was very musical and focused a lot on the counts and musicality of the steps. I think that overall I did a good job at nailing the combination. However, I think that my energy was low and that I did not present myself well throughout any of the Repertory auditions, however this first section was a highlight. Then came the Robert Battle Repertory audition with Ursula Payne. Oh my goodness. My arms hurt so bad from the phrase we learned from Primate. I don't know how anyone can perform Battle's work. It always makes me in pain! It was a fun combination though, although I doubt my body can handle this choreography yet. She also made us walk across the floor and pretend to throw up, while vocalizing the "hacking sound". Then was Paul's audition. Which ended up running late. It was a partnering audition. I was with one girl and one guy. We had to sense one another's weight and utilize the weight sharing to make a phrase that we perform as a soloist. It was actually really difficult to make phrase work out of partnering steps. I was impressed by other peoples' interpretations, although I don't think I made the cut for this audition.
The second set of auditions were for Mark Haim, Ming Yang, and Andrea Weber.
At this point of the day, I was SO exhausted from the previous classes and auditions that I had just about had it at this point. The first audition was for Andrea Weber who ran the Cunningham audition. I thought that I did a good job at figuring out the complicated steps and quick footwork, but I really don't think I stood out at all to the panel. I was feeling very dry in these auditions. I think I was just "auditioned-out!" Then we had Ming Yang teach us a phrase for his Repertory that will be shared with Mark Dendy in a few weeks. His combination was full of power and strength and focused on eating up the space and moving efficiently through the body with the pelvis. After doing it a few times, I stopped caring and just started messing around with it. Then the final audition was with Mark Haim who literally made us walk, skip, and shuffle in different walking patterns with a Starbucks cup. He was looking for people to portray character and emotion in a subtle way without just "dumping" it on the audience. It was actually a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.
After auditions I pretty much passed out as soon as I got back from them. Being in Brodie Gym all that time was exhausting and unhealthy for my body- specifically, my bones and joints. I am hoping I get called back for some audition, but if not it will not be the end of the world because at least I can dance.
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