We’re into the third week now and it’s been the usual bumpy ride of “what fun!” periods crashing into “what am I doing with my life?” crises. Annoyingly, although my previous post was fairly upbeat, it marked the start of a few days of thinking I’d seriously made a mistake in returning to LISPA for the second year.
I guess it was partly due to not enjoying Creation. Our first theme of the term was to re-create an action movie with seven people, all of whom must be on the seven foot by three foot “stage” for the duration of the performance. Our group chose Kill Bill vol. 1, which I wasn’t wild about as I’m not crazy about Tarantino and feared that because the film is already so arch it would leave us less to react against. Better, I thought, to do something that has no built-in irony. But still, worse things have happened.
In our first week together we became bogged down in explaining the plot and managed only a lead-footed recounting of the first few minutes of the film. I didn’t enjoy the process but couldn’t think of much to add to help us all out. Presenting it to the teachers helped us realise where we were going wrong and we spent the next few sessions just playing around, creating lots of images and bits of story, not worrying about how to fit them together. This seems to have worked better and our final presentation of the piece, today, went well. By the end I was even enjoying the process and it’s a shame to have to break the group up for the new theme.
But for several days there I wasn’t enjoying the work at all. This combined with a general feeling of uneasiness about the course. I have no idea what it was, but I didn’t feel confident and I didn’t volunteer for performing in any classes for a long time. Of course, the longer I went without performing, the more insecure I got, and the less confident I felt about performing. Toward the end of last week I was thinking hard about jacking it all in. What was I thinking in coming back to this place? Why am I making myself go through all this when I don’t have to?
Thankfully (and maybe it’s not coincidental) Friday saw my one last push meet with a good day — Creation was productive and we had a good class with Thomas in which there was time for almost everyone to get up and have a turn at a solo task (45 seconds to convince to your fellow villagers that you just saw a real angel save a boat from sinking). So I had no excuse to continue avoiding being up there in front of everyone. And it was fine. It was fun even. So, after two weeks, I finally lost my second year virginity and I’ve felt a whole lot better about everything since.
Here’s hoping things stay so good after I post this…
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