Sunday Night Musings

The busiest people get the most done.

Saying that to myself makes me feel better when I open my calender and see a week like this week ahead of me. Though, it's actually not a scary, stressful week, just a pleasantly full week. I live for these weeks. And happily, there is no mock call this week for Group B (holla) and we have a material class on Tuesday (or the Kitchen Sink Class as I like to call it) rather than it's more refined and slightly more terrifying Panel counterpart. It's pretty chill as far as Practicum goes.

But it's this week that I get to perform HUG. We have two rehearsals Wednesday and Thursday night, and then we're performing Friday and Saturday. I couldn't be more excited! Where else but theater land will you get to help develop a piece that deconstructs the act of the hug, creating an empathetic and moving movement art piece that will involve the lives of complete strangers passing by you. It's gonna be awesome.

And in other news, tomorrow I start my new internship!! It's with the Aquila Theatre Company which is my faaaaaavorite theater company in all the land. They are seriously amazing. They present classics, from Ancient Greek Theater, to Shakespeare, to Oscar Wilde. They also do open readings of Greek plays with discussions and talk-backs relating ancient Greeks to modern life today. AND, they have this amazing educational program where they do Shakespeare with intercity kids. It's beautiful. I found out about them because I took a Greek Mythology class at NYU and my professor, Peter Meineck was the artistic director (he started the company in London. Did I mention they're all British?). So I saw their production of As You Like It and fell in love. I'm beyond thrilled to have the opportunity to intern for them this summer. Right now the whole company is in Greece workshopping Macbeth, so me and another intern are helping prepare for when they return to the States in September to perform it. The artistic director, Peter, is seriously incredible though. He's written many, many translations of Greek texts, academic papers, teaches at NYU, runs this theater company, and directs. It's actually funny how I got this internship because the class of his that I took was so large, he could never have known who I was (he had a bunch of TAs). But I would always see him at the library (where I worked at the time) and finally I worked up the courage to introduce myself and tell him I was obsessed with his theater company and wanted to be involved. So he gave me his personal email and told me to send him my resume. Dreams!

Now, alright Week. Here I gooooooooooooooooooooo.

HUG. BE A PART OF IT.

"With a simple hug: the one gesture that is understood without words, without political or cultural or religious bias. The hug is the first contact that we have after emerging from the womb. It is the first physical relationship that we form at our mother's breast, without which, we would die."- Johnny DeArden

I spent the weekend rehearsing a project called HUG, a performance art piece in which eight of us will be hugging each other next weekend (and anyone happening by who would like to join us), in Stuyvesant Cove Park next to the East River. This is my first time participating in "installation art"  and I'm thrilled it's with such a beautiful piece. It was developed by Julie Troost, a NYC based artist, and the idea had come to her after 9/11, when she was overcome with the desire to give back to the community and aid in the healing process.

Here's a little blurb from the website:
"H U G promotes community and individual healing and creates an opportunity to replace painful memories with new memories of hope. It supports small acts of kindness as the cornerstone of global social change. H U G creates opportunities for the people of a community to practice compassion for others, to collectively mourn its lost members and to memorialize tragic events."

Anyone who wants to contribute a personal story or memory of loss or conflict, can email hugperformance[at]gmail[dot]com. Your name will be kept anonymous and the submissions will be given to the audience as a little HUG book. 

June 24 and 25 at 6pm
Rain Date June 26 at 2pm
22st and East River (Stuyvesant Cove Park)

http://www.myspace.com/hugperformance
http://solar1.org/events/dance/

You can watch a 20min video of HUG at vimeo.com/julietroost.

 

HEADSHOT TIME

This is what I've been waiting for since last Saturday..

THE PROOFS.


AHHHHHHH IT'S MY FACE.

Now, as an actor one of your most important tools is your headshot. I went to Robert Mannis to finally do the deed (I'd been looking at different photographers for over a year. Yeah, I'm that kind of shopper) and I just got my proofs back. Oh boy is it strange to look at your face trying to emote at you. I mean, it's your face. Looking at you. It's weird. Getting them taken was definitely a learning process. For instance, I. Am. A. Mouth. Actor. Well, I always knew that, but it was my shoot that drove it home. Shall I define Mouth Actor?

Mouth Actor- adj/noun hybrid- a Mouth Actor is someone who, when acting, injects life, or expression, into his or her mouth. In other words, makes funny and/or weird mouth shapes and, by extension, faces. (i.e. Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, Natalie Dormer in The Tudors).

Well I have to say, I LIKE being a mouth actor. I do. And I know I'm not alone (hi, Natalie Dormer). Mouth acting (with the occasional rogue eyebrow) can be a cornerstone in anyone's practice. Good or bad, I'm going to EARN those facial wrinkles when I'm 40 (30?).

Anyway, Robert did an amazing job. He was a great presence during the shoot. What's really amazing is that he goes with you to Reproductions when they do the retouching (retouching. yessssss), so you actually look like your photo when it's all done. Imagine that, huh?

"O brave new world, that has such people in it."

Exactly one month ago, I was thousands of miles across one of the greatest body of water in the world, being a foreigner. In fact, it was the past four months that I played the part of foreigner, and gladly. I was in London, studying Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. And while I was over there, I bus/planed/trained it anywhere I could in whatever time I could make. If I could describe my whole experience in one sentence it would be that never have I felt so little and so big at the same time. I became a sponge, soaking up all these new things, expanding with every person I met, sight I saw, building I touched, food I smelled and tasted. At the same time, I felt incredibly humbled. I found myself in amazing places, standing in great, green fields with nothing but sky and giant clouds rolling past me, lying against the sun on a slow moving punty boat, bike riding through the countryside in the rain, standing on a volcano, standing next to gargoyles high up in the air, standing, walking, taking my body and mind to places so much bigger than myself. I felt blessed, undeserving, excited about life, connected, sometimes unconnected, exhilarated, and always in awe.

I got back home just a couple weeks ago, spent a week with my family in Baltimore, MD, and now I'm back in New York City, starting life as a new graduate from NYU and working through CAP21's summer Industry practicum. It feels wonderful to be home, but I do miss the giant clouds. At least its the same sky.

A teacher I met in London told me "experience is food for your work." It relates to something I've been thinking on lately: sometimes you go into something knowing what you want to learn, but come out realizing all that you still need to learn. In other words, I'm still grocery shopping.

My name is Christina, I live in New York City, and I'm an actor, singer, and dancer. Welcome to my blog!