Are you there, Comfort Zone? It’s me, Cindy.

Kudos to all the lovely ladies who catch that reference.

Day 2

11am-noon  Movement

Started out a little behind, but once we started moving across the mat I was pretty OK.   “If it involves looking stupid, I can do it!”  was a quip of mine that everyone enjoyed.   For some reason I have trouble keeping more than one move in my head, and sometimes my arms had a mind of their own. But overall, it was really fun.  Especially the move called “Sparkles” which we re-named “Sprinkles.”  A silly way to start the day.

Noon-1:30pm Contact Improv

REALLY FUN.  I have never done it.  Considering I am hardly physical at all, it started really well.  Especially the partnered-up contact improv.  However, it ended with free-form three partners contact improv.  All of a sudden my brain kept making leaps and bounds and getting in between my body and my nervous system.  Caitlin (pictured below) made a great distinction between how one normally grasps or holds people, and that the idea of contact improv was to grasp a partner with your back and weight vs. arms, etc.  That started to make sense, but still, something in my brain just ins’t connecting yet.  I have some more yoga and a couple more movement classes before the next chance to try contact improv, so I am going to work on it.  But even in the Umbrella Project rehearsal, where I was co-directing and completely comfortable, I in no way wanted to do the contact improv, I wanted to observe it and shape it.  I haven’t really felt that uneasy in quite a while.

2-5pm Rehearsal for The Umbrella Project

This was very cool.  Robert asked me to direct one of the pieces in which he is performing, and we just got on the same page about his vision, and really and truly just messed around a bit with the text.  Reading it all together, with one line each, one word each, etc.  Did some internal text connection and visualization, then we read the ’scripted’ poem.  This lead to just amazing discussions like ‘Why dramatize poetry at all?’ ‘If we make choices, does it take the subjective audience out of their own interpretation?’ and on and on.  We messed around just enough to figure out how to attack it at tomorrow’s rehearsal and then moved on to picture poems.

This is my favorite one so far

Now I had a couple of hours break and have been working on my laptop at the library.  Prepping for my first CHORNOBYL rehearsal at 9pm.   Scouting a good cup of coffee before i walk back to the theater.  Wish me luck!