DAY TWELVE

IT IS ALL BEGINNING TO MAKE SENSE! There is a lot to go over for today I don't even know where to begin!

I guess the beginning of the day would be appropriate! Our Daily Practice was BACKBENDS! I got to demonstrate and, of course, I had to fix my technique. But Joe said I had a nice and bendy back...which is a mucho compliment here! I then learned how to do a backbend and kick over. AWESOME! I will tape it for you when I get it more consistently.

Our next class was with Ronlin. We re-re-visited the stick exercise. If you don't remember, in this exercise we had to make a stick live. Ronlin explained it further saying that the the stick represented a play. The play lives when there is a dialogue between the two or three people on stage and the attention and care we gave to the it. When we are only admiring the greatness of the actor, the play is dead. I love everything about that. In today's age, we are so star struck that we aren't watching and appreciating works because of the story or message or work as a whole only because so-and-so is in it. That is when the art dies and it becomes pedestrian.

Ronlin's thought for the day..or one of his many thoughts: Be careful for NOTHING but in all things,
give thanks. 

We then did two more exercises that so much fun. The first one we had two groups of three. One group were the robbers and the other, cops. Ronlin mapped out on the ground a warehouse. In the warehouse, there were paths and stacks that we could climb on. This was all in our imagination. We practiced how to look up a stack and down a stack and what we could realistically see if we were in a warehouse. We could use flashlights. But even with that beam of light, what can we really see/hear? How do we maneuver in a pitch black space without indicating? When do our eyes adjust? What sort of light do we see reflecting and how much? Oh...and we couldn't talk to communicate.  The second was a playground that a group of 12 years olds (us) have snuck into after it had closed. There was a sandbox, a wading pool, shower and regular pool that can go up to 7 ft deep. We had to show complete joy about successfully sneaking into the park and how the different elements affect our body. How do we walk in sand? How do we REALLY swim in a 7 ft deep pool...even if we are just standing up in a room? And then how does reality hit us when the groundskeeper comes to bust us for sneaking in...for the THIRD TIME? ...all the while being silent. We can't be literal, (we were told), we have to be more than literal. Vitality lives through us.

Words are not needed. Even the best play with words has to have physical action and interactions rather than just words. A play is just words on paper. It is dead. It comes alive when active actors EMBODY. THIS IS THEATRE.

In the afternoon, we each presented our group project to the class/faculty/other students in the PTP and MFA program at Dell'Arte. I couldn't tape our actual performance but i did get our final rehearsal.

There are people walking in the background that were also rehearsing and maybe talking as well. ALSO since it is a theatre piece and not a film piece, we may go out of frame. But alas! The project was A Place, An Event. That was about all the instruction we were given....other than no language.

HERE IS OURS!

Ronlin and the rest of the professors were in full swing with their philosophy of Via Negativa. But, I rally appreciate it. I am learning so much more than if everything we did was 'good'. It is hard at times, but i know it will be totally worth it in the end.

The second show in the Mad River Festival was: A Suicide Note from a Cockroach. This note was in the program as well as on Dell'Arte's website:


Dell’Arte International and Pelú Theatre presents

Pedro, a cockroach from the low-income housing projects in NYC, is about to commit suicide. He has been married seven times, and each of his wives has been killed! He lost his best friend, he lost his job… he has nothing and he hates the world! This is his story, a story of a poor Latino that went from human to a suicidal cockroach...

This debut production of Pelú Theatre presents a circus theatre spectacle exploring the themes of exile and the birth of a new subculture in America, putting a comic twist to the existential dilemma of being an immigrant in the U.S. The show is based on the poem A Suicide Note from a Cockroach in a low-income housing project written by Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri. In it, the company uses circus as its vocabulary for telling stories: aerialists, tumblers, acrobats, musicians and, of course, clowns form an ensemble of cockroaches trying to live a decent life -- but with one antagonist, a human!

It started off with fabulous movement. The actors moved and sounded like cockroaches. They crawled all throughout the audience and onto the stage. One even crawled on me! Talk about breaking the fourth wall. The acrobatics were awesome. The characters flipped and spun climbed and did all sorts of fun stuff. The story seemed to focus on the 7 crazy wives and how each was killed off. They were all over the top characters. I later figured out that they were supposed to represent the 7 deadly sins. It all made more sense. All in all it was an amazing concept. The expendibility of human life, how immigrants are viewed in America, and 'the man' (who was actually played by a woman in a top hat, coat and walked on stilts) were strong points in the piece. Things seemed a little chaotic, rushed and forced at times. But I learned that they are used to doing this in a bigger space and arrived on monday, so they hadn't had much time to rehearse. The chaotic nature of it seemed fitting though. It matched the chaotic life of a cockroach. I feel like with a director and some polishing this good piece of theatre could be AMAZING. I am so proud an honored to be a part of the theatre world. I am thirsty to do more!

Here are some photos! (I found them on the Dell'Arte website)

GROUP SHOT!

DAY ELEVEN

YAY FOR MORE MASKS!!! aaaaaand HANDSTANDS!

I don't have a picture of my handstand yet. I did one good one today. I am practicing, though. When I have a good one I promise to show you!

BUT NOW ONTO MASKS! AAAAAH!

HERE THEY ARE!

But I am getting ahead of myself. We began with gestures. Stephanie prompted us. We were to do a gesture and hold it as if we were on a postcard. The prompts were: hi, oh joy, i'm frightened, but i have courage, i love you, what?!, i beg you, oh god, go away, (repeat). We repeated these about 10 or so times. Afterwards, a couple groups went up and did them in front of the class...then with masks. SO AMAZING. The more specific and held the positions were the more effective the masks became. We were told to allow ourselves to be the mask and not force our own agenda upon the mask. 

In many instances, in theatre being presentational is bad. But here, we are told that being presentational is being present for the audience. We are to treat the audience as another actor having an equal part in the story. It is a really cool, new way to look at the word 'presentational'.

Our next exercise was a bit silly. We had a partner. We began by throwing and receiving energy from them. We then evolved that into throwing and receiving focus from our partner. Once we received the focus, we were to take it then have a take to the audience and say our name, then throw the focus back to our partner. We then threw 'insults' with reaction take to the audience. These were funny. My partner and I said stuff like: perky ponytail, smart, pretty, and pink hairthing as insults. We then threw gestures with a reaction take to the audience. My partner and I got to present ours to the class and got a lot of laughs! (score!) (that was my reaction take to you!)

When putting on our masks, we were told to close our eyes when putting on the mask, when we opened our eyes, we were to see through the eyes of the mask. We worked with larval masks (precursors to character masks). I love the innocence of them. They live in the present. It is hard to imagine a past or future for these masks. The naivety of them is awesome! LOVE LOVE LOVE! 

LARVAL MASK EXPLORATION

(this is from a former class at Dell'Arte)

We then explored character masks. Everyone in the class had a different character mask. We walked around the space and explored the different relationships we could have with other masks. The first mask I had was blueish in color and had an expression of sadness. The second (my favorite) was of an older man with a very large nose. He was quirky and loved to dance. We all got to present our chosen mask to the audience. We had to have an entrance with a clear moment once on stage, an interaction with the mask entering to take it's spot and an exit. SUCH AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE. I know I will be able to translate this work into other avenues of theatre. It helps us to become more specific with our movements and how to subtleties are just as, if not more, effective than big large gestures. They also help teach you how to take your time. If you rush through a moment with a mask, it either goes dead or the audience loses the action. Masks are so amazing and POWERFUL. They show human emotion in a pure way. Everyday we hide our emotions or thoughts with our own masks. But a mask can't hide it's emotion. And if we do our job as actors, we will embody these masks and allow them to live and breathe and tell their story. 

Here is my Larval Mask y'all!

DAY TEN

Today we began with stretches. Joe told us that stretching is a result of breath and form. I love the way the instructors turn my normal way of thinking about something and flip it upside down. It empowers the action rather than forcing it. He also went through our entire body pointing out the primary and secondary curves along our body.  You can see how there are curves that are concave and convex. For every convex curve, there is a concave one.  PRETTY AWESOME HUH? Here is a picture you can reference. Or you can see it on yourself!

We also went through the 8 Labon Efforts with Joan. As we were instructed through the different efforts we would demonstrate them with our whole body. We then did them again with isolated parts of our body keeping in mind what character would use that motion. The eight efforts go as such: wring, press, glide, float, flick, dab, punch, slash.



We then began our work in characterization, mask work, primarily. We did a mini project that involved creating creatures with body bags ALA mummenschanz. When we can create such wonderful pieces with our bodies such as this, I don't know why we would want to do anything else. I am totally re inspired. And after a rough day yesterday, it couldn't have come at a better time. 

Tips for the mask:
To see clearly.
To inhabit the entire body.
Have specific attitudes.
Work with what's inside of me.

AWESOME STUFF TODAY!

our bag creature

our creature moves

I. WANT. TO. DO. THIS.

oh wait. I KINDOF AM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiej--45oI8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAa_GvLnQik&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eazq_8jCOg&feature=related

"We live among the generation of the distracted. As artists, it is our job to bring people back to focus" -Joan's thought of the day

DAY NINE

 Believe. Behave. Behold. Become.

This phrase was repeated several times to us today. It has become the mantra of the week. And let's talk about getting back into the groove of things! We 'eased' our way back into things with an hour and a half cardio workout....or so it seemed. We were reminded that we weren't working out, we were just playing a different game. It was hard nonetheless. Now those who have taken Steve's movement class...or any acting class know polar bear, panther crawls and high skips. I thought the ten minutes we spent doing those was difficult. An hour of it makes it seem like nothing. We began the class walking. Joe, our professor (the one who threw the cookout for us) would prompt us to notice various parts of our body as we were walking. He would also have us move our heads around (up, down, up-left, down-right, down-left, up-right) and notice how the weight of our head affected our speed and/or made us spin around. As we walked around the space we walked with our eyes up and forward, as we made eye contact with someone,  our gaze would make us turn around as if we didn't want to break the stare.  We then had to find a point of the floor...and go to it. We ended up crawling in what is called 'polar bear' (same hand and foot moving), then moved to a crawl (hands and knees), then climb or panther (toes and hands as if we were climbing up a wall), then as swift as possible up to a skip, then a run, back down to polar bear. Whoever said being an actress or actor was easy CLEARLY never studied here. Joe kept shouting at us to HAVE FUN, FIND THE GAME! He also told us to not show that we were tired or out of breath, only that we were doing the movements and that we were not out of breath or tired, but INSPIRED. LOVE IT!

DAILY WORDS OF WISDOM FROM RONLIN: There is a point where you don't need language to tell a story and have meaning. It is our job as poets in the theatre to know when it is necessary to have language and when it is superfluous. 

Today was quite frustrating for me. We did a series of exercises that i didn't quite understand. Maybe (hopefully)  someday the meaning will hit me. I just have to keep reminding myself of a song that Hope Grandon showed to me whenever I was feeling down about my abilities or self worth. Here it is for all of you to enjoy and listen to when you feel bad. In the words of Steve Snyder YOU ARE ENOUGH

Our first exercise with Ronlin was to BECOME the music. Not interpret the music. Not respond to the music. We were to BE the music, to serve the music. As Grahm (the founder of modern dance) we needed to 'pull the tooth of music'. Here is one of the songs we worked to. We did about three of these exercises.

Mozart - Requiem in D Minor, KV 626 - 1. Introitus - Requiem Aeternam  

One of the basic lessons we had to learn was that, like language, our arms and legs are frivolous. Everything must come from the core. Acting comes from the torso. Ronlin said that we must always ride on catastrophe. We need to wake up our eye, because it reflects the soul. We need to respond to what we see and what we are called to do. In the contemporary age, he said, we are trained not to see because we must always act. So, we end up representing what we see. Our gaze becomes an ironic gaze because there is a detachment from what we see to what we SEE. 

Characterization, as explained, is not what we understand the character to be, but how to find that character IN us. This is how we can engage something that isn't us, by finding that seed within.  It is when theatre becomes conventional it becomes less epidemic...less able to excite/infect the audience. It is important to let the audience infer meaning. Everything means something. Sometimes, when we get too caught up in language or what things MEAN rather than feeling them and portraying them through our body, we force the audience to understand the opposite of what we are telling them. 

Our hands don't express, they contain and offer. 

One exercise was about how to make a stick come to life. We were given a wooden rod and had to make it come to life. Not pantomime, not project our own views on it, not manipulate it, but make it come to life. This is one exercise I DID NOT UNDERSTAND AT ALL. Most of us in the class were having a hard time. In mid instruction, Ronlin went up to one of my classmates (the tallest) and started climbing on him, going around his back, around his torso...and the student had to help. I am still trying to figure it out. So, if you have any insight i would be happy to hear it!

We then studied elements. We had to become water, fire and air. We started on the floor and had to work from the minimum to the maximum back to minimum (complete stillness). We also baked about 7 cakes to a variety of different music (one being the pink panther) again, not interpreting the music, or commenting on it, but BECOMING IT AND SERVING IT.

Ronlin told me that i need to FIND WHAT MOVES ME. That is my goal.

 

DAY EIGHT

 

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! I AM EXTREMELY BURNT!  I spent a couple hours chopping some wood as Steve would say. I laid out by the river reading Ragtime. I love how I now look like a raccoon because of my sunglasses tan ahahah. While i was reading, a dog kept coming up to me. She belonged to a woman not too far from where I was sitting. She would sniff my face,  lick my face, and then eventually sit next to me and lean on me. Maybe she knew I was missing my dog and wanted to make me feel better? That is one thing that amazes me about this place, the number of friendly wandering animals there are. Just the other day, we had two cats and a Chihuahua hanging out by our front door and later a big fluffy white dog came up to say hi. None of them are aggressive. They just want to be acknowledged, maybe get a bite to eat, and then they are on their merry way!

Later that night, one of the professors threw a big cookout for everyone. They say once you go to Dell'Arte you are part of the La Familiga. That is so true! The cookout felt like one big family get together. The professors (their families and children) were there, Dell'Arte Master's students and PTP students, and us. It is so great how there are absolutely no egos here. The older students have been coming up to us to talk about our experience and get to know us, as well as the professors. It is such an inviting atmosphere. 

 Aaron and I!

 The boys were were taken down by some crazy 10 yr old girls! hahaha

 Oh hey! It is Drew!

 Dog!

 Of course the night wouldn't be complete without a massage circle!

 awwwww!

 Time for some sparklers!

Beatles and folk song sing-a-long!

Afterwards our Intensive group went down to the river to shoot off fireworks! Blue Lake doesn't have their own show, BUT it is legal to shoot them off here. Our were puny compared to the other peoples. One group shot some legitimate fireworks off the top of the bridge which was right above us. We had our own show! After every single one, we would cheer. It was too much fun and so funny. 

I hope you all had a wonderful fourth of July! I miss you all!

DAY SEVEN

For those wondering....HERE IS MY ADDRESS!

attn: Natalie Patrnchak
c/o Dell'Arte School
P.O. Box 128, Blue Lake CA 95525

NOW ONTO TODAY!

What do you get when you put a bunch of theatre kids together in a small town with one casino? KARAOKE NIGHT! It turns out that tonight was competition night! As a group we sang Total Eclipse of the Heart (guess who suggested that one). OH MY GOODNESS it was too much fun. We hadn't signed up ahead of time so we weren't in the contest, but one woman came up to a girl in our group saying it wasn't fair for us to be there because we are performers. I kindof took that as a compliment.

Here is our version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. If you turn your head to the left, it is right side up! ALSO: we probably didn't need the microphone. We were so dang loud, so...i advise NOT blasting this.

ENJOY!

Every time someone from our group would sing, there was a man who would come up and dance his little heart out right in the front. This video doesn't even begin to capture it.  It was brilliant.

THROW BACK TO DRAG SHOW REHEARSAL! whaa whaat!

DAY SIX

DAY OFF! So, I can wear jeans and jewelry! Today we explored a neighboring town, Arcata. Every Saturday they have a farmers market in the town square. After an extremely motion sick car ride, we arrived! Here are some pictures from our adventure. 

They have a woman who sells her poems. You tell her the subject and pay her what you want. This reminds me of the Showers that we do in acting class. She has to constantly create works, what an awesome writing exercise!...plus she gets some cash, and an occasional rock on the side! My subject was: Living in the Moment. Here is the link to her website: Poem Store

Afterwards we checked out the local thrift stores, vintage stores and yarn stores (I broke down and bought some yarn). The house I am staying in is similar to Arcadia. It has been in the Dell'Arte family for a while and rolls over from one group to the next. It is a lot cleaner, but has random things past groups have left behind. Since we are a group of 10 girls, we figured this would be the best addition. 

She is currently looking out of our window at all the local boys who have been ruthlessly flirting/following us around. Maybe she will scare them away!

Tonight I saw Dell'Arte's production of Mary Jane: The Musical. WELCOME TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY! ...or the Emerald City. This is one of the shows in the Mad River Festival Dell'Arte puts on every year. For those of you who don't know, Humboldt County is known for their premium weed. 

From the excerpt in the program: Humboldt County's name has long been synonymous with the production of high-quality cannabis. Humboldt's perfect climate lends itself to the healthy growing and harvesting of some of the best cannabis ever cultivated. Humboldt Growers

The production and sale of marijuana is what has kept this county alive. The musical was quite amazing. They commissioned a dozen local songwriters to write the songs. It was staged more like a cabaret. Joan, my professor, was Queen Mary Jane. Throughout the course of the musical, they talked about local issues and alluded to things within the community that I, an outsider, didn't understand. The first act comprised of songs that we all know are about weed and original songs that made us laugh and commented on life in Humboldt County. The second act talked about the reality of the business, like just how much the people here finically rely on the growing and selling of weed, raising children while being a grower and what the children see as a 'normal' lifestyle (To Me this is a Phase, to Them it is Life), the weed living in the houses and the people being homeless, and what would happen  if weed became legal. 

We sat in their outdoor amphitheater on blankets. As the sun went down it got quite chilly. It was PERFECT though. Mary Jane: the Musical is perfect. It is perfect because it is theatre for the people by the people. The actors were just the vessel to holding up a mirror to the life around them. What was perhaps just as entertaining as the show was the reactions to what was going on on stage. I didn't get a lot of the references, but everyone else sure did; they would laugh or comment or whisper a personal story to their neighbor. At one point they had a helicopter sound effect. The two  women behind me exclaimed: I was waiting for that! I'm so glad they put that in there! 

Now, I have been here a week and not once have heard a helicopter fly over this town, but there was a genuine response to it, so it has SOME meaning. I loved every minute of the show. It reminded me of why we do theatre and the reason it exists. It was created to inform and instruct. To imitate life. People weren't going to the show because it is a BIG NAME MUSICAL. They were going because they saw themselves in the show. This is amazing! This is what I love about theatre and I am honored to receive  training here, so I  can go out and serve an audience and community in the same way.