COMMotion

Friday, aka two days ago, was our showcase.

All of our work over the past 2-3 months, our four 14-16 hour days in the school leading up to it, all of it culminated to this event.  It was spectacular.

Last week, a wonderful assortment of people stayed after school with us often until almost 8 or 9 o’clock to help with set building.  We were behind on construction and struggling with scheduling conflicts caused by the musical’s rehearsals, but Paul, Nina, Ricky, Priya, Alex, RJ, Brandon, and others stuck with Irina and I and did everything they could to make things work.  Their positivity and hard work means so much to us, and its because of them that we were so successful.

Now onto the process

Leading up to the event, there were setbacks, but also so many wonderful memories made.

We stayed after school every day all week to work on painting our four standing flats and our four risers

Ran out of paint several times and had to send people to buy more

Bought and brought food to sustain us

Got kicked out of the school on Thursday because we didn’t have an adult with us (oops)

Had some fun with helium balloons

Had our auditorium use scheduled over by the musical’s rehearsals and by Minithon

Spilled lots of paint on ourselves (and the walls…and floors…)

Listened to Nina and Irina sing and Ricky playing guitar while we worked

Impromptu dancing and lots of joking around

We had our final rehearsal on Wednesday

Had to push it back because of musical rehearsal

Started an hour late even after that

We only had three channels to run four lapels and two hand mics through, RJ and I had to do a lot of planning because of this

Here is one of the lapels we got to use

Had to figure out all the positions for the crew to move the risers around to

Figured out the lighting and hung up our snowflakes we had made

Figured out we didn’t have a mic. stand (god bless Brandon for bringing us one)

Actually rehearsed

Everyone did so well! They had to deal with us rushing but were so tolerant of us

I compiled all of the figures for crew, all of the lighting cues, and all of the information of what mic. goes where when

I always have to be hyper organized if you can’t tell

Had some final errands to run on Friday

We made the program during school that day

Got kicked out of the library while printing it

Ended up with 60 copies of the fliers in color with the back sides printed up side down (creative problem solving helped us work around this)

Set up the Art Expo (Thankyou Brandon, Mr. Libby, Zoe, and everyone else that I ordered around while setting that up haha)

Here are some of the displays, our artists at PV are so talented!

Set up the bake sale (special thanks to Irina’s mom for making all the tasty food and to Nina’s mom for helping run it)

LOOK AT THIS FOOD SHE MADE OMG

Hung up fairy lights that Mary and Cali brought us, it made things look super pretty

Ran a quick and effective cue-to-cue at 5:30 because we needed more rehearsal

Had our final runthrough of the group song, Song of Purple Summer

Got the wrong a wrong hand mic, so I had to fix some channel issues but everything was fine

RJ had to fix some lighting problems on the stage, idk what was wrong or how he fixed it but he worked some magic

Got all the walkie talkies set up for crew

And then it was time

We ended up opening up 15 minutes later than planned, but really, what shows are ever exactly on time?  Everyone took their positions, RJ and I off stage left controlling lighting and sound, Zoe with us giving directions to stage crew and preparing to start the show with her tween, binders at the ready for the reading of the tweens, Alex and Shawn in the lighting box for the spotlights, and we were off.

18 scenes and 17 tweens in two acts including two dances, poetry, song performances, and more went by swiftly amid backstage nerves, anxiety about getting everyone in position with the right mics and lights and stage set up, but everything went as planned.  I ripped the knee of my jeans when a lapel got stuck on them, we had to run the tween folder out to some people, we switched someone’s mic while they were on stage, spotlights flickered, and more chaos occurred, but it just made things all the more memorable.  There were no show stopping issues, nothing that couldn’t be remedied, and I got to finish up with no regrets. It was absolutely amazing.  Irina was in just about everything, she read a poem, wrote a poem to be read, had art in the showcase, choreographed and participated in a dance, read tweens, and sang in the group song.  She is SO unbelievably talented and was so far beyond successful in being the director of the showcase, I’m so proud.

After the Show

Afterwards, we made quick work of clean up and headed to the diner to celebrate with everyone. Then yesterday, RJ and I recorded as many acts as we could with help from everyone that showed up so that we can make a nice video to sum up the event.  We still have to breakdown the set and receive all of the photos that were taken at the showcase, but that can be worried about later.

I feel like I’m floating in a bubble of happiness, so so thankful for everyone who helped out with this show, from my wonderful cast and hardworking crew (shoutout to Rachel, who amazed me with her resilience and creativity as assistant director - this was the first show she’s ever been in!!), and to all the volunteers who helped set up the performance and art exhibition. And I’m especially thankful for my amazing mother, who stayed up the night before, baking food for the bake sale/concession stand, then manning the concession stand during the show along with Nina’s mother!​​

After two months of hard work, everything came together in such an incredible way, I could not have asked for a more rewarding experience.

THE SHOW

In the two weeks leading up to the showcase, everything was flowing quite smoothly.

Rachel and I would spend a majority of our time in Design Lab either cutting out these huge snowflakes for decoration, or painting the flats and platforms for the set.

Priya would write up our blog posts for the class, and help us whenever we needed a hand.

Last week, I posted a reflection on rehearsals, specifically group song rehearsals, with a video attached of us learning the sign language for Song of Purple Summer. Go check that out!

I had a crap ton of loose ends to tie up.

I had to revise the entire show program/playbill because we made a bunch of changes to the scenes and lineup of acts at the last minute. So throughout the school day (during lunch and Design Lab), I sat down and rushed to make the necessary changes.

Rachel, darling that she is, made sure that the set was finished and then helped me make the programs look nice. We stayed after school so that we could print the programs (and boy did that take a lot of time) and set up the art show.

I’m going to bow down to *queen* Rachel because she is truly a powerhouse. She took charge of setting up the entire art show, and she did a fantastic job with it!

The art itself was abso-frickin-lutely amazing! We hung strings of lights around the auditorium lobby for decoration, and the entire exhibition looked breath-taking.

We had a cue-to-cue rehearsal yesterday from 5:30, before the show. 

We desperately needed it, because we hadn’t run the show in its entirety yet. The actual cue-to-cue went well, credit to the cast and crew for working so well together and coming prepared - everyone knew when their scenes were, where to be, etc.

We had some technical issues as we were starting the cue-to-cue: at first NONE of the stage lights were working! 

RJ, who was doing lights and tech, ran an extension chord from the catwalk above the stage down to a table backstage, connecting the stage lights to his light board so that he could control them. For some reason, even though the extension chord was plugged and showed that it was working, the lights wouldn’t respond when RJ put them on. This was happening less than an hour before the show started. We decided to run through the cue-to-cue regardless, using just the spotlight and making sure that the acts and scene changes ran smoothly.RJ went up to the catwalk to try and fix the light issue. (He did eventually, but we still don’t know why they weren’t working)

Then, another problem came up: we realized that we had gotten the wrong microphones. 

We had to borrow microphones from the school office (4 lapel mics and 2 handhelds), since we didn’t have our own. (When we found out that lapel mics were an option, we were super excited, because they allow for a much greater range of motion and the user doesn’t have to worry about how they’re holding them.)

* Quick side note: I made an incredibly stupid mistake earlier that day - I forgot to get the mics from the office. I was setting up the stage for the cue-to-cue when RJ asked me, “hey Irina, where are the microphones?”. 

I froze. 

The only thing running through my head was ‘holy shit holy shit holy shit’. 

And I took off, running to find one of the janitors. The mics were locked in a safe in one of the office closets, and only the administrators knew the code to that safe. I nearly broke down when I remembered that. All of this planning and hard work, going up in flames because I was stupid enough to forget to get the microphones. Thankfully, it turned out that there was a basketball game going on at that exact time, and one of the administrators was there. She unlocked the safe, I got the microphones, and booked it back to the auditorium in record time. **

The sound board backstage could only have 3 mics on at a time - either 2 lapels and 1 handheld or vice versa. And only certain mics could be turned on at the same time (for example, only lapel 1 and 3 could be on at the same time, and only 2 and 4 could be put on together), same thing with the handheld mics.​​

During dress rehearsal on Wednesday, Rachel and RJ had made sure to connect each of our microphones to the correct channel in the sound system, and they could only work if they were synced to that channel. When we started to do the cue-to-cue, we realized that we had borrowed the wrong handheld microphone, and that it wouldn’t work with any of the other mics that we had. Thankfully, Rachel figured out that we could just sync the microphone to one of the other channels, so we got back on track again. 

We ended up pushing opening back 15 minutes; instead of letting people in at 6:30, we let them in at 6:45. Everyone was rushing around backstage, making final touches to their makeup, making sure the mics were in order, and getting in their places.

And then the show started.

The curtains open with me standing center stage, on the square platform. 

My heart is pounding, my stomach in knots. I let out a slow breath, trying to calm my pulse. I close my eyes for a second, blinded by the spotlight, then look out at the audience. Vague black shapes can be seen in the audience, with faces peeking out here and there. My eyes immediately find Gillian, sitting down in the audience. My muscles relax, and I start speaking.

“This is for the fat girls.This is for the little brothers.This is for the schoolyard wimps and the childhood bullies that tormented them.For the former prom queen and for the milk crate ball players,for the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired elderly Walmart storefront door greeters. Shake the dust.”

After that opening poem (Shake the Dust by Anis Mojgani), the entire night was a blur.

At first I was really worried, rushing around to make sure that everyone was at their places and had their mics, that the crew knew what set change was next and that everyone was quiet backstage. But after a while I realized that I didn’t need to micro-manage it all.

I stepped back and let everyone do their thing, and guess what - it went perfectly! 

I stood behind the flats that hid the backstage area and watched each act, tearing up a little at a sad poem, laughing when Ivy went out to read a Shakespearean soliloquy. And I was amazed at how wonderful each act was, how well the audience responded, how everything just fell into place.

At the end of the show, everyone took their bows and waved to the audience. Then Nina stepped forward as the curtains were closing, telling everyone to wait a second. She was holding a bouquet of roses, and pulled me, bumbling mess I was, forward with her. And as she thanked me for organizing the showcase, I looked around at all my friends, surrounding me on stage, and I thought “this is why I do theater. This is what makes it all worth it”.

And now, just a day later, post-show depression is hitting me, hard.

Communicating his transition in motion

It would be so awesome, even if the physics of the thing would puzzle the heck out of me.

that’s a Miles Davis quote by the way…

Last week was interesting, we’ve accomplished a lot and learned a lot, and we have a solid objective to work towards now, which is good. We’ve decided to do our latest dance, Medicine, during the Winter Showcase and actually talk about our project. We want to provide support to people who are affected by certain social issues while also encouraging conversation about the issues themselves. Conversation leads to change, and we want to do a small part to facilitate that. 

We all play a different part in this project, it’s kind of like we’re all doing our pieces and it all factors in to this collective goal. Irina and I are part of a our second dance together now for COMMotion. The first dance was called Kaleidoscope. We were all of different backgrounds in respect to dance and ethnicity, but by dancing together we were trying to show that diversity is beautiful. We had a photoshoot for this dance beforehand and the photos were incorporated in a video. Here’s a picture of the four of us who were in the dance, Nikki, Moraine, myself (Priya), and Irina, left to right, laughing at who-knows-what. 

As you can see, we’re all different looking, but we can still collectively do really cool things. The rehearsals were/are different than regular dance rehearsals, because rather than copying choreography, we’re figuring out how to incorporate our original styles of dance into the group dance to make it flow seamlessly while still being unique. We want to be able to differentiate our styles of dance while still having the dance fit together. It was a challenge, but the final product was gorgeous. 

Here’s a pose from one of our rehearsals. I’m doing a traditional bharatanatyam pose, especially my hands. And that’s the thing, not all of us have contemporary backgrounds.

I’m trained in classical Indian dance called Bharatanatyam. Compared to western dance, it involves a lot more direct storytelling and footwork. It’s a different kind of graceful. And our costumes are incredibly elaborate and tiring to put on. 

In this pose, I’m supposed to be talking about how much I admire a goddess and how badly I wish to see her. I’m trying to show the expression on my face, but dear god it takes years to develop.

This pose is honestly just cool. It’s usually supposed to be a pose done in the “snake dance.” I’m literally supposed to a snake. It’s wonderful :)

Irina does traditional Bulgarian dance. I don’t know too too much about it, but the costumes are beautiful, and I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of energetic footwork. I feel like you’d get a huge adrenaline rush while dancing as you move to the same beat as other people. I made her give me a couple pictures, here they are. 

LOOK HOW CUTE!!!

So our next dance is called Medicine. It’s about drug addiction. It starts out with one girl being addicted and how she slowly drags everybody into her addiction with her. We all get addicted by different means, one is peer pressure and another is curiosity, with the third being literally dragged into it with no other option. It’s super cool, and I think it’s going to turn out to really move people. 

OKAY

So I’ve been researching a brain response called neural entrainment. It’s the first of many many aspects of neural responses that I want to look into. Basically, the human body is capable of registering a beat, or a rhythm. Some people are better at it than others. For example, if you play a loud beat on a drum, people can usually internalize it and tap it out on their own. They can essentially feel the beat. When people get better at it, they can recognize beats with syncopation, which is when there is silence in place of the beat. Being able to recognize the beat whether or not there is a distinct sound to tap it out is what makes people good dancers. You have to be able to feel the eight count even when it’s not obvious to stay in sync. I think it’s really cool that the body naturally does that though. That’s why I titled it with that quote, “in music, silence is more important than sound.”

12/19/16: For my AP Art class, I’m animating a project on the theme of time.  For each project I’m trying to do something very different from what is traditionally done in this class, and so far I’ve been successful.  I still need to color it frame by frame, there are 53 frames.  This is 11 hours of work so far oh my.