Solstice

It's been a long time coming, but as of about 11:20 last night, my final paper is complete, I am home safe and sound in my little podunk hometown, and my first semester at NYU is officially complete.
Just kidding, I'm actually so happy not to be freaking out or feeling overworked. A few weeks of family, floofy little kitties, Christmas spirit, and then I'll be going back to New York so I don't get an overdose of all this goodness and want to strangle everyone. :)

Now that the madness of the past fortnight or so is over, I promised my readers updates on a lot of things. I'm not going to overload you all with everything at once, so they will be in separate updates, but they will happen. Here's what I promised:

Nora York
Finals (general thoughts on classes)
Finding My Art
Staying fit over break
What's up for next semester.

And right now I'm exceptionally concerned about the fourth topic, "Staying Fit Over Break." Now that I don't have yoga twice a week and dance three times a week, I'm worried that my little body is going to fall terribly out of shape and I'm going to nearly die of shock when second semester kicks in again and I have to get back into my routine. Next semester I'm still with Byron for his Broadway Styles class and Contemporary, and we're supposed to continue ballet, though I'm not sure where that stands since Francesca just had her first baby. I'm also picking up a class in Eskrima where yoga used to be. Click it if you're curious.

What my initial intentions are, for this break, are to do some kind of yoga and stretch every day, or very nearly every day, and Byron's physical work-out/warm-up at least twice a week, just to keep my stamina up. Hopefully I can overcome whatever mental block I will have created (but the couch is so comfy...) and keep myself working and physically in the place I need to be.

Maybe that will go in Diary of a Fancer - maybe I'll write about some of my experiences in dance classes there as well. Regardless, I have a lot of physical work to keep up on over break.


If I don't write by tomorrow, Happy Winter Solstice to all! December 21st is the official Solstice this year. Celebrate this wonderful season and all the love you have in your lives. I've certainly got more than I can even imagine.

Tastes of Reality

Some Tommy, to spread the joy of the day.

"I'm free - I'm free,
And freedom tastes of reality!"

Practical finals are over, classes are complete, and I have two more papers to write and then I can put Fall 2010 behind me.

Once I am home, there will be updates. Promise. But for now I am still in the throes of NYC with much to do before I can really relax.

Going to see Black Swan with my little monster, Michelle, today. Maybe I'll learn how to dance by watching psychotic obsessive ballerinas do it. If Natalie Portman can pique turn and pirouette like a prima ballerina in six months, I can do it too.

"Crawling on the planet's face..."

I feel like Brad and Janet at the end of Rocky Horror. Take that how you will.
(Working till 4 am and then waking up at 9 is a cruel joke.)

Interesting artistic musing of the week.

"Art can be so... passive aggressive."

Happenstance

So I'm totally procrastinating, but I had to give this a shout out...

Headshot glory!

Click it.


Muchas amour pour ma chica, Karen. Yeah, that was Spanrench.

Pause

Due to insane amounts of end of semester work, I probably won't be able to update anything (even though I've been promising updates since forever) until the semester is over. When I am on winter break, you will, and I promise, you will get updates on:

Nora York
Finals (general thoughts on classes)
Finding My Art
Staying fit over break (maybe Fancer will get a kickstart again...)
What's up for next semester.

See you in a few weeks!

To entertain you, here are some of my teachers, in video form. Give their names a click if you want to see them in their element.

Nora York "What I Want"
Michael McElroy As Collins in RENT
Sutton Foster In The Drowsy Chaperone at the Tony Awards

The Price We Pay

There's so much to say that goes with this one, mostly two major conversations with my voice teacher and my acting teacher, Nora York and Michele Shay, respectively.

But I woke up today and I am beginning to feel who I am. She's there inside, in this Pandora's box. I'm beginning to see my real artist, who I want to be and who I am, and it is beyond inspiring. It's frightening, it's exhilarating, it's going to be one hell of a long road, but it's all here, and the lid on that box is just starting to open.

I woke up today feeling my art living inside of me. And that is step one.

Who's Crazy

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-alice-ripley-20101121,0,4466846.story

One of my idols and inspirations for what I do. Some very powerful insight on character and what it takes to really live them, and how far good actors go for their art.

"Playing Diana feels like I'm walking out into traffic," she says. "You know that the bus is going to hit you, but you just have to step out in front of it anyway."

Ripley spent considerable time studying Diana's internal and external worlds. She initially made intricate collages and diagrams about pills and their side effects, about Diana's range of emotions and even the Goodman family's possible Seattle neighborhood. Reviewing Diana's drugs, for instance, helped her early on to see "where I would need to be at the beginning of the show. What drugs have I been taking ? How has that affected me? What did I do this morning and last night, pill-wise?"

Living the art. I want it. I want to start doing it. I still have to learn how.

Speech

This is my speech homework. I have to use IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet!) and transcribe the consonant sounds, so I'm kind of tired of reading this, at the moment, but I wanted to share it anyway because it's beautiful and I realized again today that even just being two years older than my classmates really makes such a huge difference.

West Wind #2

You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks - when you hear that unmistakable
pounding - when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming - then row, row for your life
toward it.

- Mary Oliver

ART.

Good weekend - got to see the ineffable Jesse, a dear friend of mine and an incredible performer, on Saturday. He stopped into the city and I got to meet some wonderful friends of his and got to see a really neat little movement theatre piece and talk art and theatre and poor life decisions with fellow ARTISTS. I say that with slight sarcasm but mostly it's reverence for the fact that I could find these people and have legitimate conversations with them and bond. Hooray.

Must get the play References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by Jose Rivera.

Hopefully getting an audition time for a final thesis film this coming weekend. It's a stylized therapy session. I'm down with that. Hooray audition.

Lots of plays to read - just got three new ones in the mail, plus other scripts I've had and need to read again. Hopefully this week will be good. I have a good feeling.

And I have to get an apartment next year because I need to adopt a cat. Need isn't a strong enough word, but it's all I've got. I want to rescue a cat and name him Antonin or Johann. Maybe I will call him Bradbury. Or Oscar Wilde. Or Mittens.

ADDENDUM: I am naming my future kitty Humphrey Bogart. And another one Marlon. And maybe another one Harrison. I will have well named kitties.

Triple A

Once again I write a post as I should be writing an essay - but, once again, it has been weeks since I've updated, and so much has happened.

To write it all out would become this really unpleasant blob of paragraphs trying to put into words what is all just incredible experiences, so I'll try to find good words and just make one blob of text to explain it. Maybe. This could just be as awkward and not interesting to read as the other option, but we'll see.

Overwhelmed, tired and sore, hip issues, fixing hip issues, flexibility, Jerry Mitchell choreography, vocal range, passing classes, essays, Antonin Artaud, doodling, empty pockets, cold weather, breaking barriers, tears onstage, "unashamedly sexy, that honesty," Halloween, paparazzi, essays, toning up, good days, bad days, voice lessons, Sutton Foster, bloody feet, unexpected laughter, wishing studio floors were cleaner, still sucking at piano, essays, wishing lecture classes didn't suck, handstands, breaking out, breaking free, Alto Power, food supplies, homework, schedule planning, laundry day, cold, essays, making art, missing something.

Good luck making sense of that. Cuz I don't.