Alright, let me introduce you to what the schedule was like for the first week. Our class schedule will change from week to week. But, everyday we need to be ready to work in the studio by 8:45. Not too early! We had classes until 12:30. That was our lunch break and it lasted until 1:45. After lunch we work from 2-5:15. We are technically done for the day, but we spend 2-3 hours rehearsing each night after supper, which we schedule ourselves. Classes include: Daily Practice, Acro Lab, Vocal Ensemble, A Study with Ronlin (which fills the 2-5:15 time block), Instinct for Play, Poetic Voice, and a Performance Lab on Fridays.
Each week, we have an assigned group task that will be shown to faculty, friends, family, and Blue Lake residents on Fridays. Our rehearsals at night are for these tasks. I remember thinking about getting a job while doing this program...HAHA, yeah...right.
For the first ten weeks, we are strictly working with understanding our body, how it works, and how to separate the mind from the body. One of our trainers, Joe, spoke about how we need to train our body like a horse. Being aware at all times on how each muscle is feeling, where the tender spots are, and how important it is to keep it nourished and healthy. That is our responsibility, not his. He only has an outward perspective. Joe leads Daily Practice on M/W/F and leads my section of Acro Lab. He is trained in the Alexander Technique and is extremely knowledgeable about the body, it's structure/physical make-up, and how it was constructed to move.
The first week was focused a lot on what is practiced here at Dell Arte. It is clear that this is not a school for clown, not just for commedia, but a school for actor-poets. This place is about personal journey and growth. We were encouraged to take our expectations for the year and throw them out. Burn them, because if you hold onto them you will be disappointed. Here is a place where you need to take each moment one at a time. Where we must fight not to clench our fists to understanding, but fight to keep our hands open and to receive. Do not be concerned about understanding and making sense of things or worried about grasping what we do from day to day. Leave it all in the space, do not take it home. Here we learn about community. We have to believe that what we do, day to day, matters in this world. That what I do in my community effects the world at large and can make things better.
A lot of what was just talked about comes from Ronlin. He is our teacher who works with us T/TH in Daily Practice and works our 3 hr sessions. The sessions this past week were about: awareness, availability, and responsiveness. What I have noticed about him is that when he shakes your hand, he looks straight into your eyes and sees you. He is very good at seeing the physical tendencies of a person and where they need to grow. He is also terrible with names. The first day he called me Francis. Two things that have stuck with me is the idea that harmony can only exist with contrast. People today don't' know how to be themselves in a community. Yes, blending is fine, but great things happen out of contrast of two parties. In that opposition, magic happens. Another thought is that in order to grow here, you need to abandon everything you know about theater. Here you need to let go and live in the un-known. In that fear, because only there will you learn anything. Only there will you truly find the deep water we are searching for. There is where you will fully lose yourself and in doing so, find something much greater.
James has been leading Instinct for Play. James has a way of turning any game into a life lesson. Such as Tag. Never ever give up. Fight like hell. Because, what we love to see as spectators or an audience, is the rise. The beauty lies in a persons ability to rise when they fall. So for tag, we raised the personal stakes. Each person engaged their imagination into the image of a loved one being in a air-tight tank. And if they were tagged or "it", the count down started from 5 releasing poisonous gas into the tank. The urgency by the players was incredible to watch. Strive to make the kind of theater that makes an audience engage, sit on the edge of their seats, and move them...which is exactly how we felt watching. We could see the fear and the fight to save a loved one.
The task for the week was to create a new game and that was what we were to present on Friday. We divided into groups and got to work. Our game was based on a game played by little ones called Seaweed. I won't go into the rules and explaining the game, but rather what I learned. I learned that, like playing a game, actors need to go onstage and fight like hell. Losing the idea that "people are watching me" and truly fight for your objective. That fight infects us as the audience and moves us. The type of theater I would love to create would have the audience on their feet cheering for one side or the other. Now I'm not talking about applause after the show, but a type of theater that moves an audience so that they can not help but cheer and holler and yell at the players!
This is my goal, to strive to make this kind of theater. One that is exciting and alive.
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