boring home schooling

Last night I went to Slight Askew Theatre Ensembleapos;s (SATEapos;s) three-hour training session in Suzuki and Viewpoints. I think itapos;s the best thing Iapos;ve ever done for myself theatrically. Iapos;ve missed Suzuki SO�MUCH. Meredith taught bits of it in Acting 1 and in Advanced Scene Study, and itapos;s always been so hard for me, which means itapos;s one of the best things I can be doing.�Itapos;s so concerned with form, precision, and discipline, which is GREAT for an actor who doesnapos;t use her body as well as she should. And Iapos;ve never done anything with Viewpoints before, but I think itapos;s the perfect Suzuki companion practice. Again, itapos;s an excellent training method for me, because itapos;s all about freedom and following impulses without hesitation, which is hard for me. I like to censor and watch myself, and Viewpoints makes you let go of that censorship and pushes you to get out of your head and connect with your gut and with the other people onstage with you. Between the ridiculously intense physical warm-up for half an hour, lots and lots of sun salutations, Suzuki walks, marches and tekkaten "Hamlet and Ophelia exercises," and then Viewpoints lanes and grids, it was three hours of training heaven. The group is so committed, and SUCH�A�STRONG�ENSEMBLE. Thatapos;s the dream. Thatapos;s what Iapos;ve always wanted to be a part of. I canapos;t wait to go back next Monday, and to see their currently running show this weekend.

I think maybe the best part of it was having my brain shut off for three hours. Because Iapos;m so mental over physical, extreme physical exertion like that takes all my focus and concentration just to get through it, so I canapos;t be constantly thinking and evaluating and taking mental notes. Energy is diverted from my brain to my body so I can do what I need to do. For the last couple of days, I feel like my brain has been going faster and faster without my permission. Iapos;m talking to myself. A lot. Like, more than usual, to the point that Iapos;ll be in the middle of talking to myself and then say to myself, "Fuck Just shut up already" and start fighting aloud with myself. Itapos;s been freaking me out a bit, because I feel like I donapos;t have the kind of control of myself that Iapos;m used to having. Training last night made all of that fade away for a while, and I could just breathe and work and enjoy the here and now. Even on the drive home, though, I could feel my head running away from me again. I donapos;t know how to deal with that. Iapos;ll have to talk to Dr. Taggert about it at our session tomorrow.

On a side note, Far and Away is a much better, much funnier movie that I would ever have expected from only having seen the first 15 minutes of it. Man, does it take off after that. Excellent choice for last night.

I like making myself get up early Tuesdays and Thursdays to eat breakfast with Casey before he leaves at 6:45. It means I can get to work by 7:30, take a half hour lunch and leave by 4 (or work through and leave at 3:30) and still have a full eight-hour day. Nice.

Note to brain: Be quiet. Iapos;m working.

Very sincerely,
DK


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