It is the second day and man am I sore (thanks Claudia, haha)! Because of the soreness Kevin's class was a dream. We started with partner work. One person stands face first against the wall, hands flat parallel on the wall securing your position, knees bent. Their partner begins pounding up and down their back with their fists. The person against the wall starts with a hum and eventually lets out a sound. Next the partner puts their thumbs on either side of the sacrum and massaging in an outward motion, the image of pulling the sacrum apart. Then the partner applies pressure through the thumbs giving energy to the sacrum and finally pounds their fists on the sacrum. All the time the person against the walll is letting out a sound that feels connected to that area. Next the person against the wall walks to the center of the floor and bends over with their knees bent and hands supporting their torso placed on their thighs. The partner rubs ferociously along the back while the bent person pushes their hand against their thighs in order to lift themselves toward the rubbing hands. Next the partner cups their hands and slaps up and down. The point being that you free the torso by using the strength of your base. The bent person lets out a series of yawns and sounds while this is going on. Finally in threes, one person bent over, the other two on either side, cup slap up three times... on the third time the bent person rolls up. Next we sweep down their body ending at the feet where we pay special attention to pressing the feet into the ground, strengthening the base. Then from the front and back we clean the cobwebs. The bent person is using an outward breath 's' sound until the cleaning of the cobwebs during which they let out three strong breaths. The great thing about these exercises is that they are like having a massage in a way. Really helping you to strengthen your base and opening, freeing your torso, neck, and jaw.
We did some more pelvic clock work, this time on the ground using your feet to push against the wall, pushing the pelvis to tilt as you breathe out. First with an 's' then with sound. We worked with the jaw a bit today, feeling the difference between opening from above and from below. These are great exercises for me because I hold my jaw a lot and this teaches me how to let go by allowing space in my resonances and mouth. We moved from this to pressing on the wall, starting with a small sound and allowing the sound to grow as we press harder into the wall. Then we did this in partners using each other as counterweight and then as a group. After all of this we learned a new song, Chant African (an African Lullabye).
Today we also had Acting class with Marcello Bartoli. We started by introducing ourselves and Marcello introduced the course. Then in a group, someone would create an object (imaginary obviously) and then pass it to another person in the circle. They would take the object (only if they knew what it was, otherwise it was given back to the person and had to be re-created in a clearer way) and then create another object respecting the integrity of the previous object. Then we see a cross in front of us and in 12 seperate steps we place our hands on the horizontal plane and move it vertically. Alot harder than it sounds. We worked on this in four different sizes: regular, grande, piccolo, and toothpick size. Then we did a precision technique we like to call '14 Step Pick Up Stick'. This one is quite hard to explain however all of these exercises work on the precision and simplicity of movement.
Tonight we had our first film presentation night. This particular night Claudia chose to show us films of her circus shows and the work of her colleagues. It was all pretty amazing and gave us an idea of what kind of performances you find in European Festivals.
All in all it was a full day. We all started towards school between 7:30 and 8:00 am and now it is 11:00 pm so it is time for bed. Much love to you all!!
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