never had more fun on a tuesday than today. finally learnt how to enjoy the moment... and i feel like i'm actually making progress with my cantonese in play reading, which is nice too... imposed "sweet charity" on chun chun & ah yee, but they seemed to have enjoyed the fosse experience despite my constant geeky academic commentary interludes (chita rivera is great! shirley maclaine is great! bob fosse is great! musicals are great!)...
cheerio!
as inspired by my viewing of hedda gabler tonight, and certain other events:
it's funny how you become, and think about the character in a play... i've been thinking and reading about marlene non-stop these few days... i also see how heath ledger and michelle williams; colin firth and jennifer ehle; nicole kidman and tom cruise etcetcetc. became couples after shooting a movie- because making yourself believe that you have feelings for another CHARACTER turns into having feelings for the ACTOR in real life. not that i have feelings for ms wong or anything, but it's really bloody hard working up all this shit inside of you for that 3 hours or so of rehearsal... i mean, i think michael bulbe and men in general are in fact quite a lovely invention but what is one supposed to do when one is given a lesbian role to play... when one is not a lesbian?? that's the magic of acting, i guess- a whole bunch of gullable people convincing themselves that they are their character for a few hours every night, in rehearsal and on show.
more about marlene-- like marlene, i think i perform better in pain. like in cricket today, i bowled a so-so first spell of four overs... then first i sat on the cricket ball with my hip trying to stop it at point; afterwards i tried to catch two rather quick ball flying towards me at backward square leg, the first one hit me plum on my bicep, the other on the meaty part of the hand... golly gosh... it BLOODY HURT! but the thing is, i bowled better in my second and third spells--- in pain--- and in the cold--- than in my first. we lost by a lot, though... but at least the younger girls weren't sulking over it. i took 5/44 from 10 overs, but it was too little, too late (the last 2 wickets [including the opposition's captain] came in the last over of their innings) wasn't enough to keep the score under 200... argh... the girls are so young they are not quite psychologically ready to play against adults. we'll bounce back next season!
i've become marlene!
and yeah, from all this reading, i think fassbinder is really quite a weird control freak type person...
Gosh, it's difficult being cool, repressed and smouldering all rehearsal, 'cos that's my character in a nutshell. she doesn't speak a word throughout the 10 minute long scene, but she is sensitive as a blind woman... she'd use all other senses to figure out a person before she'd use sight... but bloody hell it's tiring acting "small"... it feels as if i've been doing nothing all rehearsal but it took a lot of energy to do that "nothing"... what was that "nothing"? i can't really describe the sensation. i have to remember to be clearer in my "nothing" because it is marlene's method of communication to the cast & the audience. it was a good afternoon because i finally get to apply what i'm learning to a practical situation.
it may be an act of fate, but thank you for giving me the chance to do this.
I have to take a leaf out of scarlett johansson's book of acting... i'm going to look at girl with a pearl earring again and see how she does it- in that movie, her character doesn't have many lines but her face speak a thousand words. i'd probably watch how mr. darcy does it- he too is a smouldering character.
and oh, i am evacuating from my computer rather soon so there might not be much on here in the next week or so... not that anyone actually reads what i type here... well, goodnight, blog...
You scored as Dance. You should be a Dance major! Like a lithe ballerina, you dance because you believe there is beauty in expressing the physical form.
Dance | 92% | ||
Theater | 75% | ||
Linguistics | 75% | ||
Philosophy | 75% | ||
English | 67% | ||
Sociology | 67% | ||
Psychology | 67% | ||
Journalism | 58% | ||
Anthropology | 58% | ||
Mathematics | 50% | ||
Engineering | 42% | ||
Chemistry | 33% | ||
Biology | 25% | ||
Art | 17% |
this is probably my last post before my computer blows up-
went to suk yi's concert tonight, no, not my teacher suk yi, but the lady singer kwan suk yi shirley. not much out of the ordinary for shirley tonight but each and everything related to the production was well thought out. there were a few inspiring moments with the lighting. seeing a person like shirley doing something she loves on stage has given me extra motivation to improve my singing. i've never been more perplexed about singing since finding my support voice... Apparently it's turned into a "mixed voice" and not a "belter voice" as i have been categorising myself... what followed was a lot of voice finding near the echo-ey stairway behind the drama school / music school toilets... another affirmation today- dancing, music and singing are two things in my life that can make me happy even if i'm sad. i'm going to enrol myself in a dance course too to improve my dancing! (thank you ms. j for your comments, and mr. o too)
"it's very difficult to tell whether an Englishman is getting disemboweled or having a cup of tea"
yes, a large bruise... from our stage movement class... LAST THURSDAY... it doesn't hurt, actually, it just looks a tad gruesome... we had to imagine an object two metres in front of us was being blown away by imaginary wind and had to leap out (from a kneeling position) to catch it... a good performance requires committed acting and i learned last thursday that sometimes this sort of committed acting brings large purple bruises to one's knees and elbows...
aha.
it took me officially seven hours to think of that word... and i spelt it wrong.... and i had to use spell check to get it right...
tells you how bad my english is becoming!!!
21/2
jazz band... had no idea what was going on... have to do serious homework on the tunes we're preparing b/c open day is only a few weeks away... which also reminds me that i have to cancel yet another cricket umpiring date b/c of the APA open day...
joyce's engagement straight after jazz band @ 9.15... for some absurd reason i did not think of having dinner during our two hours at pacific coffee wanchai... stomach was making weird noises... i walked straight into an improv as i was late going into the rehearsal... sat down with my bottle of water and watched the improv happen... it was similar to the dancing game we worked with in suk yi's class in the morning... but the improv was clearly 10 million times more intense... of course, it was two degree students doing the improv, but it told me something right away- marg: if you're not willing to just go for it, you don't belong to this profession. so i threw caution to the wind and threw myself into my character for the next improv... i don't know how it turned out but at least joyce didn't yell, told me to piss off, or slice my head off (phew!) but at least i gave it my all... i got more relaxed in the second improv and had more of an idea of what my character would do in certain situations... for the sake of my dramatic ambitions i'll GO THERE!!!! yeah!!!
22/2
Mung's b'day... as usual i pressed the snooze one too many times and was all rush rush rush... the plan was to buy mung as many small cakes as possible so she's presented at lunch time with a mountain of cakes for her 24th... therefore was almost late for our 9am out-of-doors yoga session... rehearsing until 11pm brought back memories of our ASM experience... our out-of-doors experience reinforced my view that hong kong is surely one of the stinkiest cities in the world... bloody hell, if shu wing told us to take one more deep breath i'd collapse... seriously, my socks at the end of a long day smells better than the hong kong air... but our out-of-doors experience was a cleansing one... it was cool doing the sun salutation with the sun beaming down on us.
Then.... we found out our report cards were available for collection from the office... i am happy with my marks. i could of course improve but i could see why i got those marks... it's a bench mark, and a stepping stone! my 2nd semester resolution is to be fearless and brave... let's see if my "potential" can be unlocked...
GANBARE EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!
after school we went out to ramen noodles to celebrate mung's b'day... such a good girl... and afterwards to drinks at a bar called zodiac in CWB... a cool place with karaoke...
time for bed... zzzzzzz.... it's going to be an amazing month.
the terence blanchard sextet was a joy to watch yesterday night because it was a true ensemble performance with lots of interaction, creativity and innovation. everyone had a lengthy enough solo to show what they've got and most of them were great. there were messy moments but not enough to distract the audience from the fact that, here were a couple of musicians who really love what they do. they had fun out there. it was music to close your eyes to.
(is posting this legal? from http://www.hkicf.com/ )
for any classmates / anyone who gives a shit who wants to know what cricket is --> here's me in the middle of my delivery action at a cricket festival held here last november.
but why won't the sniffles go away?? it must be training yesterday night (and helping translate a simple proposition for sinead into a motown song: "would you like a hot samosa, yeah--!!!") and that bloody wind up the hills... argh.... **sniff sniff, sneeze** so i'm up at 10 in the morning to tell the umpires' association people that i can't umpire tomorrow morning... at this moment i cannot afford to be any sicker than i am at the moment, because i know on monday morning i will have to deal with everyone else's germs too.
while we're talking about school- here's an article from the ABC about cate blanchett, hedda gabler and the state of theatre companies in australia... the blog is an interesting read.
time for more rest.... lots to do this weekend...
there's always one girl in the class who gets picked on.
i feel sorry for her
yet i see why she gets torn apart
sometimes i am not so sympathetic
should i talk to her?
have i become a bitch?
i can't remember a thing from the cricket umpire's course and yet i'm supposed to umpire a game (w/ company, of course... but still...) for u13s THIS SUNDAY??? u13 means the prescence cranky parents watching every move of their offsprings' from the sidelines... i hope to the gollywogs that i don't make a horrifically wrong decision that causes the parents to shoot me with their own lovely spit as i walk off the pitch...
singing lesson today... the class felt like tom lee children's music class today-- with the ta ta tee tee ta's and stuff, but it was good to be able to help people understand how music works. music is terrific, terrific, terrific....
it's good to be back and experiencing everything with a relaxed attitude.
which brings me to my first rehearsal on sunday afternoon with joyce's workshop. i can't help but be a little nervous about my first experience as an actress @ the HKAPA- but i can only do my best and like a good little girlscout, to be prepared for the rehearsal.
luck!
acting is hard! i've learned more this week than i have the whole of last semester. i'm incredibly touched by how generous the girls were today at rehearsal. dealing with an inarticulate australian-chinese who's trying to explain something difficult requires concentration... thank you joyce, hitomi and nam... it was a great learning experience today figuring out my character, who doesn't speak a word throughout the whole scene. it could have been so easy for joyce to ignore the Ch-'s existence, but i sense she wanted to make her 3D and i also want to give a performance with depth so it was in a sense a good thing to do a 2 hour long character analysis with the cast & director.
went to do a film casting yesterday and learned heaps also, for other reasons.
thank (whoever is doing this) for all the incredible opportunities i've experienced this week... gosh, and the week's not nearly finished...
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
「我真係好鍾意唱歌!」
sorry... i get a bit emotional once every four weeks... won't happen again, i promise!
"I REALLY LOVE SINGING"
... is my phrase of the day...
i can proudly say that i was kissed by two men (technically, one boy and one man) today.
in acting class...
---- it's because i made two mistakes (NOT intentionally, of course!) in our warmup game and we are asked "kiss or hit". because it's valentines day the girls made a pact to only ask for kisses and only from the boys in the class. but yeah, i made two mistakes and got two kisses! thank you siu tung and suk yi for saying yes :p
and yeah, happy valentines day to all singletons... coupled people don't deserve such a greeting because they already have a boy/girlfriend to do it.
------------------
13/2
the girls departed from hong kong... they were sad times cause we had an amazing few days together! thank you for the memories :)
the piccies: 1- night one at the airport; 2-day 2 at disney; 3- day 3 at temple street; 4- day 5 on the MTR
I seem to be owing the APA library a lot of money lately... the latest is $12 hkd in fines tomorrow... ick.... it must rake in a lot of money
school again next week.
a bit nervous
but have encouragement today-- a degree 2 directing student, Joyce, AD from studio 1 rung me and cast me in her master workshop. i must be doing something right? i don't care what my role is, but at least i got cast in something.
will go on full horsepower and really do my best semester 2.
it's time to stop being nervous and just to "do it".
add oil, fellow diploma 1 thespians!
i love my friends... for the first time in my life i can truly say that i love my friends. i always had so much suspicion of people's motives and objectives to appreciate friendship.
thank you: emily, tak2, sheena, dorothy, mung, the hedda gabler boys , and anyone else who so generously gave up their time to think of a little stupid travel itinerary for three australian people you didn't even know before tonight. you didn't have to come or care, but you did. and this is not bullshit. you made three aussies (australian people) very happy tonight by showing them the hong kong hospitality.
i am VERY touched by your kindness.
i love you all.
xxxxxoooooxoxoxoxoxo <--- hugs and kisses
http://www.smh.com.au/news/ross-gittins/how-to-be-happy/2006/01/04/1136050483047.html
went back to school today for shadow box rehearsal. weird to be back after being away for a week. returned two books. paid $4 in fines. looked at diploma 1 notice board and still no new timetable... sigh,.. looked in postbox and still no report card. what moronic school still uses "report-cards" anyway? i mean, the last time i received a report card was in 2001. so old. changed watch battery. wrist relieved of sweatiness. bought disneyland tickets (yay!)... reading "on golden pond".
wash dishes.
... but only after three thorough days of drugged existance. eurotapp this, augmentin that... it's even worse than being on panadol cold & flu! it sure does feel good being able to speak and more importantly, sing, again.
