S - A - T - U - R - D - A - Y Night

The weekends are really odd – totally unstructured. We have rehearsal for the composition projects, but outside of that it’s quite open. The training during the weeks is hard, increasingly hard, but that means by Friday night or Saturday night most of us are looking for some kind of release. Last night was the Doug Varone Dancers. Tonight drinking, talking, listening to music, drinking, dancing, talking and drinking. Some of the talking revolves around the training, but then we move onto other areas – books, music, life at home, etc. I have been gathering stories on why folks are here and they are all different and all fascinating. This shit is weird, really weird and it attracts specific people for specific reasons. No one is really here on a whim. The balance between the intense physical demands of Suzuki are offset but the mind expanding, perspective shifting of Viewpoints. One without the other does not make any sense. That balance allows the weirdness to be translated into specific work and incredibly useful training.

One of the things that attracts me to this is that I find so many performances tedious because actors rarely pay attention to their bodies. I know people say they do, but the words always get in the way and they lead with talking and emotion. Awareness of the body in space coupled with focused attention on the feet, the breath, the core allows emotion and meaning to come from within rather than be imposed. Come from within not necessarily in a psychological senses, but in the sense that the body is ready to talk, needs to talk, demands a release of energy. This has such potential to create beautiful and memorable moments. We have already seen this in both classes.

The other thing I find interesting about everyone’s story is that we all seem to be working on something. Not just physically, but we are all searching, questioning, trying to sort out the big life questions of direction and meaning and goals. At least that is the sense I get. Otherwise – why go through this? It can’t just be about strengthening the legs – there are plenty of other ways to do that that are less painful. We have been told that week three is much more intense than the previous two weeks – largely because once the vocabulary is sorted out the training starts to take an emotional toll. It is interesting that they pair that with re-shuffling the morning groups. While I look forward to getting to know another group, there is also some hesitation there – mainly because we have all reached a certain comfort level with our groups. Which is exactly why they need to change.

Rehearsal today for the second composition piece. Much more difficult that the first if only for the fact that we have moved from site-specific work to the black box – which we only have access to for like 2 hours before the presentation tomorrow. Hard to have a dialogue with the space like we did with the first piece. Different combination of people leading to a totally different experience. Another great learning opportunity. One of my group members asked me if I planned to direct in the next round, and while it would be fun, I have plenty of opportunities to be “in charge” at home. Although that in charge is rarely in an artistic way, so who knows, perhaps my hand will shoot up before my mind engages to stop it. My big concern would be imposing my will on a group that really doesn’t want to go that way. So maybe it would be an opportunity to listen more. Or maybe my time-obsessed, do things my way, this is the right answer asshole would emerge and dampen the experience for all.