First day of class today... wow it is so great to be a student again. Of course, it is also strange because I am still a staff member as well. I work right now during the Italian class since I don't need to take Italian and then sometimes in the afternoons when we don't have class.
All of us who are not in Italian at 9 am started the day in Voice class with Kevin Crawford. After a bit of stretching and warm-up, we floated out sacrum from leg to leg like a hour glass letting the sand fill up one leg and then floating across letting the sand fill up the other leg. This is a difficult exercise but it does open up the bottom of your torso giving a lot of depth to your breath and resonance. Through this we start to find a sound which flows together through the rest of the exercises. We continue with vibrations from our heels like an earthquake under our feet and letting the sound come through that into a fluttering sound freeing the muscles of the face into a limp face shake then to motorboat. This all sounds very complicated but it warms up the voice and resonators quite nicely.
We then find the bottom of our sternum and lead out until until we almost lose the balance then back until we are almost off balance. This whole time one leg is forward and one is back. It is interesting to find the sound through this movement. The image we have is of a snail coming out of his shell, then his attenas feel something and sink back in. Next we moved to the tilting of the sacrum. This was harder for me. I kept leading backwards with my left shoulder instead of my sacrum and it seemed the breathing was hard to find in these positions. This is challenge I knew I would have because I haven't been singing or doing much theatre. I refuse to get frustrated because I know it will come back.
Next we did some group work walking around to people and fluttering our voices (this started with Bob solo). This was a really fun exercise and though it may have seemed frivolous in a way, it really brought an awareness to the rest of our bodies and to the group as a whole after our individual work. Soon we found our way to the floor under Kevin's direction and pressed points of our body into the floor letting out an 'S' sound then letting the air come back in and finding a sound during the next press. This was relaxing in a way and brought a true awareness to all of the points touching the floor and how those points resonate and how the breath comes in and out naturally. After this we moved into a circle and began singing 'Spirit of the Wind' in unison. This lead to a jam singing in rounds, making percussion instruments out of our bodies and anything else we could find, then dancing together all while singing. That was my favorite part of class because your allowing anything to come out... it is beautiful.
I had never been to class with Claudia before but she teaches the movement course. We started with 'Name Domino' (one of my colleagues came up with that title and we all loved it) where we stand in a circle, you say your name while doing a movement and then it passes around the circle until it comes back to you. This moved into starting with a small movement and watching it go around the circle getting bigger and bigger each time and visa versa. Then we all showed a way we would get on the ground and shared that around the circle.
Now we are walking around the space. Claudia asks us to put the weight into our hands on the ground then continue to walk. These exercises get harder and harder for me to understand. Next we slip our leg through and roll on our butts then get up... then on our backs... now without using our hands... now using our hands as a counterweight... now hugging ourselves... all the time walking in between. Hugging myself was the hardest for me. It made me feel stuck and I was a little frustrated with getting up.
After this we stopped and had a little Yoga segment. Claudia is a fantastic Yoga technician and it was a nice switch before going into partner work. With our partners we did several back to back exercises. First, finding eachother's backs. Second, move with your partner... no talking - I loved this one because it heightens your physical way of listening to eachother. Third, back friction! Fourth, using the counterweight to sit down and stand up back to back... no hands folks!! That was hard for Courtney and I. We really tried to get up, but it was difficult to find where the counterweight ebbs and flows. Next we did several chassè exercises down the room, first in pairs back to back and then solo. That was fun... I tried to jump as high as possible in the middle. Ben thinks the faces I make when I'm really concentrating are hilarious... that's fun. Finally we did what Ben called 'Kicky Kicky See Saw'. In this exercise you stand back to back with your partner and link arms. One person scoops their butt down and back lifting the other person on to their back. The other person lays back and kicks up their legs one at a time, but fast. Then you do it back and forth like a see saw. I thought this was amazing. It was much easier to do once you got in a rhythm. Meredith, Courtney, and I were a perfect team and really rocked it out.
So far so good. Not all my blog posts will be this long because a lot of exercises will repeat. However, this is my subjective journal for my classes so not only am I sharing all of this with you all in the blogosphere but I'm also using it as my daily assigment. I hope you all enjoy keeping up with the latest in the MFA program at the ADA. Much love to you all!!
P.S. The weather is gorgeous here now!! It is Fall!!!!
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