Accademia dell'Pelvis

Well...it seems that finding the time to keep up a blog is more difficult than I'd imagined, especially with the world's most unreliable WiFi. But considering how great everything else is, some spotty internet every now and then is something I'm perfectly willing to tolerate.

The way our schedule works is that we have classes Monday through Friday from 9am until either 5 or 7pm, and then sometimes extra events at night. Each class is two hours long, except for Commedia dell'Arte, which lasts 4 hours. Our main courses that we have throughout the majority of the semester on a rotating schedule are voice, movement, commedia, philosophy, and Italian. Then there are shorter classes that get thrown into the schedule for a short amount of time or on a much less frequent basis, such as juggling, tarantella, commedia lecture, and some work with guest artists on commedia, voice, and contact improv.

Since I last wrote, we've done a lot more sweating in movement class with Claudia, where we've been working on yoga, tumbling, handstands, headstands, lifts, contact improv, and so much more. We've been unlocking our voices with Kevin, who shall henceforth be known as the magical wizard who knows exactly what to say in order to make the most beautiful sounds come out of our mouths. We've been learning some key phrases in Italiano, such as the days of the week, months, numbers 1-100, and how to say, "I'm sorry, my Italian is very bad." We've had many very deep philosophy discussions, such as the one today where Scott, (the founding director of the Accademia and also the world's most brilliant man) who was sitting in on the class, explained to us that capitalism is systematically destroying itself by allowing too much technological innovation and thus forcing more and more workers into a consumer society to which they subsequently have no money to contribute, because the machines stole their jobs. Oh, and also...

Pelvis. So much pelvis. All the pelvis. In everything we do, particularly in our more active classes, the common denominator is (oddly enough) the pelvis. In movement class, we've been working on the Feldenkrais technique, which is entirely centered around the pelvis and visualizing the pelvis as a clock face and lying on the ground and moving the pelvis, and standing up and moving around by leading with the pelvis. We've also been doing some contact improv, which basically entails gliding your hands all over your partner's body and your own body and the floor as you move through the space together. (*Editor's note: I sat here for ten minutes trying to come up with a less inappropriate-seeming description of contact improv. There isn't one. It just sounds inappropriate. But it isn't. I promise.*) So yeah, there's basic full-body contact improv, but then we started to get more specific by honing in on (you guessed it) the pelvis. We were tasked with moving our partners across the room by pelvis to pelvis contact only. Then in voice, Kevin is also activating our pelvises in our breathing exercises. And then in EBAS, which is the optional Sunday evening workshop focusing on spinal awareness and alignment, all of the rolling up and rolling down and contracting and twisting starts from the pelvis. Here at Accademia dell'Arte, it's all pelvis all the time. (Hi mom.) We've begun to affectionately call the school "pelvis camp" because the only word you hear more frequently than "pelvis" around here is "nutella."

We've had two juggling classes this week, which has been so much fun. I knew how to do a basic three-ball pattern before coming here, but Scotty, one of the MFA students who has been leading the class, gave me some pointers on how to make my technique smoother, and he also taught us some tricks! I now know how to "steal," which literally means walking up to somebody while they are juggling and taking the balls from them while they're flying through the air and continuing to juggle them. It's hilarious. I'm also working on a flash start, which is throwing all three balls into the air at once and then starting to juggle by snatching the bottom two and then working the third into the regular pattern.

We also had Tarantella last Friday with Gianni. Tarantella is a traditional dance that originated in Southern Italy as a remedy for a tarantula bite. Musicians would play and the afflicted person would dance and dance through the night to avoid succumbing to the poison. There's really no way to describe that class other than to say it was a religious experience. By the time we finished our dance, I had tears of euphoria in my eyes. I can't wait until our next session, which is next week.

Friday night, we all went into town to Spazioseme, an artsy space that Gianni helps run, because there was an open stage happening. Some students from ADA were signed up to perform, as well as some of the masters students and some of the locals. I was excited because I was sure it would be a lot of fun to watch all these artists perform...but I had no idea how moving it would be. Each performance was beautiful, and then somehow, the performance that followed was even more beautiful. And then, at the very end, Gianni himself, who just that morning had given us all the gift of the tarantella, stood up and sang the most glorious song. It was called "Le Tue Mani" (which means "Your hands"), and was about remembering someone you love after they're gone. I had such an emotional reaction to the beauty of the art that night, which was an excellent reminder of why I'm here and how powerful a performance can be.

This past Saturday, I went with some friends (Amanda, Karli, Jess, Chelsea, Clay, and Mae) to Florence for the day. We didn't really plan anything out, but when we got there, everything just fell into place beautifully. We saw the duomo, crossed the Ponte Vecchio, saw the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti, climbed to the top of the Piazzolo Michelangelo to get a view of the city, found an amazing free art gallery, stumbled upon the coolest thrift shop ever (I bought the most perfectly terrible sweater), and ate at a delicious restaurant. On our way back to the train station, two amazing things happened. Firstly, I had wanted to revisit the best gelato spot from my high school choir's trip to Firenze junior year, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called. All I knew was that it was somewhere near Santa Croce, but I didn't know specifically where. However, Chelsea's dad had recommended a gelato place that he had visited years earlier, so we decided to just go there instead. And it. Was. The. SAME. PLACE. That I had been trying to find. It's called Il Vivoli. I got a little teary-eyed when I saw it. (Yes, the gelato is that good.) Then, after we had the best gelato of all time, we kept heading toward the station. When we got to the duomo, we stopped to admire the way it looked in the twilight, and also to listen to a man who was playing his guitar on the sidewalk. Clay, who plays guitar very well, went over and kinda sat near the guy. He turned, pointed to Clay, and then pointed to the guitar, making a face that said, "Do you play?" Clay was like, "No no no," but we all said, "Yes! He plays!" And the man stood up, handed his guitar to Clay, and let him play. Clay sat there, feet from the duomo in Florence, and played a song on the street. It was so amazing. That stuff doesn't happen. Except it did. To us. In Florence.

We have a full day of class tomorrow, and then I'm heading out for the weekend to Cinque Terre with some friends, so I should probably get some sleep. There aren't enough words to explain how amazing this experience has already been. Feeling blessed and excited to keep working and keep learning and keep living. A presto!

Piacere

This past Thursday was our first day of classes. After breakfast in the Mensa, Group B headed off to our first voice and speech class with Kevin Crawford, who had told us at orientation that he studied under a man who believed that there were, “No larynxes; only courage,” and if you couldn’t make a certain sound, it was just because you didn’t have the courage. So going in, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but we had a wonderful time, and Kevin is amazing. Next we had Movement with Claudia, a lovely German ex-circus performer who enjoys wreaking havoc on our thighs. As sore as we were the following morning, the class truly was quite enriching, but that didn’t stop us all from crossing our fingers that round two the following day would be slightly less painful. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.) After movement, we had lunch and then all of the theatre students headed into town to meet Monica, our head of student life and a true joy of a woman, at the duomo (or rather, Cattedrale San Donato) for a walking tour of Arezzo. She told us stories about the town’s history, and showed us many of her favorite places, as well as some practical spots like the ATM, train station, and information center. After the tour (complete with gelato break) ended, we were free to roam around town as long as we were back at the villa for dinner, so a few of us took a leisurely walk through some little shops on our way back. We bought some essentials: wine and postcards. Later on, we all hung out in the Limonaia, which is a small building adjacent to the villa that serves as the rec room where we store all our food, play cards, do homework, get WiFi, and just enjoy each other’s company.

As previously mentioned, come Friday morning, Villa Godiola was filled with a chorus of groans and complaints such as, “I can’t walk,” “Ahhhhhhhh I’ve never felt such pain,” and, “I think somebody removed my legs while I slept and replaced them with limp slices of bologna.” As fate would have it, Group B had movement class again first thing that morning, and given our current state of near paraplegia, we were less than excited to do all the lunges and turning and sitting and standing and general leg work that we’d experienced the day before. Luckily, Claudia took some pity on us and let us do lots of rolling around on the floor, which sort of helped the indefinable agony we all felt in our legs. But only sort of, because after she stretched us out, we start working on our handstands, which also required lots and lots and lots of lunging. RIP thighs. After movement, we had our first Philosophy and the Arts class with Emilija, which honestly was a lot to sit through after two hours of intense movement, and also because half the time, I wasn’t sure what we were even talking about. But I’m hoping I’ll warm up to the subject in time. Next was lunch, followed by our first Italian class! This one I found to be a lot of fun. Lorenza, our professor, spoke to us in Italian the entire time, but somehow made us magically understand everything she was saying. We scribbled down her words furiously, and got to practice our conversation skills a bit. After Italian, we had some free time, which I happily used to take a nap. Then it was time for the official ADA Welcome Dinner, including all the undergrad music and theatre students, the MFA acting students, and the entire staff. There was wine, cheese, pasta, pizza, and every type of delicious food you could think of spread out in a huge buffet, and the tables were candle lit to commemorate the occasion. After dinner, we all headed over to the Salla Danza (one of the rehearsal studios) for an Open Stage night where anybody who wanted to perform could sign up in advance and share any kind of short piece with the whole group. There was singing, hula hooping, impressions, bluegrass, and some comedy from the student emcees. I had signed up to sing, and I was shaking, because there are few things more terrifying than standing at the front of a brightly-lit room filled with extremely talented people and baring your soul by sharing a song (without accompaniment because you’re not cool enough to know any instruments), but I pushed myself to do it because I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. When it was my turn, I sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and asked the whole room to sing along during the choruses. The room came alive with harmonies when everyone sang together, and the beauty of the sheer unity and companionship of it nearly moved me to tears. It was one of those rare, “Yes, we are all here right now, and we are all together,” moments that make you thankful.

Saturday morning, we walked to the weekly street fair in town. Vendors set up tables and tents and sell clothing, food, shoes, and a whole host of other things. It's a lot of fun. After we bought a few wonderfully tacky Italian t-shirts, we wandered over to a fruit stand. I wanted to buy one nectarine, but I didn't know the Italian word for nectarine, so I pointed to them and said to the vendor, "Come si dice en Italiano?" He told me...but ironically enough, I don't remember. Then he said in English, "Where are you from?" I said, "Sono americana di Connecticut."An Italian woman who was standing nearby chuckled, probably amused at my shoddy attempt at Italian. I then told the man in Italian that I only wanted one nectarine. He handed one to me, and when I tried to pay, he refused, and even threw in some small plums for free. I guess they really do appreciate when you try to speak the language. Later that night, we wandered back into town and ate dinner at a Kebap place, and even though it was pretty much the opposite of Italian food, it was magically delicious. 

Sunday was a calm day that included a walk to the grocery store, some feeble attempts at homework, having pizza delivered to the villa, and an EBAS class that focused on spinal alignment and awareness. It was very different and challenging, but already quite rewarding. And then today we had more class. Everything here is wonderful. A presto!

Benvenuto

One car, two planes, three airports, two trains, three train stations, and one extremely harrowing cab ride later, I finally made it to Villa Godiola in Arezzo, Italia on Tuesday afternoon. And just...wow. If anything is worth a 24-hour sleepless journey, it's this view. I'll hopefully be able to post some pictures soon, but I promise you, I'm living in a postcard. The town has a sort of medieval charm to it, and there are vineyards everywhere you turn. I was surprisingly among the first group of students to make it to the villa, so I had a little bit of time to just settle in and start unpacking (and to stop smelling like an airplane) before dinner time. We eat every meal in the Mensa, and the food so far has certainly lived up to expectations. After dinner, Genevieve (an ADA alum who now works at the villa) dragged our jet-lagged behinds down many hilly and windy cobblestone roads (and a few escalators) to show us the town and the night life, and also (primarily) to prevent us from going to sleep too early and being overtired the following day as a result. Also, after depositing us at Mr. Bloom's, a bar that was at least a half an hour by foot from the villa, Genevieve had to return early to help one student who was just arriving because her flight had been delayed, which meant that we were all entrusted with the task of finding our way home in the dark, which seemed daunting, but ended up being fairly straightforward. We eventually did trek all the way back up the hill, where I don't think I've ever been more thrilled to see a bed waiting for me.

This morning, when asked how I slept, I replied, "I slept like a person who hadn't slept for a long time and then slept very well." Which was true. Today was orientation day, so we were introduced to the theatre and music faculty, the program schedule, a local grocery store called Pam, and to the villa itself. Hearing everything today just made me very excited about what's to come. After dinner tonight, a few of us wandered back into town to get some gelato (when in Rome, right?) and it was quite lovely. Classes start tomorrow! We in theatre group B have a voice class followed by a movement class, and then Monica (the director of student life) will be taking us on a tour of Arezzo.

Time for bed now. Sleepy, sleepy Kristen. Everything has been glorious so far, and I'm really looking forward to whatever tomorrow has in store for me. A presto!

Andiamo

As I prepare for my imminent departure (T-minus 19 hours!), I naturally figured the best thing to do would be to write this post that likely nobody will read, because, well...they don't know it exists. But yeah, I fly out tomorrow to begin my journey abroad at Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italia! (*the imaginary crowd goes wild*) Keep it real, America. I'll see you in four months.