• This year, I shall find more avenues other than the Internet to channel my self expression.

Yes, I would say this qualifies. No, not this, as in this -- what I'm doing right now by writing. I mean this as in what I did this evening. Ahhh... You know what I mean. Or if you don't, you soon will.

After a busy day at work, Bitscape dropped by home for a few minutes to collect himself, and then proceeded in Tobias to the location of the much anticipated class. Finding the building was easy. Finding parking took a little more effort.

Eventually, after driving back and forth a few times, Bitscape located a public parking facility, drove down the ramps, and into the deep garage. Good thing I came early.

Once in the building, it took some time to find the entrance and staircase one was actually supposed to use to get to the room. Luckily, I found some other people who were destined for the same class, one of whom had some knowledge of the layout of the place.

While we waited for it to start, I learned the names of a couple of my classmates. Ladeeda. The instructor passed out some papers describing what was going to go on. Passed around a sheet for everyone to sign their name on. Ya know. The usual "beginning of a class" ritual.

Once things got underway, she started explaining how things were going to go. Warm-ups. Stretching exercises, designed to loosen up the body, relax the mind, and prime the vocal system. We are encouraged to practice them outside of class, several times a week.

Each student will work on a two minute monologue. The goal is for each person, as I quote the syllabus, "to leave the class with a fully rehearsed monologue that could be used for any auditions you wished to pursue after the class is completed."

With that, I thought, "Wow! With this, I might even be able to try out and get a part in 'The Worst Scifi Sequel Ever!'" ;)

Seriously, I think this class is, and is going to be, way cool.

We got in a circle, where each person says their name, any bits of information about themselves that they want to share, why they are taking the class, and what they hope to get out of it. Then, go around and repeat the name of each person who preceeded you. Lucky guy that I am, I ended up second to last. But it really didn't turn out to be that hard, because everyone before you has been saying the name of everyone before them over and over, so the first ones have been repeated a zillion times, and the recent ones are still fresh in memory. Clever.

After introductions, it was time for the warm up exercises. Shove all the desks back into the corners, spread out (still roughly in a circle), and to various stretches, visualizations, breathing techniques, facial contortions, and sounds.

She commented that most of us, in typical day-to-day conversation, may as well have our entire bodies cut off from the shoulders down, for all the use we put them to in expressing ourselves. Additionally, when we talk, we (in America) typically exercise only a small fraction of the ranges our mouth and facial muscles are capable of producing. Same goes for vocal tones and depths. (The deeper down in the gut the physical energy that drives the voice, the more emotion that gets through.) The warm-ups are designed to help get into a natural mode of using our entire range. Nifty.

Well, what followed were a whole bunch of improv exercises, which were sometimes tricky, but... well, quite hilarious on more than one occassion. One where people partner off, and go into the center of the circle. One starts doing something, and the other asks, "What are you doing?" That person would then come up with, and name some OTHER function (NOT what they were actually doing), which the inquirer would have to perform. Switch, and repeat. My description of it is... well... lacking in comparision to actually witnessing it. But believe me, some were absolutely hilarious.

Another excercise required everyone to parter off, and stand an arms length away facing each other, making eye contact. The admonition: Do NOT break eye contact, no matter what happens. One of the first things one must learn in acting is how to be in the presence of others. Initially, the guy I was with and I kept cracking up. Eventually though, we regained our composure. Sort of. After a few exercises -- never breaking eye contact -- we were instructed to take turns making a continuous "Aaaaah" sound at different frequencies. First, one at a time, then simultaniously. (Everyone else in the room doing the same thing.)

Then, everyone was instructed disperse through the room, assuming random locations, and close your eyes. Put hands in front of face, and EVERYONE at once, begin making the same "Aaaaaaah" sound again. With eyes closed, navigate by sound to the person you heard before. That was an insane mess. But interestingly enough, after a bit of stumbling around, I was able to hone in on the sound. Apparently, everyone else was too, because when we opened our eyes, the people were back with their partners.

Let's see... then there were more wacky little improve exercises. Actually another one with the very same person again. This time, each pair was to decide on an object. Each person pick a number between 1 and 100, but don't tell the other. (We weren't told what we were going to do with the number until later.) Then, we're both going to play like we're fighting for the object. Acting the part as the age years of the number picked.

That yielded some pretty hilarious comedy. Everything from toddlers, to old fogies with canes. Wouldn't ya know it? Me and the guy I was with were both old farts fighting over a baseball -- a relic from younger times. lol.

(/me has the sly suspicion that the earlier eye contact exercise -- done with the same person -- went a long way in developing this mysterious stage component commonly known as "chemistry". It certainly seemed like it in ours, and a lot of the other pairs' performances.)

Let's see.... then we went on, did some other stuff, randomized to different partners again. (For what? The third, or fourth time during the evening?) Then it was word tennis. Get in opposite corners of the room, one person "serves" by naming a topic. And then we hit the imaginary ball back and forth, each hit having to name something that falls within the topic. And you have to hit the ball as if it were really there.

So, for example, if I were serving, and I said "programming languages" (No, I did not do that. Had I been in the company of hardcore computer geeks, yes. But in general company, that just wouldn't be a good idea), when the "ball" gets to the other person, they could say, "C" as they hit the ball back. Then I would say, "Perl", and it would continue until someone repeated something that had been said earlier, or was stumped.

It is harder than it sounds. It is harder than it looks. Even with very simple, obvious things. One person named "countries", and the "ball" only went back and forth a couple of times. Street names. City names. Titles of movies. Musical instruments. All (or mostly) things that if we sat down for a few minutes to think about, we would be able to come up with dozens or more.

A fun exercise, and also illustrative. The instructor explained that we, in our culture, are not used to keeping our brains working while conducting physical activity that requires coordination. It's very easy to just freeze up when you're not used to thinking while hitting the ball. (Making it an imaginary ball might even make it more of a challenge, because one must simulate the presence of an object that does not physically exist. That's my own speculation, not the word of the teacher.)

I would even say that those of use who like to conduct a large portion of our communications through email and web might be prone even more to this. (Although..... There are people I know who are very good at email and face to face exchanges.) Well, it's a thought.

And then came the warm-down exercises, which seemed to be a somewhat abbreviated version of the warm-up exercises. Then a few closing comments about the monologue.

She will be bringing in a bunch of possible choices to use next week. Or, if anyone likes, students could choose to bring in their own. It just needs to be two minutes or less. (Less is preferable, because that gives more room to work with the performance.) Hmmm...

I shall have to consider these options, and keep my eyes open for possible things I might want to perform.

Thoughts and impressions: That was a damn quick 2 hours. The teacher commented that at the end, she felt like she knew all of us a lot better. Looking back, I think I felt the same. Just 2 hours, and already, there's an intuitive bond among the entire group. Like we all know each other. Having gone through entire semester-long classes where I took the final out still feeling like I was in a room full of strangers, I'd say that's pretty damn neat. (I admit, I'm far from the most outgoing person, which probably has something to do that tidbit.)

One thing is for certain, now more than ever: Come hell or high water, I WILL be there every Monday during the allotted time period. As if my life depended on it.

(Another thing noted by the instructor: The non-credit version of the course, which is what I am taking, usually turns out to be both more fun and more rewarding than the similar version she teaches as part of the college credit curriculum. People just get more into it. Goodie!)

Sleep time. Maybe a little reading first though. Life is lookin good.