The past week have been work intensive and heavy on my heart and my body. I have been pushed to my limits in so many ways. From physically straining days, to emotionally challenging ones; we are given the opportunity to grow and become stronger people with every interaction that we are given with one another.
Sometimes I just wish you all could be here to see me in my element, because here when I am in my work I know that I am in that place, where no one can bring me down.
This may not all make sense, but these are my thoughts right now. And this is how I feel at this very moment.
Being behind the mask is a place where I do not feel so vulnerable in the way where I am afraid, but rather where I am vulnerable and willing, where I am ready for my body to take control of its self. The passion behind my movement, my action is present and to release that is such a powerful thing.
I feel present in my body and I feel present among the ensemble that I work with. I think of nothing more than living out my characters and feeling them without judgment. The most judgment comes from your teacher when you take courses, but with Michele, the most appreciation comes from him. He constantly pushes for us to do our best work and I strive to do it, because this is why I am here. This is why I am here so I could push myself beyond my limits, so that I could have Michele, with his approving and proud grin, give me a nod of gratitude for my work after each day. "Very good work" that's all he says, but he doesn't even need to say a word for me too feel what he has felt from my work.
We hope for times like this. For moments of appreciation, to build you up and put you in a place where you feel that much more assured that your passions are not leading you astray but rather bringing you to the place where you undoubtedly belong. The mask is a remarkable place to be. I let it take over me, and when I remove it I feel I have given a piece of myself to it and to my class for them to hold on to.
Improv work has been extremely challenging, having a 9-1230 period and then lunch in between, and a period again at 4 but before coming to class to have work ready to present, has been a mind fuck, but one that has brought out some of my deepest inner feelings and has allowed me to look deep within the work to find something I can really connect with and I can share with others.
Our piece we have been working off of is a Midsummer Night's Dream, but not in the way you always see it worked, like any Shakespeare. But our focus are the actions, and how the characters create those actions and are driven by their actions. We have taken it piece by piece, day by day and found more brilliance in it than I have ever seen or thought of before.
The question for the past week was "Where am I?" and I am in a place where I feel ready, and I feel willing to have life throw whatever it wants at me so I can take it in, struggle with it, learn from it, and grow from it.
Tarantella class and not having Michele around today was intense and emotional as well. Tarantella was meant to dance away the poisons and toxins of the body from the bite of the tarantula. It was said that someone inflicted with tarantula poison because lifeless, where their being would shrink away until they were dead. The cure: to dance the poison out.
And so today we danced, and felt one another and our presence in the room. We made connections to the ground, to the air, and most importantly to the flesh and bodies around us. To perform and experience Tarantella took us to a place where it seemed there were no confines around us. We were always to focus further and further, where if our focus was a wall it would be beyond that wall, if it were a person it would be into the depths of their heart.
Our subbing teacher today says that we owe to the audience the exposure of our hearts, we are to give them the present, of our presence and our openness. Today i danced away any negativity I have had and only focused on the work well done. 4 and a half hours of Tarantella, Commedia for the past weeks day after day; at the end of each day my sweat was dripping, my feel were callused, but I have never felt more alive than in this work of movement, of action, masks, of presence, of the heart.
I am awakened.
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