Here I am, writing from my discombobulated room, my MFA safe in a suitcase, clown nose ready to be packed up, two nights before leaving London. And... where did those two years go?
We had a beautiful graduation ceremony on Friday, lots of crying and laughing and memories, a wonderful ritual concocted by the first-years (no, they're second years now... what???), and 16 whole chickens purchased from Tesco by the teachers for our international smorgasbord potluck send-off feast. It was a very intense day following a very intense term, and therefore I was (and still am) pretty much exhausted. It's been very nice to get some rest at last.
Working backwards... the last thing we did this term was our personal projects, which meant that all 34 of us got space and time (about 18 hours of it) to put together our own projects. The provocation was "Anything is possible." The projects were incredibly diverse, ranging from solo pieces to one that briefly included the entire class. There was dance, theater, and everything in between, and it was very inspiring to see the individual voices of my beloved classmates emerge. I acted/danced in two pieces, and did the sound for five others, plus coordinated the sound for the whole class, which got to be quite stressful near the end, needless to say. And on top of this was, of course, my own project, which was a dark comedy/gestural dance entitled Two Cardboard Boxes. Basically, there are parents who are obsessed with each other (to the exclusion of everything else, including their children). Said children find themselves some years later with lots of resentment and their parents' cremains in cardboard boxes, and are faced with the dilemma of what to do with them. It went over very well, and I'm very pleased to have begun to explore the strange universe that opened up first with my goth girl character, and now this piece. It's nothing like what I thought my interest would be when I started: so much the better!
Still working backwards, I got an amazing opportunity about a month ago to go to the BE festival in Birmingham, which is a fledgling physical theater festival run by the friends of a classmate of mine. I went as a musician for the Spanish melodrama (which meant that I was involved in all of the melodramas as musician at one point or another!), and saw some really great theater, met other artists, and had an overall really great time. It was really inspiring to see such a huge amount of creativity converge in one place: definitely worth all the hard work and extra rehearsals required to get there.
Before that, we did the final presentations as a class, which were a kind of "best-of" of the year. We had four nights of work, with the serious pieces (platforms, melodramas, etc.) in the first half and the comic pieces in the second half. I got to perform an acrobatic routine with Peep (my clown) and a chair on two of the four nights, and it was really fun! Definitely inspired me to get back into doing circus.
And that takes us back to the break, which was really wonderful. I spent it with my mother and Roger in Crete visiting Nikos and Emmanouela, and then Germany with Hilde, Andrea and Sebastian. It was wonderful to stock up on rest and relaxation with such wonderful people before the nine weeks of slogging that lay ahead. In retrospect, it was one of the nicest breaks I had during my whole time here.
I think that just about catches us up! Next up is a nice long plane ride to Austin, some time visiting family and friends, then back to my new home in Texas! It's kind of scary suddenly not having a set purpose in life, but I'm going to try and see it as an adventure. I will definitely miss London, its amazing public transit, intelligent television, the theater scene, and of course the incredible international community that is LISPA. But new things await, and as always I will try to keep y'all (yes, ya'll... Texas here I come!) updated about the goings on. Until next time!
