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. ;)

8/31/08

I started reading The Ramayana today, and its a very difficult book to get through. I think a lot of it has to do with the confusing non-Western names and places and the random thrown in Sanskrit words. I do appreciate, however, the fact that the story is in prose, instead of direct translation of the poem. I think it allows the author to be more descriptive and allows the story to flow better. After dabbling into the story, I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what exactly we are going to be doing this semester in theater, but I'm excited all the same. And so it begins, tomorrow is our first real day of class.

8/27/08

At the moment, I'm very intimidated because I've never taken a dance class before, yet I'm excited to try new things and dabble in new cultures that I know very little or anything about. The class will be challenging, but humbling, and show me that I don't know as much about the world as I thought i did. It'll be great to be aerobic after a long day of classes, but I can already tell that this class is going to force me to move my body and mind in original ways.

I'm going to stay in this class because I want to move my mind in a direction I normally would not have taken and because college is about trying new things. As an IR major, I also want to experience a cultural element in my education, and this seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. I also feel that it will be nice to have a class that pushes the creative mind rather than the intellectual mind, something I haven't had the opportunity to do at W&M yet.