VISI, day 14

I had breakfast in the dorms this morning.  It was a nice break from the warmth and people of the cafeteria.  I can only take so many people in the morning ... I much prefer breakfast on my own.

I went to performance psych, which wasn't as scary as I expected it to be - we did a lot of concert visualization, figuring out what makes us feel comfortable on stage and distilling that into phrases we can use as process cues, sentences that bring us back to a place in our mind and body that feels as we want it to.

The ten o'clock lecture was a two-hour forum on translation, which passed in a flash.  It was truly interesting to hear and talk about the art of translation from so many viewpoints: there were people on the panel concerned with poetry, creative writing, French, German, musicology, translation in itself, distribution, and audience/singer/reader understanding.  It was fascinating.  We talked about a Goethe poem (the basis for Schubert's Wanderers Nachtlied) and a Paul Verlaine poem (Clair de lune).  

We talked about the inconsistencies of language, how poetry uses language, the purpose of metaphors, how to be faithful to a poem (rhyme scheme? ideas? metre? words? meaning? intent?), word choice, purpose, audience ...  like I said, truly fascinating.  It could have gone on for hours, and the thing is there really aren't solid answers to many of the questions that translation poses - just stances, and sometimes your stance can change depending on why you need a translation, or why you translate a piece.

My first coaching this afternoon was with Mme Rosemarie Landry, a true top banana (that expression cracks me up) in the world of French song.  I was nervous about working with her, but she was absolutely adorable and so much fun.  She was very kind, if very insistent.  She pointed out errors in my French that were caused by my speaking Canadian French (I have very sibilant fricatives, for instance), and helped me find a way to interpret the Poulenc piece I am working on so that it is not old-fashioned, nor is it unduly sad.  She was very encouraging, and said only time will fix some of the issues - time and practice, of course.  

The second coaching was with Dr Cameron Stowe, a pianist and interpreter.  We worked on a Brahms piece, one that I'd coached several times before in the past week and a half, with varying degrees of success (but always something learned).  There were several long phrases on which I was holding back for fear of a lack of breath, and as such were suffering in tone quality and vowel depth; he said to make it spin, I did, it used more air but ... I didn't run out.  We also fixed some problems of register changes by adding depth to the vowel, which was caused by relaxing the muscles on the bottom of my head (I think it's the geniohyoid muscle, but I'm not sure).  I think those were being kept closed (and still are - I keep catching myself at it) while I had my braces in.  I may have to spend some time with my mouth open at all times to break the habit.

After coachings, I went grocery shopping, and found out how to manage getting to Surrey tomorrow.  Tomorrow is adventure day!  I get to go meet a good friend of mine for the first time.  It'll be sweet, even if it does mean a bus ride of an hour and a half either way.  Oh well.  Worth it.  Also time to relax and read.

Now it is time to have a shower, and then go to bed.

VISI, day 12

Today was overall pretty good.  It started off, after breakfast, with a session on the Alexander Technique, which was enlightening, if a bit frustrating - how do you know when you've found a good poise?  It's all about trust ... 

After the Alexander Technique session, which took an hour longer than it was meant to so I missed the poetry lecture (which I think is okay ... I mean, it would have been good, but I needed to hear the Alexander Technique stuff).  After that was a shorter lecture on how artists can engage with their communities and why we should; this was somewhat empowering, and certainly a bit challenging.  Our art is not for our sake ... 

I then scurried off to make a quick lunch, and then to an hour-long concert which, honestly, I could have skipped.  It was a lecture-concert, so it was nice to have explanations of the songs, but I didn't feel particularly engaged ... just informed.  

Then we had a workshop on world harmonies and rhythms, which was pretty cool.  We did some Afro-Cuban, some Afro-Brazilian, some Sacred Harp (where the notes are shown by shapes on the staff, and sun using modified solfege - I was skeptical at first, but it somehow made singing in parts right off the bat much easier, which has always been difficult for me ... ), and some Serbian music.  Fun to hear all the different harmonies, and to try to get all the rhythms together.  It's difficult, even as a decent musician, to get three rhythms going at once - feet, hands and voice!

The only coaching we had today was one I was really looking forward to - an acting coaching with Dean Paul Gibson, a Canadian actor.  He was not what I was expecting - very abrasive, very honest - but also extraordinarily true to his art and ... he really does care about you, I think, but he's not afraid to ask the really tough questions or to tell you flat out that you're not connecting, you're not performing, you're inside yourself.  The audience doesn't care about what you're feeling - they will only care when you draw them in, make them care, make them feel.  Two of the people in my group (one had to miss today's session) seemed very turned off by his manner, and so it was really tough for them to open up to his admittedly abrasive methods of teaching, but I thought I'd be a bit better since I really want to learn to act better, and, well, I thought I was pretty good at it already.

Ha ha ha.  we're all so deluded aren't we.

Dean didn't work on the same things with me as he did with the others.  With the others, he was driving them out of themselves, getting them to connect.  With me ... he made me see that I was Acting.  I was pushing the song to the audience, driving it into them.  I'm not afraid to meet his eyes, to battle away my discomfort and nervousness.  But he saw them, saw what I was trying to do (which was, in essence, prove that I could do this and wanted to make it better), and said, basically, that I wasn't doing it right.  Except he didn't say that.  

He almost immediately got me to sing the song (which is about lost love and seeking it again but not finding it) where I couldn't stop doing things.  He got me to pretend to sew a jacket.  Smell the jacket.  Give up on it.  Check dinner.  Check the souffle.  Check the potatoes.  Make bread.  Go to the door.  Look for him.  Is he there?  Go to the window.  Go back to the chair.  Go back to sewing.  Check the clock.  Never-ending.

It was exhausting.  It connected me more with the actual situation.  I felt like I had a connection to the song already (feeling like love isn't quite what it used to be, and wanting it back), but this was very visceral.  We talked about it for a bit, and then he told me to just sing the words.  Nothing else.  Just sing the words.

That was incredibly difficult.  I wanted to focus on the words, on singing them the way they should be sung, paying attention to the diction, to the sounds, to the colours.  But every time I tried, he said to stop, no, just sing the words.  Just the words.  So I tried.  Just thinking about the words.  What's next.  What's next.  What am I saying.  Not in any deep way - just the words.  

I felt entirely disconnected.  I felt like it was a dead performance.  Like there was nothing there.  My vocal technique worked, and that felt pretty good, but I wasn't focusing on it, so that's not a big surprise.  (It's kinda funny how well your body works when you just leave it alone.)  

And then the comments started.  Best performance of the song yet.  Words had nuances and colour.  Feelings were obvious.  I was absolutely stunned.  How on earth could that be?  It was contrary to everything I'd ever done onstage, in a performance.  I didn't feel anything.  I had no inner indication of any of those things but apparently they worked. 

I expressed as much, and he said it was because I'd already done everything.  I had nothing left to do - I was vulnerable.  At that point, what I needed most was to tell the audience just how badly this was hurting me.  It was the only thing left that I needed.  And it came through.  That whole body thing again, I guess.

So this left me in a bit of a tough spot, and I'm still there now.  That experience ran contrary to everything I've ever done, but it worked magic on the audience.  The entire experience of it was not difficult except in turning my training off.  It was less abstract and more concrete.  I felt grounded.  

But how can I know that it will work every time?  That is a very, very hard thing to trust.  Dean said that performing is not 'acting'.  It is being.  Acting is reality.  You have to be in that place.

How do you choose to be in a place?

This is very difficult.

VISI, day 7

Today has been less tiring than the last few.  I put my blankets underneath me, adding to the mattress, and only slept under a sheet - it's a good thing Vancouver is warm even at night, otherwise I would have frozen.  Even as it was I kept waking up because I was cold, but I got a better sleep and was able to cajole myself out of bed.

I went to the performance psychology seminar at nine, during which we looked at our motivation and ignition tactics, as well as whether the focus was external or internal.  I found that much of my motivation was internal, but I feel very much dependent on the outer attention and approbation I receive, which I found interesting ...  The things which ignite me were simpler, but harder to focus on - I thought about rewards, and then thought about the things I receive after a performance ... more concrete than my motivators.  It was an interesting exercise, but difficult.  I walked out feeling tired and beaten down - not through any fault of the instructor, no, she was wonderful and understanding and encouraging - simply because it is difficult to look at what motivates me without thinking about how difficult this all is, and how tiring life seems to be these days ... 

Sitting through two lectures was hard, but not impossible - very interesting topics, as always.  The first was about how Schubert conceived of his Lieder, covering topics including original keys, transposition, published vs. manuscript copies, etc.  Fascinating.  Probably more so if I'd been more awake.  The second lecture was about the sonnet Silent Noon (Dante Rossetti).  Very much an English class - a bit more advanced than IB, but more or less the same thing.  I connected very closely to it ... makes me wonder again about writing as a career ... 

(no, I still think I have to do more than one thing.  I need variety.)

After the lectures, I showered and had lunch, then went for the two coachings of the day.  Both were somewhat piano-centric, which was nice for a change - I could work on the things that the coach told me, but I had a little bit less to remember.  The second one was particularly good: I worked on Die Mainacht, and the focus of the coaching was really dramatic - what is the story I am telling, how can I make the phrases work for me in this way, and so on.  It made singing the song a lot easier with just a few small adjustments!

My pianist and I practiced briefly afterwards, and then I headed back to the dorms to make supper.  Since then I've been checking up on the world and talking to people.  I'm going to try to head to bed around ten tonight, and wake up at six - another Manitoban said that it worked really well for her, with the schedule we're keeping, to be up earlier than classes started rather than later after they finished, with the added bonus of still more-or-less being on Manitoba time. 

'Post-script': when I first arrived on campus I saw a truck that said "UBC Plant Operations".  I thought, oh, wouldn't it be funny if it actually had to do with plants, since there's so many around?  But I had seen similar trucks on my home campus, and it's just the physical plant operations - maintenance and such.  The next day (or later that day, I don't remember), I saw another truck like that ... except it had a trailer, and it was full of gardening implements.  It turns out it really does mean plant operations!  The trucks show up all over the place, tending to the flowerbeds and trees and such.  One flowerbed went from prairie wildflowers to bedding plants in about two days.  It was a bit surreal.