Jane Eyre

Let me preface this post by saying how much I loved Jane Eyre when I first read it in high school for my AP English course.  I was so excited by the book that I proceeded to bring in the soundtrack from the musical of the same name. 

I love Jane Eyre because of it's darkness, suffering, complicated romance, and really difficult ending.  It's a novel in which we are rooting for Jane despite her misfortunes (and there are many).  I also love Jane Eyre because in many ways it's the antithesis to Jane Austen novels.  In my senior English class we talked about how Charlotte Bronte hated Jane Austen and mocked her shmaltzy romantic comedies with the suffering of Jane Eyre.  She also made it very clear that her title character, Jane, was a direct jab at Jane Austen.  I also feel there are so many darker layers in Jane Eyre, especially with the Bertha, Mr. Rochester's first wife.

The new movie adaptation of this novel came out this past weekend and I truly loved the film.  It was dark and the cinematography was absolutely breathtaking (it makes me miss England!).  It is shot very darkly clearly emphasizing the dreariness of the title character and the hopelessness she feels through out the novel.  I also found Mia Wasikowska to be a great pick for Jane.  I liked her interpretation of Jane as very cold, held, and pragmatic.  However, she was a bit difficult to like as my friend pointed out.  And the intimate scenes between Jane and Mr. Rochester were a little awkward.

This film is great because it doesn't shy away from the darkness of the novel.  However, I feel that with any film adaptation details are lost.  My friend had not read the novel beforehand (for shame!) and found it both frustrating and a little confusing to watch.  I, on the other hand, was waiting to see how they would interpret Bertha and how Mr. Rochester's proposal to Jane would play out.  So clearly the story was a little difficult to follow for an unfamiliar audience member.  That said, because the nature of the novel requires the narrator's voice the dialogue was also at times difficult to balance with the silence of the film.  This was a very quiet film.  There were a lot of scenic wide shots and a lot of action shots and not necessarily a lot of dialogue.  I liked this a lot because I feel it gave the sense of "reading" the film, like reading the novel.  However, because the dialogue was so heightened it contrasted with the silence and almost seemed to mock the romantic dialogue normally seen in a Jane Austen novel.  Whether or not this was intentional was difficult to pinpoint.

This film adaptation was smart.  It didn't just tell the story of Jane Eyre it also heightened the stylistic aspects of the novel by making the misery and loneliness apparent through cinematography and silence.  I like that this film made me think even though I knew the novel.  It didn't just carry you along through a nice romantic story.  You, like Jane, had to fight to feel the emotion and fulfillment at the end.  I found myself very absorbed in the film but also interpreting it intellectually much more than other films and I believe this was because the film allowed you to think for yourself.  The silence gave me time and the different styles gave me the foundation to question and make my own decision on the actions on the screen.  The film is in some ways a clash of stylistic themes, but it is also a highly enjoyable and intellectual piece of film, much like the novel.

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will."
- Charlotte Bronte,  Jane Eyre

"Jazz Ain’t Dead" at the Joyce Soho

  Most of the professional dance performances I have seen are very well known large companies that perform in huge theatres.  This was my first time viewing a much smaller company in a smaller space.  Jazz Ain’t Dead is a dance and live music fusion group.  They pay tribute to many different jazz styles.  Their current performance at the Joyce Soho is a tribute to Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, the classic score from the 1930s.  All in all, this was a fun night.  I felt like I wanted to get up and dance to a lot of the music and it seemed the the other audience members felt the same way too.

While there was live music and singing throughout the entire show, the emphasis was on dancing.  Most of the pieces were modern pieces in a large or small group, or in pas de duexs.  I found the large group numbers to be the cleanest, most energetic, and most skilled.  The beginning and ending numbers were upbeat leaving barely any moment of silence or stillness.  The dancers in these pieces were constantly turning, leaping, doing lifts, and switching from sequence to sequence.  I found that the choreographer’s work truly shined in these moments.  The group sequences really allowed different messages (whether it be sensuality, seduction, play, confrontation) to be portrayed while still feeding off of a large group dynamic.  In addition, I found the dancers to be most on top of the moves and most engaged in these moments.  The music was so fast and high energy that the movement required extreme precision.  There was a sense of unity and it culminated in a performance that swept me away.  I felt enticed by their movement and found that the music and their movement to be so complimentary that I wanted to get up and dance with them.

In addition to large dance numbers the night was sprinkled with duets and small group numbers.  These exuded sensuality only accentuated by the music.  One duet was absolutely breathtaking.  This female dancer, all in white, had amazing extensions but also knew how to use the music with the movement.  She was fluid and connected each movement to the next, epitomizing the sensuality of the music.  Her movement informed her acting and communicated so much more than just “sex appeal” but a feeling of loss, deep emotion, and passion.  When she was on stage, I could not take my eyes off of her. 

To me, jazz is most fun in its unpredictability.  While the dance style was mostly modern there was one tap piece.  As a tapper, I absolutely loved this piece.  I do not think that this entire number was choreographed because it seemed like a dialogue between the drummer and the tapper.  In the beginning of the piece the tapper incapsulated the rhythm of the band behind him.  By the end of the piece he was having a “stand off” with the drummer.  Both were doing a call and response with rhythm getting faster and more complicated with each challenge.  This was such fun to watch.  This tapper had been in Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk on Broadway and was using his tap dancing in a different way than the other choreography.  Tap is about making music with your dancing and this dancer found so many different rhythms and sounds with his feet.  His feet moved so fast that he even chipped the wood off of his dancing platform!

Would I recommend seeing this show?  Yes.  It’s a fun performance that makes you want to jump up and dance.  However, there are aspects of it that are a little problematic: they did have technical issues, the emcee seemed a little off, and I found some of the dancing to be unequal with the the larger group numbers.  But all in all, I had a good time and came away in a good mood.

New Beginning... Or just changing of the cycles.

This blog has existed for many purposes: keeping family up to date in my world adventures, a place to write my thoughts after seeing great works of theatre, and a way to share my feelings on friends and experiences.  I've kept silent for these past few months because I've felt I haven't had much to say.  That's of course, I've got plenty to say, it's just is it worth sharing?

I graduate very soon and am nervous about the change: I'm doubting acting and contemplating other career options.  But am I avoiding acting out of fear?  Yes.  Am I just worried about everything?  Yes.

And then, as I was walking to a coffee shop to study in California (Spring Break), I thought: "wouldn't it be cathartic and fun to SHARE my anxieties and changes as I transition into the real world?"

Then I thought, of course, who would read it?  But that's a different matter.  I've spent so many hours in my senior year WORRIED about what will happen next and if everything I felt to be true was changing.  It's hard for me to think of these things as an "adventure".  I just find it... terrifying.

So.  As this blog shifts, once again, this will be a venture into the all-too-blogged-about/all-too-familiar, documentation of a college student transitioning into the "real world".

I hope you find it humorous, endearing, annoying, and maybe even a little helpful along the way.

Friends

While I procrastinate from my MOUNDS of reading I have to do for this week, I thought I would share something that moved me this past weekend and made me think: friends.

Friends, we all have them in some capacity or another, and each friend means something different.  As my dad says, 'we can have different friends for different reasons' (a friend who you always like to go to the movies with, or out to drinks, or to just TALK, or those catch-all friends).  But sometimes, especially as I am back in New York at Barnard from a year away, I'm truly moved by how friendships are able to subsist over time and how just a four minute or forty minute conversation can truly make think how happy I am to have met these people.

And then it got me thinking - the friends we make, like life, are very much due to chance.  What would have happened if I hadn't started talking to my Stagedoor roommate?  Or if I hadn't decided to go on a walk with that one girl down the hall freshman year to the movies?  Or if I hadn't turned around and talked to the group of teenagers behind me in rehearsal? Or if circumstances were different: What would have happened if I hadn't auditioned for that musical at UCL? Or if I hadn't gone to Hathaway Brown and began divulging my love for Lord of the Rings?

But it's not just chance, it's about effort - making that bold move to say - let's go see that movie, or why don't we hang out?  And it's scary.  But I look back at the friends I have now and think: Thank GOD that this is how things worked out.

Yesterday night, I Skyped with two of my closest friends who, coincidentally, I met in London.  Speaking to them on Skype was like a part of me was awakened - a part of me that I've missed.  The laughter, the quick witted remarks, and the reminder that there was a time last year where most of my time was spent with these two people and that they became my family.  I think of these two people with such fondness and love - because I feel like they represent a friendship unlike any that I have had.  Maybe it's just that we all 'got' each other, or that they became my support group when I was in a country alone, but after talking to them yesterday I wanted to jump on a plane again just to be with them.  But also knew, that while I missed the times we had and the ability to see them everyday, that this was a friendship that would last for a VERY long time.

It's a wonderful thing when friendships become family.  When that happens all I can say is that I am truly truly blessed.

Think about your friends... they truly are remarkable.

An Eye Opening Experience

I say that a lot: 'eye opening'.  Going to London was 'eye opening', so was Into the Woods, and so was my time at UCL.

But now I'm talking about a different type of 'eye opening': something that truly makes me evaluate the fortune I've had in my short life.


I am spending the summer volunteering with an organization called Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP).  I have wanted to get involved with this organization for a while as it looks to use the arts, mostly performing arts, to help build confidence and self expression in impoverished youth around the world.  They have programs in South Africa, India, Florida, and New York working with orphans and refugees.  This summer, I am fortunate enough to be volunteering as a Musical Theatre teacher teaching new refugees in a Summer Academy program run by the International Rescue Committee.  I teach along with one to two co-teachers in a middle school class and two high school classes.  Some of these students have been in the US for a week to months to a few years.  I don't know their background, but I can't imagine what they've been through - some of them being thrown into a school program after being in this country for A WEEK knowing not a sentence in English.

I have always been drawn to teaching (I've taught little ones and tutored Middle School), but this experience has been a whole different ball game.  Commanding twenty to thirty students in a sweltering, unairconditioned, high school in Bushwick is grueling enough.  But add on the varying English language comprehension of each student, little knowledge of each students' background, and ultimately the task of getting these middle school and high school students to open up.

On the first day of class I realized how my 'training' from Stella Adler and years of theatre experiences (making a fool of myself, immediately working with others, and maintaining an open and receptive body) prepared me for this type of environment.  Playing theatre games and teaching them a song in English for many was difficult.  It took a while before they felt remotely comfortable in using their bodies.

These students have grown so much in just six weeks - from barely focusing and working with their peers to having more open and confident bodies, maintaining eye contact and focus with a large group, working together, and keeping a beat (much harder than one would think).

I was reminded of what an Adler teacher said about voice work: the skills we learn in here do not just help us as actors but in whatever we do - maintaining an open body, looking people in the eye, and engaging others.  I would like to think that these kids learned a bit of that.

But more than that - these kids inspire me.  I have been given so many opportunities - the opportunity to volunteer for a summer - and seeing these kids who have been uprooted from their homes, some of whom have probably seen atrocities and suffered trauma I can't even imagine, I realize how minuscule my problems truly are.  Plus, these students come in with more optimism and drive than I will ever have.  Their optimism for the future is boundless because all they see is what is ahead of them and not behind.

We were doing a reflection exercise and I said that the students could write in their own language if English was too hard.  A student from Guinea said, 'I know French, I don't need French, I am here, I need English so I write in English!'.  He had been here for a few weeks and he was determined to only write in English - even if it was a few sentences.  And when he handed me that piece of paper he was proud.  That type of pride I can only watch from afar but never really know - wanting to absolutely forget where I came from and propel forward so fast, faster than my own abilities can take me.

These students want to become doctors, lawyers, have families, change their countries.  They have taught me more than I have taught them.  I am humbled by their determination and their optimism and by their warmth.

New York is a fascinating place - the unbelievably wealthy and the unbelievably poor, the elite and the refugee.  With my private school education, Seven Sisters education, a year to study abroad, and never having to truly worry about money, I am very close to the bourgeois world of weekly manicures, designer bags, and weekly gossip over drinks in Soho.  And while there is a part of me that wants that, I am so thankful for these students for showing me what's really going on in the world and real issues where people need to find REFUGE in a different country.  I am exhausted, but these students inspire me to teach more students in need and put my priorities in check.  They're fearlessness to conquer the world touches me to the core.  There have been moments in class where their warmth and drive has almost brought me to tears.  Teaching music/theatre to these kids reminds me of the selfishness of acting - getting the job, the agent, being seen... so much that I can forget what all of this selfishness is truly about...

This experience reminds me of what theatre truly is: sharing, connecting, and expressing.

Now What?

So I have returned to the homeland.  US of A.  It's been a whirlwind coming back.  I feel like when returning 'home', no matter how long the individual has been away, there is always a sense of never having left.  This time, it's both wonderful and saddening.  I've been thrust back into my life here in New York (an internship with a wonderful Theatre organization that uses theatre to help children in need, family, love, friends) and it is wonderful.  But I can't help to feel that maybe, just maybe, that amazing year in London didn't happen.  It's astonishing how quickly relationships seem to falter and as I both miss London and the friends I've made, the Briticisms, the culture, I am both oh-so-glad to be back in New York.

More to come on the feelings of transition...

Things I will miss in England... a list.

(Not necessarily in this order)

1.  Cadbury chocolate (real Cadbury...)
2.  Twinings tea (real Twinings...)
3.  Regular English Tea with Milk
4.  Pubs
5.  True alcoholic Bulmers, Magners, Kopparberg Cider
6.  Terms:
  
    Quid (slang for £)
    Full stop
    Chuffed
    Chundered
    Cheers
    Fancy
    Jumpers
    Cross
    Kicking off
    Fit
    Fanny/fanny about
    Wanker
    Faff/faff about
    Pissed (drunk)
    Popping by
    You okay?
    You alright?           
    Can't be bothered
    Sorted/Sort out             
    Keen             
    Press on             
    Straight on       
    Knob
    Knackered
    Cringe
    Mental
    Cheeky            
    Fortnight             
    Knickers             
    Trousers             
    Crisps       
    Smart (not just intelligent but well put together, well dressed)       
    Posh       
    Clever
    Slag
    Bless
    Fag (cigarette)
    Rough

(to be added too... sometimes they don't just come to mind)

7. RIBENA.  I have only found some cheap-o horrible version of Ribena in New York once... not like the true Ribena in the UK.  Blackcurrant goodness!
8.  Pret a Manger.  This also exists in New York now but it's not the same.
9.  DIGESTIVES.  They are essentially biscuits (cookies in American terms) that cannot be found in the US
10. Quavers (type of potato crisp/chip)
11. Fish and Chips
12. Balls... there are so many balls here and opportunities to dress up.
13. Night buses.  The tube stops at a certain hour but night buses are saviours!  And... they don't just exist in Harry Potter
14. The history.  Everything here is historical and as an outsider, that sense of history permeates into the culture: pubs, balls, education, etc.  I will miss that sense of antiquity.
15. The National Theatre.  The National produces daring, solid, new works that look at society from the past to the present day.  An institution like it does not exist in the States and I will miss it terribly.  I wish there was such a dedication towards the theatre like that in the States.
16. UCL. They let me live my fantasy of studying in England and gave me quite a year of learning.  I'm very thankful for what I've learned.
17. The Musical Theatre Society.  They gave me a social life, an opportunity to have fun acting and to learn about myself.  And despite the drama, I made good friends.
18. Cellar Door.  So many good memories.
19. London style of clothing: classic, jumpers, brogues, very vintage-almost 1940s, sort of taking history into the present like the city and country.
20. Speaking of clothing these stores: Next, Topshop, Warehouse, Selfridges, John Lewis, Joy
21. And shoes:  Office, Schuh, Clarks (it's different than in the States!), Dune
22. Camden.  I know... odd.  But I like Camden Lock and the wonderful shops/atmosphere of next to the river.
23. THE SOUTH BANK.  So beautiful.  It's where the National Theatre is and just looks over to Parliament - it encompasses what IS London.
24. The accents.  There are so many accents in England (not even counting the whole of the UK) and I've learned to understand the region and 'class' assigned to it
25. Britain's obsession with class (this is not necessarily a good thing but something I find fascinating that is so unique, so unapologetic, and almost politically incorrect from an American point of view)
26. The British Library
27. Cambridge.  History and friends (Katie and Josh) - I always feel like I'm in Harry Potter when I go there.
28. Parks in London.  There's so much green space and it's so charming and livable and typically... English.
29. Trains - trains get you everywhere... thank you RAILCARD!
30. Marks and Spencer.  Not just because of Percy Pigs or their food...
31. PAPERCHASE.  I never began to love stationary until I found this store.
32. Sainsburys.  Good 'ole Sainsburys - main supermarket in the UK
33. Waitrose.  High-end supermarket for when I feel POSH.
34. Boots.  Boots has everything (drugstore)
35. NHS (National Health Service).  America needs it.  Full stop.
36. British humour - dry, sarcastic, and mockingly.
37. Friends (a number on a list doesn't give them justice AT ALL).
38. FOYLES.  The best bookstore in England.  Its main store is on Charing Cross Road and it is massive and so much better than a Barnes and Noble or Waterstones.  It has EVERYTHING and it's not corporate.  But SMART (both in intellect and in style).
39.  COVENT GARDEN.  Not the market part but Seven Dials, the streets around it - it's so quaint full of small shops and I just feel transported back in time to the quintessential charming London world.
40.  Dove Spray Deodorant.  They don't have spray deodorant in the States and I LOVE spray deodorant... odd I know.  It just makes life easier.  I will miss it... may need to import it!

More to add later...

It's odd.  After being here for almost a year there are certain aspects of British/London life that don't seem so novel that would of made me so obsessed a year ago because of its 'British-ness':

-Pubs and the characters within them are so British (and Irish) and the atmosphere is so warm and full of tradition.  Now it feels second nature, a place to meet people.  
-The accent - I know it's lame but the accent doesn't faze me like it did before, now I begin to (dare I say it) judge or assess people on their accent (Brits and Americans included).
-Tea too... I used to think it was SO cute and British - now I love it.
-The TUBE - who knew?  I know it and love it and it's orderliness (they have bars so people walk in one direction... and signs to direct pedestrian traffic).
-Driving on the other side of the road has become second nature.  I wouldn't be surprised if I have a similar near death experience of being run over in America like I have here...
-The history... it still fascinates me when I read books and see where they happened, but the fact that I'm surrounded by it and that it is so embedded in the culture doesn't shock me like it used too.  I know I will miss it when I get back to American and something (gasp!) 100 years old is 'old'.

The irony:  the more I articulate these 'things' the more I single them out AS particularly novel and unique to what I'm 'used to'.  Essentially, they may seem 'normal now' but truly they are and always will be somewhat 'differently fascinating.'

As I approach my departure... more to come, I assure you.

THE MORE TO COME:

One of the many amazing things about going abroad is learning about yourself but also really learning and understanding your country (America) and the country you're living in (Britain).  I found that while I still don't always know when is the PC way to use England or Britain (it's quite complicated!), I feel I have gotten somewhat of a grasp on what is typically 'British' (or 'English' - I told you I didn't know!).  And it's comforting knowing that it's both a combination of my own stereotypical movie vision of England but also of a more modern place full of complexities and issues that any country has.  Whether it's the humour, the cultural bias, the pop culture obsessions, one acquires this knowledge by comparing it to what one knows (America) and by seeing the differences in how different countries present their news, conduct their elections, interact with each other and different classes, ethnicities, immigrants, and even how they wash their dishes and don't always use clothing dryers, one begins to have perspective on both where they came from and from where they are.  But that's only possible by being in two different places and living life in those respective places.  And as I approach my departure back to America, I find that comparison and the fact that I feel so invested in both America and England truly powerful.