DAI Day 1

I'm attending the Dell'Arte Intensive this summer, and it's super exciting! Annie Feenstra is also attending, and we drove out here together in 2 days. We left Ames Friday around 2:30 pm, stopped in Cheyenne that night, and drove the rest of the way to Blue Lake, CA Saturday. We arrived around 2 am Sunday morning and found the only hotel in Blue Lake sold out because of a wedding, so we drove to Arcata and found a hotel there. We bought some groceries and checked in to our housing early Sunday. I met Mark, another student at the intensive, at the Logger Bar, Blue Lake's bar, and invited him back to my place for goulash and some card games with my roommate, Winton from Hong Kong, and me.

Orientation started this morning at 9:30, so Annie and I headed over to the main building early and who should we meet but Nicholette and Matt! We also signed up to usher at a few of the shows at the Blue Lake Arts Festival which is running concurrently with the Intensive. We met the rest of our classmates, got a tour of the Dell'Arte buildings, and started class at the River Campus building
Today's classes were led by Ronlin Foreman, the school director. This week is all about waking up, so he talked about space, masks, existing, metaphysics, metaphors, and existentialism. You know, basic first day theatre stuff. In the morning, we worked on walking about the space and finding the horizon with our eyes and the spaces between people where we can walk. We then worked on falling forward in such a way that we caught ourselves at the last possible moment then ran forward to "rise again." After lunch at Stardough's, the town's only café with some other students, we returned to the River Campus for more class. We did floor work similar to what we do in Actor's Voice then moved around the space like mice, rabbits, octopi, and flecks of down. We then worked on falling some more and then jumping across the room from a very disengaged position to an intensely present one. We were assigned our first week's group project to create a 2:30 minute soundscape of an event using our voices. I met with my group at the Logger Bar to listen to a game of pool. We plan to meet later in the week to discuss other options and rehearse.

That's all for now. Please comment with any and all thoughts and questions. I' sorry if the format is strange-- I' typing this on my phone since we don't have WiFi at the Rousseau where I'm staying. Also check Facebook for pictures!

All the best,
B. Brockshus