School has been moving ahead at a frighteningly rapid pace: we've moved on to character work now, which feels like an appropriate culmination for the year. The first week of this term was spent exploring a character based on a person we observed (in my case, a co-worker), and mine turned out to be a rather dumb loud-mouthed girl named Diamond (I wish you all could meet her, she's a kick in the pants!). This week we're working on another character, preferably one very different from the first, and my second character is turning out to be a neurotic librarian named Roxanne. Apparently our next assignment will be the "quick change," ie: 3 actors, 6 characters. Should be extremely exciting and frustrating, I'll be sure you tell you all how it goes. In addition to all this, we also have the final projects looming over us. The first one is The Twenty Movements, which is a series of technical movements that we've been learning throughout the year (eg: swimming, climbing a wall, rowing a boat, hitting things with sticks...): we perform them individually, and it's up to us to structure them how we like. The second one is a group piece, where we choose a theme or place, go out and observe, and create a piece of theater (which is as specific as the guidelines were). So there's lots to do and think about, and it's only going to get busier: yay!
As for the last month, I had the great joy of having my other half here with me, which is also my excuse for not updating in so long. The break was really really nice: it was wonderful to forget about school and do things like eat out in restaurants, see movies, go biking, and travel... to Poland! We went to Krakow to visit my friend Lauren for five days in the middle of the break, and it was quite the experience. I'd never before been to a place so recently and heavily involved in war, and the atmosphere of oppression and loss was kind of overwhelming. Just an example of the awareness of the past: in the town center, there was a beautiful old church with a tall tower from which a bugler would play a tune every hour. He always stopped abruptly at the same point in the song, apparently to commemorate a bugler who was shot by an enemy archer while playing. We also went to Auschwitz and Birkenau, which was something I'm very glad to have done, and not sure I could ever do again. On the lighter side, we got to eat a ridiculous number of pierogies, see a random brass band dedicating a trolley, ride a ferris wheel at night, visit a salt mine, and lots of other wonderful things (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024163&id=4101276&l=91ced377ce for pictures). Overall, it was a really nice trip, and it was good to get away from London.
And back to London... it seems that we won't be moving after all. The hassles of finding a new house, paying a deposit, notifying everyone of our change of address, changing our utilities and internet services, and moving all our furniture seem to outweigh the difficulties we face here. And those difficulties sure make for some good stories, for instance, part of our fence burned down a couple days ago! Our new neighbors decided that it would be a great idea to burn everything in their backyard, which ended up including our fence. The damage:
It was quite the adventure that afternoon: Ana, the neighbor and I were out there with buckets of water, spraying down the fire out the bathroom window with the showerhead, and then the fire fighters came and ran a hose through our hall... so amazing.
And that brings us up to date, I think! More to come in the following weeks...
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