Arrivederci

Wow. One week later and it still hasn’t quite sunken in that I left that beautiful yellow villa on the hill. I’ve been bouncing all over Europe since then, but I’ll fill you in on all of that later. For now, here are a few highlights from my final two weeks in Arezzo:

We had a few finals those last two weeks, including movement, Italian, and the two-week class we had to round out the semester called “Chorus and the Individual,” taught by Joe Fenner. For movement, we had to work with a partner to create a choreographed piece inspired by a picture, and based on seven different physical shapes and transitions that we created after a period of improvisation. My partner was Claire, and my picture was of a boy who was asleep and sprawled across the floor with one of his legs resting on a big armchair. Claire and I had a lot of fun making our piece. We set it to “The Violet Hour” by the Civil Wars, and for the presentation, I was dressed all in black and Claire all in white. Italian was just a written exam. I could elaborate, but I fear you’d all fall asleep. For Chorus and the Individual, we had spent a few classes with Joe doing exercises about keeping the stage in balance, and about accepting the proposals that your fellow actors make to you and reacting to them in an honest way. Then, for the whole last week, we used our class time to devise final scenes in groups of seven people. My group consisted of myself, Kevin, Olivia, M.E, Mike, Julia, and Remy. The only parameters we were given were that we must choose a concrete location, and that there must be an event that occurs that involves everyone in the scene. After improvising and experimenting for a long time, we finally decided that our location would be a party, and that the event would involve Julia’s character’s ex-boyfriend showing up to the party with a gun. It was very intense at times, and certainly an interesting process leading up to what we ended up presenting. I really loved working on our scene and watching the other three groups present their scenes as well. It was a great way to end the semester because it brought all the more abstract skills we learned in movement, commedia, and voice back to realism, which is the style of acting that most of us will go on to work with in college and beyond.

 

For the third and final cabaret, I worked with Amanda, Jack and Janie to stage a movement piece while James, one of the music students and one of my very good friends, played the piano and sang Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today.” The theme of our piece coincided with the theme of the song: human kindness juxtaposed with the small, inadvertent cruelties people perform toward one another every day. It was such a great challenge for me to do this piece, since movement was one of the classes in which I struggled the most all semester, but also one of the areas in which I am most proud of my growth.

Thanksgiving in Italy was a rather surreal experience. Obviously, the Italians don’t celebrate this holiday, yet they still have a phrase for it: Il Giorno del Ringraziamento. Even though it isn’t an important day in Italy, the Accademia wanted to make it a special day for all of us American students, so Charita, our beautiful cook, made a big Thanksgiving lunch complete with Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, and bread. The only thing missing was the pie, although I’m certainly not complaining, because Charita’s tiramisu served as a superior substitute. To commemorate the holiday some more, I went out to dinner that night with Amanda, her parents, and James to our favorite restaurant in town, Il Cantuccio. Then when we got back to the villa, we were just in time for open mic night in the Salla Danza. Amanda and I had prepared a rather avant garde piece of theatre: a dramatic reading of 100 Ways to Love a Cat, ways 1-12. If you aren’t familiar with this groundbreaking video, here is a link: 100 Ways to Love a Cat. The audience did not know what to think, which I think means we were extremely successful. Later in the lineup, I also sang a duet with my friend Laura, one of the music students. Laura has one of the most gorgeous voices I have ever heard, so it was an honor to sing one of my favorite songs, “In His Eyes” from Jekyll & Hyde, with her. Then at the end of the set, Julia and Joseph spontaneously decided to do a reprise of their movement final, and asked Clay if he would play guitar to accompany them. Clay then asked me if I would sing “Falling Slowly” from Once with him, so I happily obliged. The whole room was singing along, and Joseph and Julia danced beautifully. It was a great way to end the night.

The following night, Friday, was the farewell dinner for the music students, which was delicious, but quite bittersweet, because we didn’t want them to leave. There was wine, there was singing, there were tears, and there was a lot of lying on the roof of the teatrino to look at the stars. Seeing the bus full of my musical friends roll away at 3am was pretty rough, especially because it made our imminent departure feel all too real.

On Saturday, I headed to the morning market with another friend named Laura. We then met up with Amanda and her parents and took the train to Lucca, a beautiful walled town near Pisa. We rented bikes and rode around the wall, enjoying the views and pausing every now and then to imitate the statues we saw around us, as we theatre students tend to do. Mr. and Mrs. Garrigan rode on a tandem bicycle, which may be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. After our lovely scenic bike ride, we strolled through the town a bit, got some hot cocoa, enjoyed the Christmas decorations, and then hopped on the train to Pisa. We did a quick visit and (of course) took some headstand pictures by the leaning tower. We had dinner in Arezzo at Il Bucco di San Francesco, a strange little restaurant that looks like it once was a church basement. We then walked to Spazioseme for jazz night, because Gianni had asked me if I would come sing with the jazz musicians. Naturally, I was terrified, but I didn’t want to disappoint Gianni, and also I didn’t want to let myself down by not rising to the challenge. So we went, and watched many talented singers and musicians perform. At the end, a small group of musicians started to jam, and Gianni asked the M.C. if Julia and I could each sing a song. Julia sang “All of Me,” and I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me.” I was accompanied by Silvano, a tiny older man who is a wizard on the piano, and can apparently play any song in any key without sheet music, along with a bassist and drummer. It was thrilling to perform for Italian strangers and with Italian strangers, having never rehearsed before. I felt so proud of myself. On our way back to the villa, a group of us walked through the park and ran around the amphitheater singing at the top of our lungs, soaking in the Italian starlight. It was a great night.

The next morning was Sunday, and I walked into town with Genevieve to get my last pastries and cappuccino at Pasticceria Bruschi, our regular weekend breakfast spot. We met up with the Garrigans and strolled around the last antique fair, and then came back into town that evening for dinner at a restaurant called Il Bucco del Rey. The following night, Monday, I ate dinner in town again with the Garrigans at Mazzoni, another of our favorite trattorias. We went to a lot of restaurants those last few weeks, but I still feel like I could really go for another dish of fresh pasta, bruschetta, and red wine.

Genevieve had the brilliant idea of doing an activity similar to Secret Santa, but Thanksgiving themed, so it was called Secret Turkey. Additionally, the rule was that you couldn’t spend any money. We were encouraged to use our creative talents to surprise our person. On Monday, I made my Secret Turkey presentation for Claire. I made a slideshow of her study abroad experience, layered the karaoke track of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” over it while it played, and then sang it to her live while she watched it. I think she really liked it, and I had fun making it for her.

We had one final movement class with Claudia, during which we did some contact improv and learned one last partner lift: One person lies on the ground and places their feet on the other person’s hips. The standing person bends forward, the lying down person straightens his or her legs, and voila. Lift off. We also had two last philosophy classes with Emilija during which we shared what we’ve gained from our abroad experience, and we also got into a discussion about the accessibility of art. The hardest last class, however, was Tarantella. On Wednesday, we had one last two hour session with Gianni, where we dripped with sweat, laughed our faces off, and sang a song to each other while standing in a circle, arms linked. The words were as follows:

            “Dear friends, dear friends.

            May I tell you how I feel?

            You have given such a richness.

            I thank you so.”

We went around the circle and one by one substituted each person’s name for the word “friends.” By the end, there was not a dry eye in the room.

Our farewell dinner was the following night. The mensa was decorated with branches and fruit and candlesticks, and the piano was moved into the room so we could enjoy each other’s performances while we ate. After dinner, we all moved to the teatrino for the B’nai Mitzvah, the event that a group of students had planned for us that week. We had a candle lighting ceremony to honor each one of us, we did some traditional Hora dances (chair lift and all), we played some classic party games such as musical chair and a lip synching contest to Fergalicious (Joseph reined victorious), and danced the night away to the soundtrack of all of our middle school lives, naturally ending with “What Dreams are Made Of” from the Lizzie McGuire movie. At this event, M.E. and Russell made a surprise presentation of their secret turkey gift. Russell had me and M.E. had Amanda, so they parodied our “100 Ways to Love a Cat” performance with their own version, “100 Ways to Love a Friend,” where they jokingly fought over which one of us was a better secret turkey. It was hilarious. Since Amanda and I are basically the same person, it was the perfect gift for us. All in all, it was the best Jewish coming of age ceremony that's ever been thrown partially in my honor.

Finally, it was Friday. We had feedbacks in the morning, and then finished packing. As we all sat together to watch our final sunset, we reprised the song from tarantella and also the songs that Marjana taught us. My last dinner in Arezzo was at O’Scugnizzo, arguably the best pizza place in town. We all then headed back to Spazioseme one last time for a farewell open mic night. I surprised my ADA family by singing “Hallelujah” again in order to bookend my time in Arezzo, since I’d sung it at the very first open stage all the way back at the welcome dinner. Later in the evening, I sang, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with Alex, Laura, and Genevieve. I was holding my emotions together fairly successfully until Gianni ended the evening by singing a gorgeous song called “Arrivederci,” which was just all too apt for our current situation. Then finally, an Italian woman who I did not know at all sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and I absolutely lost it when she sang the words, “…and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” Because for me, that’s exactly what this semester was: A dream come true. I cried and cried, but when Clay asked me how I was doing, I said, “I’ve never been better.” Even though leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, those were happy tears, because I am just so very thankful to have had this wonderful experience. On our final walk back to the villa, a group of us briefly climbed up onto the aqueduct just to be able to say we did, and because it seemed like the right thing to do on our last night in town.

At our first Tramonto, which is group bonding and reflection (and means “sunset” in Italian), Genevieve had us all write letters to ourselves that we would get back at the end. I had completely forgotten what mine said, and when I read it again at our last Tramonto, I was so happy, because I really think past Kristen would be proud of present Kristen. So, as cheesy as it is, I figured I would share that letter with you all.

Dear future Kristen,

            Good for you. You’re studying abroad, which is something you’ve always dreamed of, but knew would be hard. I hope that by the time you read this again, you can honestly say that you really pushed yourself to grow, both as an artist and a human. Do things because they scare you. Make a fool of yourself. Get lost. Fall down. Find yourself again. Learn to live in the moment and accept everything that comes to you as a blessing. Most importantly, Kristen, I hope you never forget to be grateful. Even when everything is upside down and it seems like the world is ending, just smile. I’m already so proud of you for choosing to begin this journey. Make the most of every minute, and emerge from this experience with a new sense of confidence, self-worth, inspiration, and independence.

            I love you, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Always,

Kristen

This semester will always have a special place in my heart. Arrivederci, Arezzo. Arrivederci, Italia. Arrivederci, Accademia dell'Arte. Thank you for everything.