I am really excited to begin working on a show for the Kimball Theater for Nov 14. I am nervous because of the very short amount of time we have to create a show and perform it, but I am excited to see what we come up with. I thought it was great that people stepped up in class this week, on their own, to help convince others of the pros of putting on a performance at the Kimball. I think it will be a great growing experience for the banjar and help make us even more of a community.

Along those same lines...I have been feeling much more of a community within our banjar recently. We all seem to be getting more comfortable with one another, and I know for certain that I am feeling more comfortable. I see more people speaking up in class and offering contributions. I have also felt more comfortable stepping up and taking leading roles at times in class. This is still something I am a little wary to do...because I don't want to be that person who jumps up to take control all the time, but I feel like everyone is volunteering for roles and characters that they are interested in, and aren't holding back as much. It's great!

Working on expressions through specific movements with a partner has been a great experience as well. The fact that Francis could leave the class for a day and everyone stayed and still gave their attention and respect to Kalyani shows how our banjar has really grown into a community of respect. We are all taking this class together to learn and grow in our knowledge of Asian Performance. Anyways, the movements with expression were a great new addition to the class, it was somewhat difficult for me, because the movements that express the certain emotions just are not movements that I would ever do in trying to portray that moment, but I did understand them and see the beauty in them, I just didn't actually feel them at all. I guess this is where the rasa boxes really come more into play and I will have to work more on getting mentally into the box, the role of that emotion and movement. It is something that I want to keep working on in the future.

This past weekend/week was fall break, so we only had one class this week. Unfortunately, I was feeling very under the weather and also had a midterm to complete, so I didn't make it to class on Wednesday. I've talked to people from the class about what we did, but I am planning on reading some other people's blogs to find out more about what I missed in class.

It was an odd week without going to this class - I've found I sort of depend on it as a release during the week. I tried to do some yoga and breathing on my own but found that it's a lot harder when you don't have an instructor and a room full of people pushing you to do it and telling you what steps to do next.

Letter to Our Banjar

Dear Banjar-

I have enjoyed all of our efforts thus far in working together to create a community to learn about Asian culture and dance. I feel like our journey is just beginning, although we are now halfway through the semester. For the remainder of the semester, I want to work on taking what we’ve learned and worked on in class to outside the classroom as well. I want to put in effort (other than reading the Ramayana and doing my blog) on my own time to practice the dances, learn the chants, work on my breathing, and concentrate on the placement of my voice and breath. It’s a lot more challenging trying to do the dance steps by yourself in your room, so I think I am going to try to make time with some friends outside of class where we can get together and exchange questions and concerns, and work on our dancing. I feel like this is one of the only ways our banjar can move forward at this point – if people don’t put effort in outside of class time, we will just keep repeating how to do the steps that we’ve learned. More so than the dances outside of class, I want to work on stretching and breathing. I feel like this part of class – the beginning, when we walk in and stretch as a group – is one of the most spiritual times of the class for me. It’s one of the only times of the day where I am focused internally on myself, and what my body is doing. I feel like this is a simple thing to do on my own and thus get more in touch with my own body.

As for the final performance, I am open to many things. I definitely want to work in a smaller group of just a few people in order to really accomplish some unity and coherence. I would love to work on musical or theatre aspects, rather than just dance, whether it is some kind of rhythm and chanting or something else. I am envisioning a small group making intricate rhythms through different chants while simultaneously incorporating some dance or theatre aspects to act out a scene. I picture one person in the group standing up and performing while the rest of the group continues the chant and then switching as the story progresses. Or something like this…

Anyways – thanks to everyone for such a great year thus far, and I hope the rest of the semester continues to be this rewarding.

Ellie

Things I'm struggling with in this class right now: staying on top of the reading (while the Ramayana is a fascinating and wonderful book, I find it hard to make time to read this when I have so many readings for other classes...), my thighs constantly being sore (but hey, since I haven't gone to the gym once this year, this class has pretty much become my workout for the day), but mostly I've been struggling with letting loose in class and really delving into the exercises. It's interesting because right before this class I have a Beginning Acting for Majors class in the same room for two and a half hours. That class has about 12 people in it, and most of them are pretty serious about their acting and what they are doing. We do acting exercises where we yell at each other and roll around on the floor and contort and seduce, etc etc. Anyways, coming from that environment every day to an environment where I still don't think people feel free to let completely loose, is quite a shift. I've never really been one to be self-conscious or hold myself back from getting into an acting exercise, but for some reason in this ICAP class I haven't really felt able to get out of my body and just do it and not worry what everyone else is thinking. I have a feeling that once one person in the class steps up and just puts it all out there, that we will all feel more comfortable letting loose, but right now this is something that is on my mind a lot and really frustrates my personal growth as an actor. Why can't I get over that self-consciousness??

On another note, I've been wanting to perfect the chant we do...and I always change the syllables a little bit every time I do it, so I thought I would write down phonetically as close to what I think the chant is right now, and maybe people could comment on what I have correct and incorrect. I think it will help to learn it by seeing it written down as well:

See ah vah rey rama jaya jaya ram
Mon geh leh huh vuh neyah
Mon geh luh hari
D____ Dasarata ah ji dah bihari