Cucchiaio

This entry has nothing to do with spoons. I just love saying the word “cucchiaio.” Go ahead. Say it out loud. It’s pronounced coo-key-EYE-oh. I dare you not to smile.

Today is November 12^th. Like…what? How can it already be the middle of November? That means I’ve been here for over two months, which also means that the ratio of days I’ve been here to days I have left here is growing dangerously high. You know what they say: Time flies when you spend your days in Tuscany rolling around on the ground and eating fresh gnocchi.

I got home to the villa this past Sunday afternoon after an incredible weekend in Venice and Florence. All the ADA theatre students traveled together by train on Thursday, November 7th to Venice and checked into our lovely hostel called Foresteria Valdese that reminded us of the bedrooms from Madeline and had a balcony view right on one of the canals. A group of us then walked with Claudia, our beautiful movement teacher, and Monica, our amazing head of student life, to the Biennale, the modern art exhibition that happens in Venice once every two years. (Hence the name, which means "biannual" in Italian.) I referred to it as the Olympics of art, because countries from all over the world send work to be displayed, and each country gets their own little building where the art is shown. We walked from building to building in a lovely outdoor garden, getting a completely different experience in each one. Our large group split up when we were in the exhibit, so I was walking around with just Amanda and Claudia. I loved seeing how different each piece was from country to country. I was particularly fascinated by the exhibits from Israel and the USA, but the one thing that stood out to me the most was in the exhibit from the Netherlands. The doorway to the building was covered in newspapers, and I had hardly noticed them on the way in. As we were leaving, I glanced at one of the headlines and did a double take because it seemed to just be three random words strung together. I started to read the article and realized that it was utter nonsense. It was written in English, but none of it made any sense grammatically. I looked at the other papers to find more of the same. We were perplexed, so we read what had been posted by the artist about the exhibit. It turns out that he had created all those newspapers himself. They were comprised of every single word in the English language, and each word was used only one time. It absolutely blew my mind. We didn't have time to see every country because the garden closed at 6pm, but what we did see was outstanding. That night, we all went out for pizza as a group. It was my friend M.E.'s birthday, so afterward, we went out for a glass of wine before heading to bed.

On Friday morning, we had breakfast at the hostel and then boarded the vaporetto, a Venetian water taxi, to head to the island where we would be taking classes that day. The rehearsal space we were using was gorgeous. We had an amazing movement class in the morning with Claudia, and then we broke for lunch. Before our Commedia class started in the afternoon, all sixteen of the Muhlenberg students in the room had to register for spring classes. It was quite stressful, but we made it through, and had a great class with Michela. We headed back to the mainland, and we had just gotten back to the hostel when my friend Mike walked into the room and said he had found a relatively inexpensive gondola ride opportunity and was wondering if anybody was interested. It was dark and it was drizzling, and Mike, Amanda, Kevin and I rode in a gondola along with two Canadian girls. The buildings all lit up along the Grand Canal at night were breathtaking. I asked the gondolier if he would sing us a song. He said no. I then proceeded to sing a small snippet of an Italian song that I knew to make up for the lack of musical accompaniment to the lovely views. After our gondola ride, we met up with some other friends went out to dinner, then met a very kind street vendor who was selling the most beautiful candle holders that his family had made with polymer clay. He spoke to us in Italian about his favorite places in Italy and gave us advice on how to be safe in Venice. We then ventured to a jazz bar that had bras hanging from all over the ceiling (apparently patrons donate them to contribute to the ambiance). Then we got some snacks at a little cafe and hung out in a piazza where there was a statue of Goldoni, the most famous Commedia dell'Arte playwright. M.E. and I did our Commedia scene in front of the statue, except we used random Italian phrases instead of the actual text, which made it a lot funnier. We all also chose that moment to practice the new multiple person weight sharing game we had learned in movement that day, so all the Italians walking by definitely thought we were out of our minds. #physicaltheatreproblems.

The next morning, Saturday, was spent wandering the streets of Venice as Amanda, Lily, Joseph and I headed to St. Mark's square to visit the basilica and the Palazzo Ducale, home to the prison from which Casanova once escaped. My deep love for St. Mark's basilica that was established four years ago when my high school choir sang there was instantly rekindled as I walked through the door. The ceiling is detailed in gold leaf, which makes the whole church shimmer in the light. I got to see part of a mass and hear the readings in Italian, which was beautiful and made me miss going to church in the states. We then made our way to the station to meet the rest of our group and catch a train to Florence, where most of the students then transferred to another train to Arezzo, but I stayed in the city with Amanda, Janie, Genevieve, and M.E. to celebrate M.E. and Genevieve's birthdays. We went out for a nice dinner, hung out for a while at a bar called Volume where we enjoyed delicious nutella and banana crepes, and then spent the night in a hostel. Sunday morning, we had some pastries and a cappuccino on our way to the train station, and then I spent the evening relaxing in the villa watching the rain. Even bad weather is beautiful when it's happening in Tuscany.

As far as other stuff that's happened between fall break and Venice...Here are a few highlights:

The first Friday after fall break, there was another open stage night happening in town at Spazio Seme, which is the creative space that our tarantella teacher Gianni helps run. I decided to perform, because I was scared to do it, but I also knew that it would be something I’d always remember. I sang the song, “If You Want Me,” from the musical Once, while my friend Clay played guitar and harmonized with me. I was so thrilling to sing one of my favorite songs not just for an audience of my peers, but also for a bunch of Italian strangers. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be here and to be able to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities to grow as an artist.

The next day, Saturday October 26^th, I went to Florence with Amanda. We went to the juggling store that our juggling teacher, Scotty, had recommended. The man there was very sweet, and gave us the name of a place where we could go on Wednesday nights to meet other jugglers if we wanted to. Then we went to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see the David. There was an exhibit on loan from the Uffizi that had a lot of medieval religious art, which was really cool to see. Then we rounded the corner, and there he was. I had seen David four years prior when I was in Italy with my high school choir…but that didn’t stop him from taking my breath away. He is one work of art that is really not overhyped. Most statues you see are rocks in the shape of men. David is a man that happens to be made of rock. The detail and life in the stone is unbelievable. I’m so happy I went back to see him. Then Amanda and I met up with my friend Kayla, who is currently studying in Florence. She showed up the best place in town to get sandwiches, cannolis, and gelato. We explored a little bit, and then hung out with Kayla in her apartment before I headed to the train station. It was so great to see her- a little taste of home all the way on the other side of the world.

We had a two-week long mask making class with a Swedish master mask maker named Torbjorn. I was definitely apprehensive going in, since I do not consider myself to be a person with any visual art aptitude whatsoever. I hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to magically charm a piece of leather into becoming face shaped, but I resolved to be open-minded and to give it my best shot. On the first day, Torbjorn introduced us to the process and asked us to pair up, because to save time and resources, we would be making plaster mask molds in partners and then using them to make two leather copies of the same mask. My partner was my friend Mike. The first day, we started to shape clay into the face of our chosen characters. Mike and I had chosen to make Arlecchino, one of the servant characters. Over the next few classes, we finalized the shaping of the clay, smoothed out any bumps with special tools, layered sheets of plaster onto the clay face, removed the clay from the plaster shell, mixed liquid plaster, poured it into the plaster shell, let it set, peeled off the shell, shaped the leather onto the new hard plaster mold, cut off the extra leather around the border of the mask, cut eye holes, and attached a string to the mask. On our last day with Torbjorn, our mask “final” was to put on our finished masks and create a character in front of the whole group. It was amazing to see everybody’s finished masks and to see how they came alive. Every single mask worked so well, including mine, which was surprising and gratifying. The only thing left to do is to paint our masks if we want to.

We also had our final voice presentation for Kevin’s voice class. Our first week back from break, Kevin gave us our assignment, which was to create a vocal presentation revolving around text from Shakespeare’s The Tempest that we had worked on in class. We were also given the lyrics to a song that a character in the play sings, and were instructed to make up our own version of the song in the final presentation. Our group of 14 students opted to work all together as an ensemble to create a piece together rather than splitting up the work, which ended up being rather complicated and stressful at times, but was incredibly rewarding. Over the course of that week, we bonded so much as a group during the creative process. Each person had at least one solo moment in the piece, and you could see the collaboration through the way different ideas were thrown into the mix and were built upon and built upon as others contributed their thoughts. I was very sad that Kevin’s class was ending, but our piece turned out beautifully, and it was a wonderful note on which to end our time with him. From now until the end of the semester, we have voice class with a new teacher, Marjana. She is incredible, and very different from Kevin. She’s been teaching us some Bulgarian folk songs and we’ve also done a lot of work with polyphonic singing.

Halloween in Italy was a rather strange experience, because the holiday is not really acknowledged here at all. Luckily, since the Accademia is full of American students, we weren’t going to let it pass without celebrating. At dinner that night, we had a murder mystery event where we all played different characters and had to figure out who the killer was. Also, a few of the MFA students had organized a big costume party in the Teatrino, our small theatre. I went dressed as the Spirit of the Wind, based off of one of the songs we had sung in voice with Kevin. You know you’re at a theatre school when the song at the party that gets everybody the most excited is “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

The Saturday after Halloween, I travelled to Orvieto, a small city located between Arezzo and Rome, with Amanda. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. We walked through a park with spots to see the scenic view of the hillside all around, and then we just wandered around the streets, stopping in a few shops here and there. It was drizzling a bit as it got dark, but it somehow made the streets seem to glow, so we didn’t mind at all. We stumbled upon the duomo, which was absolutely glorious, and reminded me a lot of the duomo in Siena. Outside the duomo, there happened to be a chocolate festival going on, so naturally we got some pre-dinner cannolis. We found a really cool emporium called “Il Mago di Oz,” which seemed more like a museum than a store, and had a whole bunch of pictures on the wall of famous people who had visited. We also found the sweetest little woodworking shop where the man was so kind and excited to show us his beautiful creations. For dinner, we split a dish of Truffle pasta and ravioli in a butter sauce. It was such a relaxing day and definitely one of my favorite places I’ve seen so far.

The next day, Sunday, I walked into town with Amanda and Genevieve to visit the monthly antique fair. On our way there, we stopped at Gianni’s family’s pastry shop as we usually do on the weekends. For the first time, Gianni was there when we visited! He stopped working to have a coffee with us and chat. He said, “Ah, you found me!” Then his brother, who is almost always there when we visit, said to him in Italian, “They come here every weekend.” Which is true. Best cappuccino in town, hands down.

The 2^nd Cabaret was last week. The theme of this one ended up being a sort of mirror world, and new perspectives. I accompanied M.E. as she danced by singing “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie. It was a very emotional piece, but I enjoyed collaborating with her and with everyone else in the cabaret as they performed their different pieces.

Last night, we had an open mic night here at the villa. I juggled and told some Demetri Martin jokes, which was a lot of fun. Later on, I also sang “Let It Be” with Amanda. She had wanted to do it because singing in front of people terrifies her, so to help her get over her nerves, she wanted to perform a song with me. She did beautifully, and it was a joy to support her and to see her conquer her fear.

When we all aren’t in class, we’re likely to be found building giant blanket forts in the Salla Danza, or snuggling together and watching movies while eating Chinese food or pizza. In the past few weeks, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Two Towers, and Big City, a random French movie that was lip dubbed and subtitled in Italian that Mike had found at the Saturday market. It was a story about children in the Wild West in America, and was the strangest blend of hilarious, horrifying, and brilliant.

I love being here. I love the people, I love the places, I love the food, and I love the classes. This villa really feels like home.