(this happened a while ago and im happy i have it to remind myself
of the vast potential of Theatre and how it can truly help you grow as a person!...
i genuinely feel....Theatre is balm for the soul..:)...)
So today the journey 'formally' began.....
i am going to TRY and keep a regular account of Maya's work with us.....
we began with some exercises very much like Bhaveen's...
the relazation ones where you have to stop your mind from talking nineteenn to a dozen....
n which used to be analysed......note the past tense
im happy she didnt ask me what went through my head....
because oddly enough my mind was a complete blank....
as she talked about us holding on to each vision.....
i found it harder to GET any!!!this was quite remarkable and had never happened before....
now i respect maya as a theatre person but somehow
i dont think she had anything to do with it....
when i tried exceptionally hard.....
all that popped up was my gettin 62%....(second highest in KNC)......
but the fact is....i couldent really talk about that
(at this time i was still under the impression that we would be discussing our visions)....
especially cuz most people hadn't really done well....
ill flit lightly past the very fast-then slow-then slower-then barely moving-then faster-then running.....walk.....wheeewwww.........
i think that was just to get our bodies all warmed up......
as we hopped we were ASKED to produce tht whooshing sound with each hop....
apparatly i must hav done a fantastic job as mansi joshi looked visibly concerned!!...
then we were asked to 'surrender' ourselves to the earth....or in laymans terms......unceremoniously collapse on the ground......what followed was highly unusual........we were asked to go into our own rooms and then our home...
(she specified homes later but thats understood)....
asking us something about our favourite spot....
at this time i got very agitated.....i wasnt able to find that place.....
i felt like there was no place in my house that could honestly admit as my own......
or atleast where i felt comforted........
finally i settled for a spot behind the curtains where ive sobbed most of my adolescence away.....
after that i could hear her voice murmering something but it didnt really matter....
i went into this comfortable place where i was resting my back against the door and had the curtains shading me from only god knows what.......
i was woken up from my 'experience' by a gentle nudge....
the part of thw workshop that i felt i personally excelled in was one that had been, previously, described to her as my forte.....imagination and writing or rather talking ability.....
she showed us this picture of a group of korean people and demanded possible explanations for what they were doing......
we all made the usual remarks until she asked us to put them in a fantasy situation with some basis in reality.....
somehow i felt obliged to put them a country which had been invaded by religious fanatics who were now in power.....
n who would not tolerate anyone disregarding their religion....
i said that the people had been herded into a church where they were being introduced to a religion that would dictate what they would do for the rest of their lives......
this is how i explained the visible pain in their faces....
when she said 'lovely' i felt as though i had been redeemed and that my ability (however inconsiquential or otherwise) had been recognized....
as we continued she asked us to do the same for a printout which showed a woman looking at herself in a mirror held by a woman.....
instantly my mind flew to a woman who was doing her duty and was hiding her unhappiness under an aura of self control......
but maya asked us to arrange the story in 3 sentences.....
so i took my time while i collected my thoughts....
one of the MORE imp things maya said was that we had to BELIEVE in what we were saying or doing!!!....so i gave the woman a name and thus an identity.......
maya said that we must feel the story until we can feel the emotions.......
i found that it really worked for me......
i allowed myself to wallow in that womans loss and gave myself time to think about why she would be sorrowful....
finally i said that she was someone who had lost her husband.....
n tradition demanded that she dress up for the last time.....
so she was being given this one last chance to appreciate her physical beauty before she had to renounce the world of all its materialistic pleasures.......
what made it more poignant was perhaps her obvious beauty and her proud resignation to her fate....though i ddint say this out loud...
later we got a chair and saw it transformed from being described as a wooden inanimate object to a lonely visitors seat in an old age home where it signified the loneliness of an old man who got no visitors...at one moment Maya said the journey of discovering who you are is unending as we dont even know what our kidneys look like...however it made more sense when she framed it!!!!!.....
soon maya draped herself on that chair in remarkable postures moulding her 54 year old body to the chairs shape..........we sat and discussed what maya has vaguely planned for us in the next 10 days....as we did so......you could see the apreciation for her pouring out of everyone in huge drops!!!!.......another exercise we practiced was two sentences spoken out as a conversations......this culminated into a question asked.....n answered....with a 'but'.......its far too complicated a concept to be explained this far into the night.....
but the fact of the matter remains that i had an exceptional day.....even though my phones battrey is not working.....n though i seem to be gorging on junk everyday......n my hurt foot refuses to get better....i did somehting special today!..or atleast felt it....tomorrows gonna be a stress filled day!
so i should take ur leave!.....
sending loads of love that special someones way.....
even though he knows not what he means to me......
love you all......muahhhhssssss!!!!!........
will continue to keep you posted!....:):)
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