Movement # 24

Last time we had personal warmups. I didn't make it to class because my phone died in the middle of the night. I don't know what the warmups were like in class but mine was one I do often. It's the one I did in winterguard a few years ago. It includes tendus, the 27 points in space, stretching, and more. It was just the perfect length too: twelve minutes.

Movement # 23

This is the day we turned in our gift assignment. I was assigned to watch Mary in class and in the end of the semester we were supposed to have a movement piece inspired by this person. In the middle of the semester when people dropped out, people's stalker assignments were switched up, like mine was. I now had Marlena and so I started to watch her closely. I had a good amount of information to make my movement piece when my person was switched back to Mary the day before this assignment was due.

Mary... was not as fun as Marlena. She didn't move. She didn't do anything. The only thing I noticed that I could make some sort of movement from was the fact that when she put her arms behind her, she would grab her elbows. The end. She didn't move in any special way and she didn't carry herself in any special manner. She was just... Mary, and I didn't know how to make that into a movement piece.

We were also supposed to integrate something from the class that we had learned. I couldn't come up with anything. So in Mary's letter, I told her that I was switched right before the assignment was due and I didn't have much time to watch her, especially since I never saw her outside of school. That was the main inspiration for my movement piece. It was about Mary waking up as a monster, getting out of bed using the biomechanics we learned about. It also included using the points in space for getting clothes or picking up things, etc. Because I didn't know how Mary was outside of class and I only saw here two days out of the week, I figured maybe she's different than what she's perceived as, so that's why I chose a monster Mary. She was going to put on different masks to fit her mood before she left her house in my piece. I never got to perform it though because work has been getting more and more life-sucking. Ugh.

Movement # 21 & 22

The last two times we worked on more movement pieces, but actually said the monologues afterward. It was intriguing to see what the actual monologues were and not just the movements.

Movement # 20

Remember how we drew our faces and I turned out looking like a Transformer? Well, we were supposed to take those shapes and make a 3-D model out of it. I used pipe cleaners because I couldn't think of anything else to do. It turned out absolutely ridiculous. I attached my 3-D face to an empty take out drink cup from Taco Bell for a nice little pedestal. I couldn't stop laughing at my very own face. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Movement # 18 & 19

On Tuesday I presented with my group on the Alexander Technique. We did a lot of research and did a lot of thinking on how we could apply this as a tangible lesson and not just have the rest of the class sit and listen. So we studied why Alexander created his method and worked from there. It worked pretty well! The other lesson that day was Tai Chi. It was interesting to learn that tai chi could be applied to acting. What I got from it is that basically everything comes from the core with tai chi.

The other day we also talked about viewpoints and the Feldenkrais method. I don't remember much about the two other than they were both interesting. All of these lessons have been interesting, some more than others, but all gave me something new to apply now and later.

Movement # 18

Miming, ballet, and Meyerhold biomechanics. The miming lesson was pretty interesting in the way that they mimed the whole thing with signs. It was also kind of annoying that the mimed the whole thing, espeically when we found out that none of us could speak either. We had to be "unlocked." I liked the lesson nevertheless. The ballet lesson really showed me exactly why I do not want to be a dancer. Payden, Nerissa, and Alisha really rushed through their lesson to show exactly... well, I'm not sure what they tried to get across. It was just really quick and frustrating. The biomechanics lesson was fine. It was an interesting topic to hear about, but I would have liked to see a better example of biomechanics in a monologue.

Movement # 17

We had presentations today. Suzuki, yoga, and Michael Chekhov. The suzuki one reminded me of Peter's class last year and how suzuki was the hardest thing to do in the world. We had yoga afterwards, and they claimed it was going to be relaxing. Let me be the first to say that happened very zero percent, sir. If anything, I felt yoga was worse than suzuki because suzuki doesn't ask me to contort my body in unnatural manners.