Movin' and Shakin' those Ventrals and Dorsals

            Here we are at the end of the semester. Freshman year, take 2 is over! And what an amazing whirlwind of a year. I've grown so much as a performer. I still have SO much to work on, but I've made decent progress this year I think haha. But the best thing is that now when I'm struggling with stuff or having a block, I now have tools that will help me figure out and fix things. Which I haven't had before! Before, if something wasn't working, I didn't know how to fix it, but now I have tools that can help me figure the things out! It's awesome :)     My understanding of my body and how I can use it has dramatically changed this semester. Before this class, I never used, or actively thought of using, my body before. I'm definitely a mental and mouth actor. Meaning, a lot of my acting is very cerebral and stays very much in my head with a lot of my emoting coming from my mouth. I haven't fully inhabited my body before and told a story sp...

            Lip syncs!!!      Ok, but the lip syncs in class were SO FUN. Like, what a fun party, it was honestly the perfect way to end a semester of classes. I am a big fan. But yeah, everyone's lip syncs were so so good. The lip syncs and the song choices fit everyone's clowns so perfectly and the work that everyone did really reflected their clowns. It was a joy to watch.      I had a lot of fun prepping for this lip sync. I've known what song I was going to use for the lip sync for a while, so I've been mulling on what to do for the lip sync for a while. I knew pretty early on that I wanted what I was doing to be an active situation, not just a lip sync in the style of a concert lip sync or something like that. I wanted there to be a story of some sort? Or at least something that my character was trying to get. I had the idea of a sort of interrogation/intimidation pretty early on. I had the image of a dark basement a...

    Lately,  I've been thinking a lot about the difference between 'dance' and 'movement'. Because there definitely is a difference, I've realized.            Previously, 'movement' and 'dance' were one in the same. If we're discussing these words in terms of theatre, then both are used in the modicum of telling a story. In my pre-movement-class-brain, I thought they were the same. They're used to tell the story so badda boom badda bing done and done. But that's not true.           While both may help tell and show stories, these words differ in how they express that story. At least, to me, they do. Lemme break it down.     Movement:  The basic building block in telling a story through the use of your body. It can be as subtle as the shifting of an eye, turning your waist, or raising your arm to reach for something. It is the very basics of the motions of our body and how those motions convey ...

            Movement projects! I'll first talk about my process with my own movement project and then I'll write about some thoughts watching my peers and their projects. :)     I already discussed this a bit in my 'practice makes permanent' post, but I struggled with this movement project. I had my idea and I had the piece of music that I wanted to use, but I was struggling to figure out what to do during the music. I had planned on just kind of improv-ing it from the top of the music and see where it landed me. The music is 4 minutes and 9 seconds, and I got done at the 1 minute and 30 second mark.      Oy vey.      I had accomplished all the things I had wanted to, but I had ended FAR too early and the storyline itself was a bit rushed. So. What to do? I initially just tried to add moves in between big events or moments that I wanted/needed in my piece. But that wasn't stretching out the time as much as I need...

         (Warning: this is a bit of a long post, apologies for that. I'm long winded and I just wanted to try to express myself more clearly, but I think I just ended up making things a lot more confusing. Oh well! Anyways, consider yourself warned lol! I wrote a little summary of all the things I wrote about at the end if you wanted to just look at that if you would rather not wade through the slog of words I've just written lol.)     I wanted to talk a bit about the conversation that the class had on Thursday. I thought it was a really interesting and important conversation and I'm glad that we were able to talk about things and have questions put to us to make us think. I just wanted to add 2 more cents to the jamboree and speak a bit more specifically about what you were asking me/the class.      I am a perfectionist. A massive one. I don't know what to attribute my perfectionism to, but I think a large part of it stems fro...

      As promised, here's the short story version of my movement project. It's very much so a first draft, so take that into consideration haha, but yeah! Hope you like it.

    I thought I would just create this little update to show that yes, I am still alive, and kinda show where I'm at in my process with my movement project and all that fun stuff.     So I have decided for sure about the subject of my movement project, as well as the music I will be using. My piece is going to be about the wind and the sun (more details about that to follow) and the piece I will be using is The Enchanted Garden from Ravel's Mother Goose Suite.     I have been having a really hard time mapping out what I'll be doing in the piece, however. I have the idea of this relationship between the sun and the wind that have given me a few ideas, but it's still too vague and I'm finding myself with a lot of dead space as well as rushing transitions before the same transitions happen in the music. So I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how to fix this, and I think I have a solution. I am going to write the story of the sun and the wind like...