DAY ONE

NERVOUS

So, before I start talking about what happened today...last night was pretty awesome. I met up with Drew Gilbert and he showed me around Blue Lake. He brought me to the the waterfall which was pretty amazing, and to Carlo Mezzone Clementi (the founder of Dell'Arte's) grave. Pretty sweet!!! It is so nice to have an anchor here. I love and am so grateful about how our Bradley Theatre community is everywhere and looking out for one another.

Ok! So, now onto today. Now, I knew I wasn't in the best of shape, but i didn't realize quite how OUT OF SHAPE I was. We started our day with a brief orientation. We had a tour of the 2 Dell'Arte buildings and town. We then had our first class with Joan. It began with a pretty typical name game. After that we played another game. It is kinda like simon says except there are only five commands: stop, go, turn, jump (jump a half turn), and twirl (jump a full turn). We walked in a circle and Joan would call out a command. If we got it wrong or were off balance at the end of it, we were out. Guess what...I WON!!! I think Ice Skating helped with the twirls. We then laid on the floor and focused on our breathing. We slowly began doing stretches while laying down and slowly worked our way off the ground. At our own pace we were instructed to move around the space leading with different parts of our body. By the end of the exercise we were sprinting and jumping and twirling around the room. This exercise took about an hour and half. Our next thing was similar, except we were 'in a forest' we had to move around the space as if we were running away from something or avoiding danger. Except for this only a certain number of people could move at a time. So we would move and hold, move and hold, move and hold. TOTALLY EXHAUSTING. The last exercise was a game we have played in Steve's acting class. We were in a circle with one person in the middle tossing the ball back and fourth around the circle and someone would have to jump in and replace the middle person after three throws.

LUNCH BREAK

Our second class was with Ronlin. We started off walking and practically running in second circle (which means alert, making eye contact, spacial awareness, and trying to cross middle as often as possible). He would stop us, and with the same intensity we had to move in slow motion. We then  had to fall and catch ourselves for about an hour. This was to teach us how to let go and enjoy the fall. This was sooo much tougher than i thought it would be. But it is extremely hard to just let yourself fall and fight against the natural tendencies to stop the fall. Afterwards, we split up into three circles and had a dance party-for about 45 minutes. Ronlin supplied the beat and we danced. There was one person in the circle, they had to dance and then have an engagement with someone on the perimeter, invite them in, dance with them and then go back to the perimeter. Sweaty and out of breath at the end, we had to walk around the space with our arms up and sing "You Are My Sunshine". Our assignment for the week is to come up with a game to teach and play on friday.

After class some of my roommates and I went down to the beach to relax. It was a bit chilly though.

I met up with my group to talk about our game. This is what happened:

This is Cooper. A fabulous new clown friend. Being at this school is so awesome! I am so grateful to be in a place with people who have a similar passion for physical theatre. SO AWESOME!!!!!