11/27/08

Our final performance went a lot better than I thought it was going to. Getting ready Monday afternoon, I felt like our banjar was so confused and disorganized. Although our group had done a really great job at the International Dance Showcase, I had no idea how we were going to incorporate the entire group into our one petty scene. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that the other group couldn't get their scene together ontime, but we all have each other's backs. I think if only the semester was a couple weeks longer we would have been able to put the final polishing steps on our final performance. The students at Berkley Middle School seemed to get really into our performance. Many of the boys were chanting along with us, and seemed generally interested in the storyline of our scene. My favorite part of the day was having a chant off between the different sections of students. My group had the Chuke, Chuke Chuke Chuke Sec Chuke, and our kids were by far the loudest and most enthusiastic. My personal performance was pretty decent as well. Although I messed up a couple of the Taka Timi's, I felt like the group rhythmn was a lot better than it was at the first group performance. I can't wait to write my final paper. :)

11/12/08

I can't believe we're having our last class before our big performance at the Kimball. Tomorrow we'll be perfecting our scene, practicing our chants, and gaining a last confidence boost from the members of our banjar. I'm feeling a bit under-prepared, but I have to trust the other members of the banjar to grasp all that we have learned in the past several weeks and concentrate our energy on a successful performance. I watched the video from YouTube that Kalyani sent to us, and I now have a greater appreciation for the talent of the Bharatanatyum dancers. Their ability to keep beat, while still portraying a story with their bodies is incredible. I can't wait to see more of their performances during the International Dance showcase.

11/03/08

I haven’t really written in awhile. It’s not from lack of material to write about, sadly, it’s because I’ve been super busy doing Sharpe and Sorority things. We’ve had a big development since I’ve last written. Our banjar is scheduled to perform at the Kimball at the international dance show next Friday. That’s coming up really soon. At first I was really hesitant to do it because I don’t like dancing in front of a large group of people, especially at a performance where people have to pay, but the banjar and Francis have reassured me that all is well and that there is nothing to be ashamed. We’ve also set up our final performance at Berkley Middle School, which should be really cool. I feel like the middle schoolers will be really receptive to learning the dance moves, and maybe one day one of them will be inspired to take ICAPS at William and Mary. We’ve started developing our scene for our performance last week. It was really difficult to get the blocking and the chanting down (particularly the transitions), but today we got most of that taken care of. Here’s a breakdown of the scene: Ravana asks his uncle to turn into a golden deer to lure Sita into his clutches. Sita chases the deer, and eventually sends Rama out to find it. Rama chases the deer and kills it, and it makes a scream and Sita hears it. She’s worried about Rama so she sends Lakshamana out to look for Rama. Lakshamana draws a protective circle around Sita and goes to look for Rama. In the meantime, Ravana comes to Sita dressed as a beggar and lures her out of the circle. He scoops her up and takes her away to Lanka. My role consists of being a tree for the deer to run around, making the sounds in the circle, and being one of the beggars that tries to lure Sita out of her protective circle.

9/27/08

Monday's class was absolutely amazing. I think it has to be my favorite class that I've ever had at W&M actually. It started off wonderful because we all got to dance outside on a warm sunny afternoon. There's nothing like dancing a sacred dance where it was intended to be danced. I felt surprisingly confident dancing, and felt that I was really starting to understand/remember the dance moves. What was particularly great about Monday was that we talked together in our large circle about "the fish we wanted to bring to the circle" and are really starting to develop a community. None of us are afraid to share what is really bothering us, and everyone has an equal and relevant thing to say in our discussion. To add the cherry on top of this super amazing class, we had this amazing chant off between the different parts of the circle. It was like Step Up chanting style. I feel like when we do stuff like that, show insane amounts of enthusiasm, we really start to understand what this class is about. Our chanting will only get better from here. Sadly, I was not able to go to class on Wednesday because I tore a muscle in my lower back. It was odd after Geology not to prance off to dance, and it actually sort of threw off my day. I missed the dancing and the extra energy I get from going to that class on Wednesday, and it only makes me anticipate great things from our next class on Monday. :)

9/18/08

Yesterday's class was so much fun!!!


We began with more Indian dance lessons with two expert gurus Kaliani and a guest teacher. We learned two new dance steps and 3 new hand motions. Each step is getting progressively more difficult. I never considered myself someone who had a lot of rhythm. I always had to practice quite a lot to get the show choir dance moves perfect, and learning the Masaai dance in Africa was incredibly difficult. Bharatanatyam dancing yesterday definitely reaffirmed this conclusion. I know that I am going to have to practice really hard to get the switches and stomping rhythms down correctly. We did this really fun exercise with plastic cups too, to practice keeping our upper body's posture correct while we did our lower body. I think I did pretty well. I only lost the cup 4 times. I definitely think that my posture is improving with this class. We're also beginning to learn the chanting for our end of the semester performance. Learning a chant in a different language is quite difficult, and I definitely have more respect now for all my friends who are in drama or vocalists and have to learn hundreds of lines in different languages. I'm not sure what "Seer Tit Poon Tit," but I definitely plan on asking Guru Francis what it means.

9/11/08

We watched the school's production of the Ramayana yesterday during class. The dancing and costumes were absolutely amazing. You could really tell that these students put a lot of work into their performance. It seemed that the rest of the class really enjoyed the play as well. I was confused, however, by the storyline. It's probably because I haven't read the entire book, but I think it would have been easier to understand if I had know what was going on. What baffles me is how the audience understand the production without having read the story. I'm not sure if the audience had a narration going or a booklet with a summary of the scenes written out for them, but some of the costumes made it a little difficult to tell what kinds of animals they were and who each character was in the story. The use of multiple languages I think also played well to the fact that The Ramayana is such a classic/culture-wide phenomenon. I thought the actors that played Rama, Sita, and Ravana were absolutely exceptional, and I only wish that I had been there if person to watch it. I definitely give props to Francis for all his hard work directing and writing the screenplay. I'm sure it was almost impossible to pick which scenes to cut or shorten from such a long epic.

9/8/08

Today we had our first introduction to Indian dancing. One of the other students was our guru for the day, which just goes to show the knowledge that we as students can learn from each other. The dance steps we learned today were pretty difficult, especially for me who has little if any rhythm. It was nice because she took it really slow and urged us to keep repeating the steps so that we could perfect them through practice. We mostly focused on the footsteps and keeping with the beat. I can only imagine how much more difficult its going to be when we add the hands. The leg bending and holding up the arms really hurts my muscles, but in the words of the US Army "Pain is weakness leaving the body." The lecture we had today also taught me a lot about the importance of an Indonesian person's name. Birth order and Caste rank are very important to assigning a child a name. My name would I guess be Ni Made Amanda Anderson. I like adding the cultural lessons to the class because it gives us a bit of insight into the why dance steps are the way they are and how the people who make up the dance live their lives.

P.S. I can already feel my posture improving. ;)