What a great week of class this past week! What with tests and papers and all sorts of horrible things in other classes, Asian Performance is such a release. It's interesting that in my theatre class we have been working on muscular release exercises, which consist a lot of relaxation and talking through your tension in your muscles. In Asian Performance we do quite the opposite, with all sorts or difficult poses to hold, and straining our muscles, and pushing our limits...and yet somehow I come out of Asian Performance feeling just as relaxed and released as I do after the acting exercises. I think that it must be the mental part and the getting in touch with my body and all those unused muscles that really makes me feel this way...

Monday's class was fabulous - it was a gorgeous day outside and being able to do the exercises outside made everyone have to focus more and was just a lot of fun. I liked knowing that people were probably looking at us and saying, "What are they doing??" and wondering what class it was. I think it made us all try harder to do the steps right so that we wouldn't look like fools not knowing what was going on.

I really enjoy the singing/chanting parts of class. It becomes so mesmorizing, and I can't wait until we get good enough to try out different rhythms and make some cool music. It makes me think a lot about my choir back home, sitting around doing circle songs and everyone contributing to make some awesome musical chant.

I've been thinking a lot about when we talked about humor in class on Wednesday, and although I agree to an extent, I think there is a lot more to things being funny than it solely being people laughing at desperation. I think that yes, some humor comes from desperation and making fun of ourselves, but other humor comes from exaggeration, awkward situations, puns, etc. I think that humor coming from human pain and desperation is only a portion of what we find amusing.