Cabaret, Soccer and Friday!!

Our first Cabaret on Thursday night:

Bob, William, Meredith, and Caroline before Cabaret started.

Katie getting ready for her song.

Ben Sota as Professor Fluff "A" Nutter.

Juggling and balancing!!

Katie singing and playing 'I'm in Love With Your Ghost' by the Indigo Girls. One of my faves!!

Scott playing his pop song.

On Saturday we played Soccer:

Tristan, Brian, Ilse, and Kevin are getting ready for the big game.

Meredith and Caroline look ready to go!!Bob's war wound.

The Aftergame.

Taylor messing with me as per usual.

Jenna's war wound caused by Caroline's shoe.

Walking back from the PAM.

Brian walking his basket up the hill.

Kevin, Caroline, Meredith, Brian, and me taking a break after the hill.

We had a bit of an emergency with one of our MFA students on Thursday night, so Voice class was only one hour on Friday. We warmed up on our own doing stretches and movements Kevin has taught us. We were able to begin with vocal work in a group. Starting with the circular slide on a hum. Next we sang RO RO RO on a descending minor triad pointing from low to middle to high on the wall. Then Louise did some solo work and Kevin had her imagine running to catch the bus in Pescaiola. If she missed it she is screwed and has to walk the whole way to school. Fantastic!! Then we all did that together. Next we worked through Vee Vee Vee O going from the image of an opera singer to a muscle man. This works well between your legato and staccato.

In movement we did an interesting thing where we walked around the room, first remembering what we have been doing (going towards the prep into a handstand). Then we stopped, jumped together, stopped and started walking together. Each time we started walking again the tempo would speed up. At the end we were at a dead run. This is a great group exercise to work on listening to each other no matter how crazy the tempo can become. We went through some more Yoga exercises. I was very frustrated with the Yoga on Friday because I was feeling quite tired and couldn't really find my balance points. I'm sure these times will come and go frequently. Next we worked on rolling backwards then reversing it frontwards. This is not as easy as it sounds trust me.

We then started working on the dreaded headstands. Dreaded is the word I use because I was always afraid that if I did a headstand my neck would break or crush under the pressure. This of course is an unfounded fear that I no longer have thanks to help from Claudia and my headstand partner Meredith. I did one today during our Sunday practice!! Yay me!!!! We were shown two different headstand methods: the tripod and the hand cupping method. The tripod I still have not mastered because I'm a little too unstable yet, but the hand cupping I finally figured out. Very nice! We did some Alexander Technique walking (that is what I call it) where your partner puts their two fingers on either side of upmost part of your neck (where it meets the base of the scull) and you walk around, your head floating freely above your neck. Finally we worked with a partner who was your bench and you roll over them from the side always keeping contact with each other's bodies. Next we did this when the partner is in child's pose.