Holiday

Tonight in choir we had a "chat" about re-dedication of ourselves to the choir.  Which essentially boils down to "respect."  Respect for the commitment we made to sing, respect for the ensemble (and one another's time), and respect for our own lives.  I'm very guilty of not being on time.  And that's true in every part of my life, except theatre.  And I realize that I need to have respect for the things I've committed to, and if I'm making excuses, I need to re-evaluate my life, and if I'm late or resentful because I'm over-committed, I need to drop something.  There's no point in being half-assed.  It is my life, if I don't respect those things in it, I'm not valuing my own time or my own life.

We've also begun work on this arrangement to the 23rd Psalm that our accompanist wrote.  Dissonant and beautiful.  Difficult to learn (no help finding the notes, you just have to have them), but oh so lovely.  Feel really lucky to be working with him.

Volunteered at auditions again today.  After the lunch break, they let me sit in the booth for an hour and watch the afternoon auditions, which included singing.  I love watching the commitment hit, the brave choices, the process.  And there was this thing that happened, this embodied connection in the singing or in the monologues. I can't put my finger on it, nor could I point out when it wasn't there, as much as I could when it was, and when it was, I wanted to cheer.  As a volunteer, you get a lot of access to the process, and you can learn a lot: how people behave, enter, transition, exit, write their resumes, what they choose for a headshot, what they choose to present, etc.  I'm glad that I took the time off to do it.

Did I already mention this?  I'm starting to connect as my character to the other character, I'm catching it happening more with this piece we are working on.  I don't know if it's because I've spent so much time with the material, or if it's the accumulated 220 + class hours we've spent so far, week after week.  I still have trouble trying to prepare to enter, and that's something I need to work on, but something has shifted, I can feel the difference in my body and how I don't feel like a lump on the stage as much as I did a year ago. (Then again, I have most of the dialogue.)  It's similar to finding myself suddenly grounded in class a couple of weeks ago.  It's as if the practice creates a new groove to follow, breaking old patterns.

At lunch I took silly pictures of seagulls.  Someone was feeding them cake when suddenly they all took off, and I looked up and an eagle was passing overhead.  It went on it's way, not paying any attention to the gulls or the people, and the gulls eventually settled down enough to land again.

Fountain, March 13/L Herlevi