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!