Sing It: 'Tis No Matter How It Be In Tune, So It Make Noise Enough

Tonight, like every night in drama, was an experience of a lifetime.

At the start of the night, I wasn't into the whole thing. I was thinking about all the other stuff I had to do. I don't remember when I started really participating. It was somewhere around the time when we began to make noise.

I wasn't really able to do the moaning part, when we first 'discovered' sound. A bad case of laryngitis and a case of tonsilitus have damaged me forever (I am also unable to actually scream now). When we started the vibrations part was cool. I found it interesting that when I raised my chest off the ground I could REALLY feel the vibrations throughout my entire body.

When we began to get louder, I was excited and I was pushing it. I even counted beats, to see how long I could go, although I will admit it distracted me a lot. Everyone was making an "awww" kind of sound. I chose the more meditative "oommm" sound. It reminded me of World Religions class because we are studying Hinduism. I found it a way to praise my own God. When Raymon told us to stop, it felt wrong to stop.

When we started singing, I first picked the song "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of it Yet" by Panic! At the Disco, but it was hard to hum and even harder to sing. So I picked a song from Seussical (yeah, it was a REALLU good musical ok? I think about it a lot (plus a company in Saskatoon is doing it and I am excited to audition)) It's called "It's Possible". I couldn't remember the whole song, but the part I sang went like this:

This might be a river like I've read of in books,

connected to one of those underground brooks.

An underground river that starts here and flows,

right under the bathtub and then; WHO KNOWS?

It's possible, anything's possible

This might be a river now mightn't it be,

connecting this underground pool, with the sea!

Then maybe some fish might be swimming, swimming toward me

I really like to sing and I loved this part. But I payed a lot of attention on how I sounded. I tried so hard to sound good, I cared so much. I didn't want to sing offkey and have someone call me on it. I would have died.

When the whole group was raising their aww sounds to the roof, I felt like I was in a temple with a bunch of monks or something. It was intense and that's what the singing part was like when we all sang that one song. It was cool though. I felt that the drunk part sort of ruined the mood, but we explored different variants of the song.

When Raymon said "Our voices are a gift" I was dumbstruck. I mean, you know when you get this "AHA" moment after someone says something so simple, but it really hits home? that was this moment for me. My voice is a gift, and although I think I sound awful when I sing (even though others don't think so) my voice is a gift, and I should use it.

Imagination Of Some Exploit

Tonight was one of my favorite nights of all time.

I can't even begin to explain what happened, because I am at a loss for words of how to descibe it. There were mats and we were laying on them. We entered a sort of dream world where we were in a box. Paint appeared and we painted; whatever we wanted.

My box was Seussical pink. I picked this color because it was the first one that popped into my head. My high school put on Seussical in my grade 11 year and it was the most amazing show we had ever done. There was this Pepto Bismalesque pink everywhere on stage and everyone loved it. That was my color.

I drew lots of things on in my box, including my friends Fran, Jayne and Blair. I drew my cat, garfield and a reindeer (for some reason). I had a picture of mountains from the Sound of Music. I drew a crucifix and the word 'Seussical' above my head.

When the paintings started to move, I got scared and covered my face. When my box started to disappear, I was heartbroken. But when I molded my fish out of clay, it seemed like it was alright. When the box returned, I put my fish over my head. To stop my box from leaving me, I turned it into a car, which I would SO drive if it were an actual physical thing.

I was struck when Raymon told us these boxes weren't real. Because they arn't real. No matter what we say. But they are a memory. Which is real.

A Vision Fair And Fortunate

Tonight we went outside. It was an adventure to say the least. I really don't like walking. I know that sounds rediculous, but I hate it. I would rather bike everywhere than walk. I was extremely disappointed to see that we would be walking forever, because the Education building isn't exactly close to the John Mitchell Building. The one thing I really liked about us going outside, is that everyone would be staring at us. I love that. I'm sort of an eccentric person and I do things all the time that cause people to stare at me.

Anyway, we go to a huge football field and just began to experience nature. I'm really not an outdoorsy type of girl, but it was a cool experience to see things from different angles and different perspectives.

Then we got to run with our eyes closed, which is not good for me, the whole trust thing again. I was frightened, but I lived through it, I guess.

The next step was to experience statues by feeling them. It was a neat thing to feel something and have a picture of it in your mind and then see it for what it really is. It's sort of like a metaphor for people. At least that's how I saw it.

Then we went to the stone canoe. It was really dirty and I did not want to sit in it, but looking back I wish I would have. I feel like I took myself away from a feeling of community with the class and I wish I could have gotten over it.

The Mirror Of All Courtesy

Tonight we started off with isolation of certain body parts. We would tense them and then relax them. I enjoyed the part when we explored all the different movements our body parts can make. It was easy when we focused on one part of the body (the hand for instance) and then moved it in every way. To be aware of movement and how to move is key in acting.

After a while of this we moved on to mirroring. I'm not the biggest fane of mirroring, but that's ok. I started of with Diane and we did simple things, mostly moving the hands and leaning. It was ok but it wasn't challenging. I didn't feel a very strong or deep connection with her.

I felt extremly connected with I moved to Troy. Although, the connection was lost as we progressed. The instant attraction was incredably strong for me, it was rather intense, but like I said, we lost it. Or maybe lost it.

Moving on to Michael we were told to get more creative. We did lots of wierd movements on the floor, and trying to get it just right was difficult, but I was looking for a challenge. Our end pose was one of us covering our faces, like we were ashamed.

My last partner, Johnny, was the best mirroring experience I had tonight. We started in a wierd pose, but we progressed to a sort of love story. Here is how I saw it: we had an instant attraction, kind of like love at first sight. Only, we were both afraid to have it go anywhere. We sort of flirted and had fun with it but then we got hurt somehow. I remember this particular portion happening like this: One of us blew a kiss, and the other caught it and threw it away. Then we fell and burried our faces in the floor. We gave up on each other. It was a super extreme story and it took a lot out of me. I was drained.

Trust Nobody, For Fear You Be Betray'd.

First night of drama. What an experience. Not at all what I expected, not completly out of my exeperience, but not in my comfort zone at all. We did trust exercises. I am NOT good with trust exercises. I am a generally very paranoid person and I have trouble trusting people, especially people I don't even know. This presents lots of problems for me because a) I don't trust people, b) falling scares me and c) I really don't like to be touched.

We started with just one other partner. This was hard for me, having no prior contact with this person and I simply didn't think that she could stop me from falling.

The next one we did was with two people; one in the front and one in the back. I was with two guys and they were both 3 year+. so it was a little creepy for me, but whatever. I could go into details about how creepy they were, but I figured you would rather not read about it.

The next step was to join with another group of three for a group of six and pass one person around in the center. I HATED this. The girls we were paired with where TINY and could barely catch each other. I pretty much feared for my life.

As previously stated many times, I hate trust exercises. If I had to pick one, I was more comfortable with the group of three because it was more controlled. It was predictable, I would go back and forth and back and forth. With the group of six, it was more random and I didn't know where I was headed, which I don't like either. I like to know what's going to happen and what is going on during every minute of my life. I'm all about order and organization and when things are caotic, I go crazy.

Having done these exercises several times before, I understand why they are important. You need to develop a trust with your fellow actors in case something happens on stage. You need to know that they will cover for you and they need to know you will do the same if something happens. But just because it's important doesn't mean I have to like it!!