Stream of Observation: Flocking, The Cat, Baby Squirrels

I feel like I have an overwhelming amount of blogging to do, but I will endeavor to capture everything I experienced today and last week that I want to get down in my blog.

Like today, the baby squirrels. I think it was around 7 o'clock and I was behind the garage that makes our act II set up, so I was basically back stage, I think pre setting some props or costume pieces... and out of the corner of my eye, I see this squirrel moving with a great deal of intention and purpose sort of towards me, but than sort of not, but than towards me again, and it had something in it's mouth. That something was small and hairless, all curled up, and I realized it was a baby squirrel. I remember the moment, sort of, when I learned that squirrels transport their young in their mouths, I believe several at a time, and I was struck by the oddness of it. But of course it makes sense, they have big mouths to carry nuts and also infants. I guess by our standard of cuteness, an infant squirrel isn't that cute... but I sort of think they are, and it was fascinating seeing the squirrel out of the element I'm used to seeing it in, but also so much so in it's own element and so full of purpose, carefully but swiftly carrying it's young to safety. If I could go back and repeat the observation exercise in Yo-el's class, I know exactly what my subject would be.

Which brings me to the work we've been doing. Sad to say, I neglected to blog about my work last week, so I will endeavor to recap it. Last Thursday was difficult. I felt like my energy and focus had been consumed with opening Rosencratz and Guildenstern the night before, and subsequently I simply didn't feel as connected as I would like to have been for Yo-el's class. This difficulty was increased in that the work we were doing was concerned with groundedness, connectivity and coordination, which are not necessarily my strong suits usually, especially coordination unless I have a very specific routine worked out. Anyway, this particular class consisted primarily of Laban work (who was an early important theorist and practitioner of modern dance) who believed that movement should originate from the pelvis, the theoretical backing of which I don't really know so I won't try to explain, but I think it has to do with it being an extension of the core and the spine, etc. Many of my classmates are better at this stuff that I am (not that I'm passing judgement, many of them are simply dancers or athletes or whatever and are simply better equipped for this work) and so we went pretty quickly through the exercises also because there are 21 of us and only 90 minutes available to work. And I won't like, I started to get frustrated. It happens, of course. But when it did, I did my best to smile and laugh at my own inability to fluidly execute the forms and for a moment with one of them, I started to get it. Then I was back in my head, and class was over shortly after.

Our next class was Saturday, and focused more on some the Gratowski-esque elements we've been working on, beginning with an exercise I was familiar with in principle from my work with Tommy Derrah (and also Jeremy Geidt, and other teachers) called The Flock. The principle of the flock being that the group moves as sort of an amorphous mass or like a flock of birds, with one person at a time leading the flock ideally in such a way that an observer wouldn't know who the leader was. Initially, Yo-el called out leaders, but overtime it became organic with who was sort of at the front of the flock and who had the combination of interest, will and energy to take the lead. My approach to this exercise was to try and literally mimic the flock leader as closely as possible, so I was frequently towards the front because when it would turn I wasn't turning with the flock I was turning with the leader, usually. Probably because I naturally had that combination I talked about from having worked in this idiom previously, early on I took the lead once or twice leading the flock through the space. As we gradually warmed up, we added new movement elements, gestures, levels and so forth. After we were acclimated to that, Yo-el encouraged us to "go to the next level" which is when I, taking a gesture that was already happening took the lead and began expanding on the gesture which to me I recall as sort of an undulating wave motion which I made undulate wider and faster, and I was picking up momentum thinking maybe I was inspiring the class to a new height I looked behind me... and they were clearly perplexed, not really able to follow what the hell I was doing.

After my attempt to lead the flock failed, I took another course. My effort had been to push the group towards a new level or mode of flocking, so I sort of took a confusing tactic. Previously, it had been easy to follow who was leading by who was in front. When my effort to lead was unsuccessful, I started moving the group in a circle, until it became unclear where was the front and where was the back, until someone asserted dominance and lead the flock out of it. I didn't lead again after that, which I only realized after the fact, because I was too busy with the activity of following the flock leader and even trying to anticipate their movement...

I tried to express in the class but failed (wow I guess that's a theme today, even though I don't meant it to be), but I feel like in movement oftentimes there is a kind of subtle melodic or harmonic quality similar to music. If you hear a tense chord or note, you want it to resolve to a resolution, or if you hear a phrase if you are really paying attention to the music you can anticipate that phrase being repeated but possibly in a new form and such is often the case with movement, especially of this style and energy where everything is flowing. So I concerned myself with that, and found it very rewarding the times when I successfully predicated or anticipated a movement change based on what had come before. Or once or twice, I was able to add in a variation or motif to an existing movement without completely taking over leadership. That was cool too.

I should move off that tangent and into the rest of the work from Saturday and today, since this has turned into a post primarily concerned with my movement class. After that, we did a partnering exercise which is generally kind of stressful because I know I won't have one, but someone was gracious enough to be my partner. The exercise was inspired by Cafe Muller, a piece by the German choreographer Pina Bausch and showcased in the film Pina (which I watched recently and will need to blog about later), which in this case was one person would close their eyes and the other would lead them through the space, at first neutrally but then with the person being guided engaging in dance like movements and with multiple chairs in the space as obstacles. At first, I had a hard time giving over to my partner. I've done these kinds of exercises before, and this is often the thing for me even if I trust fully in the person, which I did, my other senses or even just my ability to sense light through closed eye lids overwhelm me with the feeling of other persons or obstacles in the space, and the fear of collision. That didn't happen though, for the most part, and it was interesting that when we moved in to the dance component, it felt much more natural and I was less anxious having the freedom to just explore and move in the space. Part of this was that my partner was a wonderfully natural and gentle guide and who was a generous collaborator as I found movement to the music being played and within the space and it's obstacles. Despite what I said above, during that moment, I felt connected and that to me is one of the most satisfying aspects of art connecting with other beings either as observers, participants or collaborators or even just with another aspect of yourself.

This sort of segues into our work today on The Cat, another Gratowski exercise the point of which is to extend and stretch your spine in a similar manner to yoga while bringing on a level of exhaustion which Gratowski believed, as I understand it, sort of stripped away your bullshit and allowed you to connect to a more truthful interior life and creativity not having the energy to judge or second guess. What I was struck by in this exercise was the way in which I felt my alignment... it was the most aligned I'd ever felt. I didn't have to force anything into place or hold anything in any particular way, it was just completely natural my spine was straight where it's supposed to be straight but also soft and curved where it should be and it felt incredible.

I'm sorry that tomorrow is our last session. I feel like I've only begun to scratch the surface of this work, but also excited at the prospect of continuing it in my own life and in other avenues. The road never ends, it just bends, and continues.

Meeting (Your Own) Expectations

So as you most likely know from my various Facebook posts, Monday was my Stagesource audition. It did not go as I expected it would, which is not to say it went poorly, but I did learn some important lessons and some things I could have done better. I did get to the BCA nice and early, which was good, I was there over an hour before my appointed time so I had ample time to chill out. Something I forgot to do however was eat properly. I'd had a decent meal earlier in the day, but by the time five o'clock rolled around and my audition was nigh my stomach was almost growling, which is not good. Why? Well I guess everybody is different, I've heard that some stand ups need to be somewhat uncomfortable to do their best performing but I think that's because stand up inherently comes from a place of tension, whereas stage performance is the lack there of. So that was a distraction, and I think it aided in sinking my first piece, which was my at this point defacto comic monologue from Eric Bogosian's "Suburbia". It's pretty lewd, but usually effective. When I got into the room though, I saw the set to Company One's Hookman looming over me, and I was indecisive as to where I should plant myself in relationship to it (if I could give one major note to the Stagesource folks, neither time when I've done it was it clear to me where the lighting in the room was strongest and it would be nice to have a sense of focused lighting in the performance area instead of the very general, kind of dim room light of Rehearsal Hall A). This indecision further threw off my already not spot on energy and when I went into my slate I stumbled through it a little, then as I went into the first piece, the piece that I felt confident I'd be hitting out of the park because I'd done it so many times successfully my energy kind of petered out, I felt the auditors shutting down and it just kind of went limp. At least that was my perception at the time. Near the end, I was able to get a few sort of chortles, then I gave a little nod to signify it was over and launched into my next piece...

Before I get there though, let's look at those moments. Things I could not have controlled were the set up of the room, which threw me for a loop. Also, the stage manager pulled me straight from the green room and I had no heads up I would be on deck, which isn't anybody's fault and probably was because they were running behind (another factor out of my control) but I could have used the time of the previous auditioner to steady myself and really focus. But I should have been doing that the entire time regardless. Also as I mentioned before, the whole day was a little behind schedule and it was 5 o'clock with the auditors having just come off a smoke break. So, if I was depending on some of the energy in the room to help power my piece it being comedic and that being how I tend to work with comedic material that wasn't going to happen.

All of which could have been subverted, had I prepared it better! Instead, I put the little time I did spend preparing into my second piece, an excerpt from Measure For Measure. You know, the one where Claudio begs his sister for his life. I found I went on an interesting journey with this piece. I enlisted the help of a director friend of mine (Thanks Scott!) and we tried out various "key signatures", that is to say levels of intensity, energy, movement, etc. In the end, we took it inward, removing all the gesturing, gesticulating and vocal variety I'd tried using to get into the life or death stakes of the piece and focused all of my energy into the act of just talking to my sister as if she were a real person. This is what I call "cutting out the bullshit" and it worked for me. Sometimes it works if I go in sort of the opposite direction, if you'd seen Our Town or Swimming in the Shallows or when I played Elbow in Measure for Measure those were all highly vibrant, colorful characters. My other piece is supposed to showcase this aspect of my work. Sometimes though, we forgot that most often in real life people just talk to other people directly and as human beings, so that's what we went for in this monologue. It did have a nice key change from when Claudio goes from describing the potential torments of the afterlife, to the more humanistic argument that his sister saving him trumped all over existing forms of morality and would become a virtuous act. So I played all that, and I felt like it went much better.

But who knows! At this point, it's totally out of my control and that's the actor's life. If nothing else, 40 copies of my headshot and resume are out in the world and that must be a good thing. And I learned a few lessons, if your going to be at an audition for a long time make sure you've eaten beforehand or if it's going to be a really long time bring a snack. Don't let anything throw you off, as soon as you know you might be on anytime soon start focusing in and don't stop. Then when you get in the room, let nothing break that focus. Oh and the most important thing, PREPARE YOUR SHIT. This year I tried to tell myself via this blog that I would do better than I did last year and actually I do think that I did but not as well as I would have liked or was capable of. In the end, that was my lack of preparation. And you know, that happened because I was so busy acting already. So I can't really complain, as long as I from moment to moment am getting better than in some sense I'm winning, I think.

Just remember dear readers, control what is under your control and everything that's not forget about.

Failures in Life and Baking

Things I'm not good at, part 1 section 1: Baking. Case in point, for Adia's birthday she asked for a carrot cake. I hadn't really thought this through, but I thought "we have carrots, eggs, flour, etc". I looked up a recipe online, and came across several issues. I realized recently that'd stopped consuming eggs in our apartment, I enjoy eggs every once in a while but if I were to make a list of things I am OK but not great at, cooking eggs would be one of them. For a while Adia had eggs every day with her breakfast, but this has teetered off, so this carton of eggs had been sitting in our fridge since October and had past it's sell by date sometime in that month. Earlier this month though when we went grocery shopping, I knew I would be making crab cakes, a recipe that involves eggs, so even though it's less economical I bought a half dozen pack of eggs (this is starting to sound awfully long winded bear with me). A few days before the carrot cake incident, we were sort of celebrating early, so I thought I'd try making merengues again, which I had attempted several months ago to mixed results (I didn't really bake them long enough, or properly integrate the sugar into the egg whites, or something, they kind of collapsed). This time it did go better, so I guess I'm not awful at baking. I can separate egg whites, beat them to stiff peaks, add sugar and vanilla and sort of bake them in 250 degree oven. And they came out OK!

When it comes to baking, I have problems with patience. With the previous merengue attempt, and also with the more recent one, I probably should have let them bake a little longer. In general in the past when not baking from a box, I tend to get impatient and pull things out before they are done (this was not the case with the carrot cake we'll get to that later). I guess I was impatient with the carrot cake incident, in that I looked up a recipe, and it required 4 eggs of which I had 3. Mistake number one. This is the reason for the long egg related preamble. If I'd realized I'd be making crab cakes, meringues, and baking a cake, I'd have bought the dozen fucking eggs. CEST LA VIE! Rather then I don't know, cutting the recipe in half or something I just soldiered on with 3 eggs instead of 4. Another issue, like many cake recipes, it called for baking soda and baking powder. We had baking powder, but no baking soda. I looked up how to switch out one for the other, and a guy said if you just want to use baking powder, just put in a shit load of it, more or less (his ratio was 1:3 baking soda/baking powder). This maybe would have worked better if I was just subbing the baking soda, but I used the amount of baking powder called for and then a shit load more of it on top of that. Also, rather than use regular sugar I used confectioners sugar because I have his confectioners sugar from when I made merengues and I can't put that shit in coffee or whatever so I wanted to use it up. I think this is doable, but it requires another conversion since confectioners sugar is much less dense then regular sugar and has less sweetening power per capita. Then again who likes super sweet deserts anyway? So I do all this, dump in the two tea spoons of cinnamon, mix it all up, oh and add the carrot which I chopped up in the food processor because who owns a grater? Yeesh.

My other mistake probably was not really knowing my oven. The recipe called for it to be at 350 degrees for like an hour, so I did that. At a certain point it started to smell really good like maybe it was done, I don't know, but I was trying to curtail my usual impatience and not open the oven letting all the heat out, and just wait the allotted time. At the end of which... my cake was burned. The middle collapsed. The resulting product... tasted like feces. Seriously it was inedible. And to top it off, before I even took it out my girl friend asked about frosting, wasn't I going to make frosting? Having no eggs or whipping cream or any of those things, but having butter and confectioners sugar I figured I could improvise a butter cream, how hard could that be? Butter and sugar, right? Well the butter should really be room temperature, mine was not it was cold. A recipe I briefly considered said something about adding milk so I added some milk and let's just my attempts to whip it together with my powered hand whisk thing were a fiasco...

I don't know I had to write this blog post. I guess I thought my adventures in baking were entertaining and blog worthy. Hopefully the result speaks for it self, because I'm not doing any editing on it. It's also fun to catalog our failures, so we can look back when we've surpassed them. Someday I may try again baking carrot cake from scratch, or any kind of cake, and hopefully what I've learned will make more successful.

Get Up, Stand Up

So I did it. This past Tuesday, I signed up for an open mic, with maybe three jokes prepared, thinking I could fill the rest of the space with propensity and talent as a comic actor and improviser. Or maybe not. I had a revelation Tuesday, stand up is difficult.

How difficult? Very difficult. In almost every other context I've performed in, the audience was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and you had their attention at least for umpteen seconds until they inevitably tuned out to some degree and hopefully tuned back in. Also though, doing theatre or improv your main focus can't be on the audience it has to be on your scene partner, the story your telling, etc. Not so with stand up! It is all about holding the audience's attention, and a lot of that has to do first with your energy on stage. In a theatre context, I can exude confidence and stage presence pretty immediately at this point, I would say. Not so with stand up. Then again this particular venue was especially difficult, since the crowd's attention really was only half on the stage and the other half on their conversation, if that. I saw a few guys who clearly knew what they were doing really capture the room, and it was impressive. It takes stage presence, it takes a point of view, and it takes material that's worth of a damn.

I don't really have any of that yet, although at least I can recognize it, and that is a start. Of my jokes, the ones which were sort of at the comic who went before me's expense, which I ad libbed, were probably my most successful. I wasn't trying to make fun of him, but then again I sort of was, since he did an extended, rather unsuccessful IMHO bit on Hitler and how it wasn't as bad as he could have been, or something. It didn't really make much sense. It was kind of borderline offensive. I just had to point out "man that guy sure did do a lot of material on Hitler, that takes dedication." Hopefully I wasn't too snarky in a bad way, I tried to be sincere. I made a point that it was my first time doing stand up, that I was "losing my stand up virginity" and that at least got a good cheer from the sympathetic crowd as I bowed off after, I don't know, 90 seconds maybe.

I think I will do it again, slightly wiser, and with a few new ideas for bits and how to make the ones I tried the other night more successful. I've been harping on a quote lately, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step" I think it's Lao Tzu or something, but I don't actually know. I do know that I like it's implication.