January 25th - 31st

January 25th - 31st

Sunday

I slept in, mostly because I didn't sleep well last night, and also because I've been anxious and generally feeling like shite because of it.  I showered and got ready to go to Tara's.  She invited the whole course to her home in Islington for "high tea" which I found out when I got there was an English high tea and a mediterranean high tea!  Delicious!  Here are some pics:

  

The feast!  Lizzie and Mette chatting.

  

Colin, Chris with Finnegan on his lap, Tara's daughter Izzy, and Mette.  Mette and I tried our first real scones.

  

Alex, Tara and Chris having some yummy food.  The lot of us mingling.

  

Mel with Tara's dog Finn, Mette, Lizzie, Colin and Thomas.  Mel and Finn :)

  

My idea: the cake should say Happy Birthday MAVS in phonetics.  Tara cutting into the cake :)

  

Alex playing with a light sabre.  Cool pic.  Thomas loves Finn :)

MAVS serious pic.

MAVS fun pic.

Shaw-Abulafia Family & MAVS

Monday

I wrote up my "biog" as they call them here (aka bio, or biography) for the programme (program).  I need to keep Americanizing things so I don't become totally brainwashed with new terminology and spellings (the spellings are the funniest bit).  Anyway, I ran it by Kate and she gave me some pointers.  Here it is, final product, evidence of my first professional gig:

Melissa Kollwitz (Accent Coach) is currently attending Central School of Speech and Drama's MA Voice Studies course.  She is also tutoring/accent coaching 1st year FdA Musical Theatre students at Trinity Laban in Greenwich.  She graduated in December 2007 from Marymount Manhattan College in NYC with a BA in Theatre Performance.  Melissa was recently accepted into Catherine Fitzmaurice's Teaching Certification Programme.  She plans to research the many philosophies on breath support and demystify the teaching of breath support for her MA Portfolio.  

Now I just have to follow through with that Portfolio bit, now that it's in black and white, haha. 

I met with Nia and Corin at 10am this morning to discuss our Microteaching lesson.  I've been put in charge of a lot, actually - release/alignment, breath, body, and phonation.  That leaves Nia to a bit of phonation onto resonance with a bit of an articulation warm up.  Then Corin with articulation onto language/text.  I hope we can solidify a bit more what's expected for each of us in our next meeting as it looks like I got a lot of it, even though our focus is Cicely Berry as the technique we're using.  Most of Cis Berry's work is text work, so the exercises spent on resonance and text work are the gist of of her technique.  Not sure how I feel about this.  

Then we had Movement with Debbie who we hadn't seen in quite a long time.  We did Bartenieff fundamentals (learning how to properly roll on the ground, basically).  It looks a bit silly but understanding the impulse to move and the connection between upper body and lower body were pretty key.  I'd done a lot of this type of work at MMC, so it was a nice refresher.  Then we did a lot of movement work (duh, Movement class) using Gabrielle Roth's Five Rhythms (amazing work to explore).  I wish there was more of a connection to practical voice in these sessions, as I am someone who gets stuck doing one or the other, but rarely move and vocalize at the same time in performance (general blanket statement).   I love the Gabrielle Roth site.  There's a question on one of the pages that asks: "Do you have enough discipline to be a free spirit?"  I love it.

  

Rolling, rolling, rolling.

Then we had a short lunch break and met with Joanna Weir Ouston from Oxford School of Drama for a Linklater based text class.  Oh, it was very, very Linklater.  Kristin Linklater is coming in two weeks from now (aka a fortnight - new Brit term I learned) so she was giving us as much info as possible towards what we might be working on.  Linklater work is hard to explain.  It's a lot of emotional connection to words and using the imagination and images.  It's not technical.  So I guess some people who judge voice work think of it as the hippie crunchy rolling around on the floor and feeling the words kind of voice work.  Some people love it, some people hate it.  I've had a lot of experience with it in undergrad and am on the fence.  Sometimes it really resonates with me, other times I can't connect to it.  

I met with Kate in the library afterwards to have a little chat about our Buddy Work for this term.  We're heading away from technical voice into vocal expression as our goal.  So we talked about our feedback sessions with Katerina and looked at our notes and ticked boxes sheet she'd given us saying what we'd done and rated from Excellent to Unsatisfactory.  We both did really well (most check marks in good or very good).  I basically got the equivalent of a B+ on both the Expressive Voice Project and the essay on phonation.  Not too shabby for my first term, considering I'm new to this education system/country/etc!

Then I met with Alex to go over some last minute things for our Student Led Limber which is tomorrow.  Our theme is love!  Haha...I really wanted to teach a new song, but we weren't sure what - and then (like a dream) it hit me.  I wanted to do a song that has different instruments or parts to it and I thought of All You Need is Love by the Beatles.  Duh!  So there's the bass part that goes "doom doom doom, doo doo doom, doom doom" and then split middle part saying "love love love, love love love" and then the melody.  Four part harmony, anyone?  Then I realized the song is in 7/4 about half way through figuring out the parts and teaching them to Alex.  "That's okay," I said...no worries....riiight...I was praying it wouldn't fall flat on its face!  We scheduled in some fun games to start off with and then Alex was set to lead a partnered massage/release for about 25 minutes or so.  Which leaves me about 25 minutes to teach the song.  

Tuesday

The limber was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.  I was a little worried about the song, but they took to it and I got some positive feedback afterwards, so it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves.  

Missy as a Voice Teacher - teaching All You Need Is Love.

Then we had Phonetics with Tim where we looked at the vowel chart (of doom, as I like to call it).  It's about where the highest point in the tongue is when you make different vowels.  They've made this abstraction (see the pics below) for this idea.

  

Tim Birkett - sent from the Phonetic Gods to guide us towards acceptance of IPA and RP.

With string and chairs he made this shape on the floor in the room we were in.  Then he had us walk from on point to another making the vowels and shifting from one vowel to another.  It was a nice kinesthetic/experiential approach to phonetics and everyone liked it.  

    

Exploring the human vowel chart.

  

Tim had one person walk around the vowel chart and we made the sounds.  Harder than it looks.  

In other news, I had a great tutorial with my course leader Katerina.  She said I have all the tools I need but that I'm doing too much work.  She basically told me to chill out and do less.  But that she wants me to do lots of text work and she said she has every intention of "working me like a dog this term."  I love the tough love.  Nothing motivates me like some good ol' tough love from one of the best teachers I've ever had. 

 

At the beginning of last term my grandma sent me an email that had these words in it:

There comes a point in your life when you realize:

who matters,

who never did,

who won't anymore,

and who always will.

And it's only now that I realize the full weight of those words.  Also, I love my sister.

Wednesday

I spent all day at the Young Vic (from 10am-6pm) working with the boys (Rob and Robert) on the Bronx accent.  I'm just loving it.  I love being there, seeing/hearing the progress, getting feedback from them.  I feel like I belong there.  They let me take some pictures to "record the process":

Robert and Rob.  I love this picture; it's a great moment in the play.

  

At their entrance, singing (Robert on the left, Rob on the right).  Making fun of the Indian (from left to right: Rob, Rehan, Robert).  

Somehow I really screwed up my mid-back during rehearsal (playing silly acting games, according to Robert).  I feel dumb because I never hurt my back, ever.  I wasn't even doing anything strenuous.  I'm getting old...

Thursday

Chris and Mel led a limber in the morning, which I laid down for the majority of and just vocalized, as I couldn't really do any of the physical work.  Then we had Anatomy with Katerina.  I took notes on my laptop, while leaning against Colin so that my back was supported (very nice of him).  The essay we have to write this term is creating a 10 week program for students teaching them resonance and articulation.  So it's basically a scheme of work, and you have to write why and how you're choosing the teaching strategies, techniques/methods of different practitioners, etc. in essay form.  Sounds like a lot - which is probably because it is.  

Then Katerina ran a text class using Greek text (yes, in Greek).  We'd learned the words the week before, so it was fine.  She made me sit out, so I took a lot of pictures.  The class was ran like a Suzuki class would be.  Tadashi Suzuki is a Japanese practitioner who teaches in Australia and the UK primarily.  Katerina was lucky enough to study with him for five years.  This is something I didn't know.  I was so jealous that everyone got to do this class except me and my stupid back.  It was an extremely physically intensive class, which I would have loved.  Suzuki work is mostly about connecting breath to thought and about being centered.  It is extremely stylized though (as you can probably tell from the pictures).  I took a lot of pictures though which will be good for the video at the end of the term:

  

Imagination work.

  

Ball of energy then placing it into your center.

  

Sequence of movements (first pic).  Moving Statues - Suzuki exercises (second pic).

More moving statues.

  

Katerina demonstrated the Suzuki stomping.

  

Advanced Suzuki exercises to work the core.

We had a break after the text class and then we had a brief seminar to discuss and feedback about the term so far.  It amazes me how stressed everyone is.  Katerina nipped the negativity in the bud though saying that we actually don't have as much as other MAVS years have had in the past.  I don't know if anyone can put the term into perspective.  It's like they think everything is due at once.  I'm not going to complain about it.  I'm just going to worry about myself.  Right.  Regardless, Katerina was right, per usual.  So everyone - chill out!

Friday

The boys at the Young Vic had their costume fitting first thing in the morning, so I wouldn't have had time to go in and work with them before I needed to leave for Trinity Laban.  So I got to sleep in a little bit (which was definitely needed).  So I got to Trinity Laban about an hour early so I could do a proper warm up and some easy stretches for my back which felt a little better.  Chris had given me a little massage at the end of the day on Thursday so that was helping a lot.  He was a physical trainer, so he's had a lot of experience doing therapeutic massage and stuff like that.  I bought a heat compress, but I need to put it in boiling water....note to self: you don't have a pan idiot, how do you think you'll manage that one, huh?  Dumb.  

Anyway, I had back to back tutorials at Trinity Laban and they all went REALLY well.  I don't think I've ever affected that many people in that short span of time before.  One kid realized he doesn't exhale, one girl realized she only breathes through her nose and most importantly, another girl found out what her freaking diaphragm is!  She was saying, "My singing teacher tells me to use my diaphragm to sing and I never knew what she meant until now!"  EUREKA!  I'm officially a brilliant voice teacher, at least to one person!

Saturday

I went to the library from 1pm-4pm and then Kate came over to do Buddy Work.  We had a great session together, on both ends.  She had me do a sonnet that I was working on as if I was a mother scolding her daughter not to go out.  Amazing image, as I've been on the other end of that many-a-time :)  The sonnet was grounded, I had a great supported sound and Kate just stopped me dead in my tracks and was like, "I've never heard that kind of sound from you before.  Ever.  It's great!"  To say the very least, and muchas gracias to my mom for the inspiration, but we had a successful session together!  I find that when I'm teaching I can work more off-the-cuff based on the student's needs and I can stop worrying about following my lesson plan to a tee.  

I burned Kate a mix for her birthday which was Friday.  She loved it.  (This made me really happy.)  She's such a good teacher and what's more - a good friend.  I know she'll be in my life, regardless of where I am.  

I love and miss my family.  Chatting to them a couple times a week is always a nice taste of home.  I feel like I'm just chilling in the living room with them.  I am always really happy to see them and hear their voices.  They make me laugh too when I'm stressed out.  Jen was especially keen on that this week.  She played "Single Ladies" by Beyonce and we danced to it.  My mom came in and was laughing at us.  It made me really happy.

Lesson of the week: Really, love IS all you need.