The Best and Worst of Times

Today I believe that I had the best and the worst of the classes I will take while here.

It’s true that I haven’t had all of my classes yet (and I promise to write a blurb about all of them once I have), but both of them gave off such strong impressions that I’m quite sure in my assessment.

Dance Performance, which started at 9:30 this morning and went for three and a half hours, was the class I have fallen in love with. To begin, the teacher, Giorgio, is one of the sweetest and funniest people I have met. In the words of one of the other dancers, he is “a living cartoon character.” And this statement is completely true. He has an adorable mixing of Italian and broken English (“Leave your brian in the garden!” Where brian = brain) and is constantly switching from a Fred Astaire-like trickster to a sweet guy constantly cracking jokes. In his class, we seem to be mostly working on improv and relaxing/breathing techniques in order to create better breath, grace, and intention in our movements. Since these are all things that Chris and Gina strive to teach us (and he really reminded me of Gina with some of his mind bending [ie: different motions with different timings done at the same time] warm-ups) and are things that I find to be really important to both technique and body health, I am really excited by this class and the growth I expect to gain from it. And all of these things combined make the three and a half hours go surprisingly quickly.

The other class we had today was Ballet. I know that I’ve never been a huge fan of ballet (boring warm up music, it can be so rigid and emotionless at times, can mess up your body easily, etc…), but I told myself that I had to give it chance, and, that if it was bad, it would only be and hour and a half anyways. Entering the studio, not all was bad. I mean none of our classes so far had had mirrors or marley so it was exciting to see those things, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. The fast pace of the exercises, the unfamiliar barre work, two distant and harsh teachers, and the pure instrumental music left me feeling unbalanced and unsure of myself and the technique I know I have been building on in Beloit. However, this was not rock bottom. I’d been through some bad ballet classes before (and one wonderful one.  Thank you Renay!), and I knew that if I weathered though my self-doubt I would most likely benefit from this class. Then I heard an awful horrible sentence come out of one of the teachers’ mouths:

“There is lazy turn out here.”

Now I took dance kinesiology and that taught me a lot of the stupid, excuse my language, shitty things that dancers can do to their bodies and pushing for perfect 180 degree turn out is one of those things. Along with not even being a useful trick for dance (I mean some turn out is necessary for certain movement, but that extreme of a turn out does nothing to help a dancer except to give them a more box-like pose in stillness. Blah.), it can be really harmful to a body if one turns out from the knee instead of the hip. Now, to give you perspective, most of the dancers in our group, excluding me and possibly one or two other girls, had fantastic or perfect 180 degree turn out. Unfortunately, I think she was referring to the group as a whole so this comment (and some of the other exercises we did) have made me feel that, if I’m not careful, I could seriously hurt myself in this class (or pick up dangerous dance habits).

There were a few good moments in class (I was able to pick up almost all of the combinations, even though the one teacher only spoke Italian, because we both spoke the common language of French dance terminology, and I did much better in center work than I expected to do), but my worry about my dislike of the style combined with the fear of injury had me leaving class feeling awful.

However, earlier tonight, my roommate mentioned to me that she had also really disliked the class for similar reasons, and, after much discussion, we have entered a pact. We will not let this class pressure us into harming ourselves either physically or emotionally. We will instead revel in our own bodies and their abilities and will take this class as an opportunity to see how our bodies can play with the ballet style….and we’ll also come to each other whenever a kvetch fest is needed. J

So that is where I am now: excited about Dance Performance class tomorrow and feeling more prepared for whatever this ballet class will throw at me.

Ciao!

The Important Things in Life: Gelato and Dance!

I promise that pictures and descriptions of my room, the villa, classes, and the city will come soon! For now, however, I have other important things to share about Saturday, our first day off.

 The day started off early at 10:30am as most of the group had decided to head to the market (which only occurs on Saturdays and lasts until 1pm) in Arezzo. I must admit that I was expecting mostly a farmers market with lost of food and produce available but mixed in with crafts, clothes, and maybe some other knick-knacks. Boy was I off! It turned out to be one looong road with stalls selling mainly clothing (very nice looking clothing) and accessories (like bags, sunglasses, shoes) but with the average price being around 10 euros. Every once in a while there were also stalls selling carpets or pillows and bedding, and, at the very end of the market, there was a second row of stalls that sold food. There was a lot of fresh produce there but also many carts selling bread, cheese, and meats. I ended up munching on some wonderful bread and grapes that some friends got, and I bought something soft and red with meat in it and some fries (thick but incredibly crunchy and salty, i.e. perfect) for lunch for 6 euros total. AWESOME.

After that, I ended up exploring (and getting lost in) Arezzo. It started with some of my friends looking for this one clothing store they could buy some essentials at, then led us past a gelateria (finally! I had been looking for one since our first trip to town!), and ended with us going out of the city through a different gate then normal and discovering a beautiful graveyard that I need to go back to sometime. Basically we didn’t make it back to the villa until 3:30pm that afternoon.

Around 6pm, I headed back into Arezzo with four other girls for dinner. We ended up eating at the Pizza Bar where I got a slice of pizza, a “hot dog”, and a drink for less then 4 euro (isn’t it lovely how cheap good food is here?). The pizza was good but not exceptional and the “hot dog” was this foot long pig in a blanket that I had to try. It was surprisingly good though the ketchup inside tasted more like barbeque sauce then ketchup.

After dinner we went back to Cherí, the gelateria. I ended up getting a rich chocolate flavor and a mixed flavor that I think was called Fiordinato (basically vanilla with caramel and nuts) in a coppa piccola, which was the smallest size but ended up being a lot of gelato. Not that I am complaining J

We then got directions from our very nice server to where the train station was so we could go to a dance performance that one of my dance teachers had invited the dancers (and any interested actors) to come see. The town the performance was at was the town right next to Arezzo so it was only a ten-minute train ride. I’ll spare you the details of us getting lost trying to find the theater and just go on to talk about the performance.

The theater itself was pretty interesting. The stage was just an ordinary proscenium, but the audience seating was made up of the seats on the floor and the many small private boxes that completely covered the walls and upper levels of the audience area. I ended up in one of these boxes with some friends, which was very exciting.

There were three dances that we got to see. The first, “Searching for Suite-Hope”, was a duet with dancers in bright single color t-shirts and pants. In the background, there were many paper cut outs of the boy and girl figures you see on bathroom doors. The dance started with a recorded monologue in Italian and then turned into a pulsating beat where the dancers did mainly sharp and hard repeated movements with barely any interacting. There was then a brief period of interaction based around getting into a hug and rejecting one via shirt pulling (this was one of my favorite moments in the piece), and then the second half of the dance was a solo comprised of movements with a fluid/jiggly quality. I know that makes it sound like sad jell-o, but it was actually a really interesting movement style (and it looked like it would be incredibly difficult to pull off correctly). The dance then ended with the soloist naked on the floor and the other dancer picking up the fallen cut outs and changing their colors and then putting up more girl cut outs. Here is a link to a trailer for the dance on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--OhtbD-ivQ

The next dance, “Verdinastella”, was a mix of dialogue spoken in Italian by the dancer and moments of dance where the movement seemed based off the ideas of being unbalanced physically and quirkiness. At the end of this dance, the soloist took off her shirt and everyone in my box began taking bets on whether there would be nudity in the last dance (end result: technically no, but the dancer’s costume was pretty thin in certain areas). My favorite part of this dance had to be the costumes. Both of the dresses she wore were both beautiful in design and flowed out when she would twirl. Here is a link to a trailer for this dance on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zd9ezXqQ6M

The last dance, “Psyche”, was also a solo though that’s where the resemblance ended. This dance began as very slow subtle changes from one position to another but then changed to very chaotic movement later. I must admit that, to me, the music for this dance eventually became way too loud and distracting (to the point of me actually having to cover my ears), and I disengaged from the performance. I was unable to find a video on youtube, but, if you’re interested in learning more, the choreographer’s name is Gabriella Maiorino.

Overall, there were some really interesting performances by some incredibly gifted dancers, but knowing a bit more Italian may have been helpful in understanding the intentions behind each dance.

Ciao!

Journeying and Arriving

I have been in Italy for over 24 hours now! Woo!

To sum up the journey over, the flights over weren’t too bad, though definitely not the best couple of flights to Europe I’ve had. The first flight filled up its overhead space before I got on and made me check my carry on only to have it not arrive at Italy when I got there. (It’s supposed to show up sometime soon-ish so that’s good.) And the second, the eight-hour one, I ended up not sleeping so well on since there was a baby crying the whole time (yes, for eight whole hours). My last flight went extremely well, though, at the terminal, I ended up sitting next to some other students from America. From their conversation I could obviously tell they were studying abroad in Italy, but the few times I tried to introduce myself they seemed uninterested and I overheard one girl say she “couldn’t wait to sleep, shower, and drink.” Oh dear lord, if these were my classmates, this was going to be a long trip.

Luckily, when we landed in Florence, it turned out that they were with an NYU trip…and that a ton of awesome Accademia students were also waiting for the shuttle. Between the jokes, the circle of saying names every time a new student came over, and the ukulele being played, I knew this was my kind of group.

The shuttle ride over to the Villa was beautiful (and we saw a Prada factory? I don’t know…) and, when I first saw Arezzo, I immediately thought, ‘Oh wow that town is so pretty! Oh PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let it be Arezzo.’ Both it and the villa are beautiful and I plan to upload pictures soon.

Not much else to report since today was just orientation (and yesterday I was so jet lagged that exploring, unpacking, and eating were all that I could do). Tomorrow classes begin so I’ll have more to tell soon!

"Where to, Captain Hawkins?" "To wherever the wind may take us!"

So today is the day I head out! Honestly, I’m still really nervous and a bit sad about going. This last semester was so wonderful; I had classes that I really enjoyed, I saw my choreography get chosen for Chelonia and ACDFA, and I was able to spend a lot time with good friends and become closer with a lot of them. I’m going to miss practicing with my dancers and seeing my dance performed on two stages with lights. I’m going to miss seeing all of my upperclassmen friends before they graduate and leave Beloit, and I’m just going to miss everyone I will see again soon. But, as a reader, I’ve always been told that it’s best to put down a book when you’re really enjoying it cause it means you’ll be excited to return to it. So have a good spring everyone! I can’t wait to see you later!

And now it’s time to go off and have an adventure! Ciao!

(Ok. NOW the excitement has hit me!)

The Worst Part of Going Away for a Semester

I wrote this yesterday, but I haven't had time to post it yet :p

So it has come to time to do the dreaded deed; the worst part of packing and by far the hardest. It is time for me to pick which books I’m taking with me.

Now cutting down my clothes by a third? Easy. Deciding not to bring crochet? Fine. But only allowing myself to bring 3 to 5 books? This is going to take a lot of time to figure out. I mean I take around 20 to 30 books with me to school and that is always a difficult process narrowing down from the thousand books I own. The books I take to school generally consist of most of my favorites, books I haven’t read or finished yet, and a few extras that just appeal to me when I pack them. And, although I usually do not get the chance to read all of them during the semester, the range of well-loved stories allows me to match my reading choices to whatever mood I’m in for the most enjoyable results. How can I give myself a good range of story and quality with only 3 to 5 books?

So now it’s time to make the choice. I unpack the books I took to Beloit last semester, and, as I place them back into their alphabetical slot on the shelf (yes, I do alphabetize, by author, my around 1,000 books), I can already see some cuts. Rick Riordian’s new book that I haven’t read yet? It’s hard and big, and I don’t know if its story quality will make the bulk worth it yet. One down. The Time Traveler’s Wife is soon is cut for similar reasons, and then many of my soft and small “realistic” dramas are put away. They’re some of my favorites, but they’re small and I’ve re-read them so much that they aren’t appealing re-reads currently. On a Pale Horse, The Oresteia, Dragonsinger (how did Anne McCaffrey get in here?), The Immortals Quartet, and my three anthologies quickly join the ranks of the re-shelved.

But amidst the cuts, I have found two that are coming with me: Tamsin, which I have known was coming with me since before finals, and Beast Behaving Badly (thank you Allison!). Now, if I’m good, what to choose for the third book? As I gaze at the shelves, eight books immediately call out: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Goddess of Yesterday, The Red Tent, Women’s Lip, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, Blood and Chocolate, any book in the Tiffany Aching Series, and Ella Enchanted. Now this will be hard.

After long deliberation, The Red Tent and a Tiffany Aching book are cut out of the ranks due to their sizes (and if I cut them out maybe I can have five books? Please?). Women’s Lip goes next by matter of the fact that I could basically quote that book word for word and so don’t need it physically in order to read it. After much denial, Blood and Chocolate is the next cut; I remember what happened the last time the story went to Europe (that is definitely one movie on my “It Didn’t Happen” list). This is a book that needs to stay in the states. It’s also very much a story to be read in the summer, and I look forward to reading it when I return home to hot temperatures.

I’m now down to four books, and I have not a clue left. Should I choose Hitchhiker’s Guide (the perfect traveler’s companion with an interesting voice), Goddess of Yesterday (because I love Greek mythology and my copy of The Iliad/ The Odyssey is way too huge), The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray (the only darker toned book on my list), or Ella Enchanted (what can I say, it’s a favorite)?

After a good solid ten minutes spent staring at the bookshelf in silence, my mother reminds me that I can choose three from this list and makes some suggestions. Luckily, this breaks the lock and I now have the five books I’m bringing: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Goddess of Yesterday, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, Beast Behaving Badly, and Tamsin.

Hopefully it’s enough!