Jackson’s Ultimate Blog To End All Blogs.

  I found all of the pieces did an excellent job with matching the songs atmosphere and “vibe”. While some peoples movements were centered on evoking a similar feeling or idea, others were focused on the lyrics, and even still some people crafted movements and then paired music along with them. I found many of the pieces attempted to find a balance between more traditional dancing and abstract movement, and this allowed for some more concrete ideas to be illustrated through the movements. An example of this is how slower moving songs with more melancholy lyrics tended to provoke more slow and long movements, which gave off a sense of reflection and lethargic nostalgia I found. This also felt to me more raw and honest movement, and less dance-like. Some of the faster tempo songs tended to have some bouncing or dance like swaying but also involved lots of purposeful and abstract movement. This came together to craft something of an actual scene, and was quite satisfying to see play o...

   Over the last two weeks, we spent a lot of time expanding our perspectives on what theater is and what it looks like. I feel as though my perception of what it means to act has been significantly altered. Being given a word and just told to go off and walk the stage forced me to take a much more freeform and creative approach. Learning to be comfortable with trying new things out and doing something weird played a big part in that process. I noticed that overtime I felt more and more comfortable with the theater, and less worried about staying right in center stage. Allowing myself to approach things from different angles both literally and figuratively created much more interesting scenes then I would have had. Furthermore, I noticed that this also allowed me to take in direction or some kind of word and make significant differences to fulfill the direction. Over time I believe this will greatly aid my acting. What had the biggest impact on me over the last two weeks was t...

 I would consider myself overall experienced with theater, having been involved in theater since middle school, and having done some kind of theater experience every year since then. I have performed in numerous musicals and a few plays as well. I have always had an affinity to the art's and humanities as opposed to Stem subjects, and that has been reflected in my schoolwork as well as my personal endeavors. A memorable anecdote I remember from previous performances still gets told at my old middle school at the first day of drama club to this day. During a middle school performance of Rock of Ages, a fellow castmate forgot his entrance, and missed an entire scene, through some improvisation students were able to continue moving forward and we moved on to the next scene. Then, he jumped on to stage and attempted to say his lines, not realizing we had already switched scenes. While a major plot point having to do with other characters was playing out, a random pizza delivery man bro...

 One memorable moment was when I saw a live performance of Les Mis in New Haven. During Master of the House, the actor playing the titular character of the scene decided to fill the beer bottle at the end of his performance with real liquid. In the show, the character drinks it only to find out it was someone's pee. At the end of the song, the character is supposed to pretend to spit it out as the lights fade to black. In this show specifically, he sprayed the water all across the front few rows of the theater just as the song ended. At first people exclaimed in surprised or laughed, but as the lights faded, one of the members of the audience jumped on stage and began to yell at the actor. It was pure chaos and honestly hilarious. eventually the shouting died down and after a while the show carried on, but I can't seem to remember anything else memorable about the entire performance.

 “Theater is the art of looking at ourselves”- Augusto Boal.