I've been thinking a lot about bodies lately. Specifically, my body. I'm working on a project for school dealing with body and identity, which has made me consider the way I think about this body that I've been inhabiting for over 20+ years. In my experience, I've found that my body has never quite been he way I wanted it at the time I wanted it to be that way. As a skinny, scrawny, short little kid, I remember being envious of my childhood best friend who starting wearing a bra loooooong before I ever had to consider one. I was jealous that my toothpick little body wasn't keeping pace with the more adult figure of my friend. One summer, the ultimate injustice, we both wore two-piece bathing suits. We looked extraordinarily different in them.
Flash forward a few years. My body caught up. By high school, I'd become hippy, to put it politely. I developed that curvy shape I thought I wanted when I as 13. But I didn't want it anymore. By 16 or so, I remember already feeling the pressure to be thinner. I was a "chubby" cheerleader in high school. Not actually chubby I don't think,but I certainly felt that way. A flat stomach has not been a part of my make-up since I've been in double digits, and probably never will be. Now, as an adult, I've got a short, rounded frame, and can never seem to budge the scales more than a few pounds. Once, about five years ago, I had a nasty run-in with a man at the grocery store, who mistook me for pregnant. I cried for hours, and was depressed, honestly depressed, for days afterward. As an adult, no matter how much weight I lose, I'll always have to contend with a somewhat absurd waist-to-hip ratio, that I and everyone (including my father the tailor) likes to poke fun at. I'm a curvy girl, sort of soft all over. I'm not a fan of the gym, and rarely run, unless something massive is chasing me.
So what's my point? That I'm not skinny? That spandex is not a part of wardrobe? Tangentially, yes. But that's not really the crux of this entry. I've been thinking a lot about my attitudes toward my own body with respect to what I ask it to do, which has led to some curious revelations about myself. I'm a performer. At various times in my life, I've been/still am a singer, a dancer, an actor... at risk of sounding very artsy-fartsy, my body is an instrument. And as a performing artist, I rarely perform without my body. No matter what character I play, I take my own body with me, for better or for worse.
This has been on my mind a lot with respect to dance. As a child, I took pretty much every style of dance offered in my small town. Not really a ballerina type, I got into cheerleading in junior high, and actually loved it, even though I always felt a bit like the ugly duckling of the bunch. I fell of out of dance until my sophomore year of college. Under the guidance of the brilliant Jan Hyatt, I fell in love with modern dance. For the first time, a dance teacher helped me to see my particular body as a strength, not something to be worked on, overcome. Jan helped me to see myself as a grounded dancer, and helped to discover a vocabulary that felt right in and for my body. For the first time, I really honed in on a sense of body confidence, predicated on what my body IS and not what it is not. Sure, being skinny and teeny tiny might be nice, but my body can do other things. I danced a piece in a concert my senior called "Cassandra" with two other performers, each of us very different in lock and style. My part was the earth-bound, grounded, more primal section of the piece, and I remember feeling like it was choreographed just for me. My body was the right body to dance it. That's such a lovely feeling.
Post-college, I've dabbled in burlesque, much to my parents' chagrin. But I have to say that it's been an enlightening and emboldening experience for me, one I sorely needed after moving to New York City. If modern dance taught me to see the capabilities of my particular body, burlesque has helped me to love them. At first, I was afraid. I was terrified that I wouldn't be good enough, pretty enough, and that stupid word again, skinny enough. I relied on the glamor and illusion of burlesque to create classic acts that made me feel beautiful. And that was awesome. Hiding coyly behind a feather fan in a gorgeous sequined dress with absurd fake eyelashes etc. Then, something in me got bolder. I started creating acts where I encouraged, nay downright forced, my audience to laugh at me. I had found the confidence in my body to allow a roomful of people to laugh at me in various states of undress. To me, the brilliant part of all of this is how I feel, onstage, with a laughing crowd in the palm of my hand. I've never felt more beautiful in my entire life, because I feel not just physically pretty, but also emotionally secure and confident. For me, that's what beautiful is all about. Granted, when I shimmy my shoulders, lots of things on my body jiggle. I'm short, with chubby legs. I could go on. But I won't, because that's not how I feel onstage at a burlesque show. During my five minutes of glory, I am the most beautiful woman in the room, no matter if I'm covered in stage blood, or wearing a pig nose, or dressed up as Betty Slocombe. I feel secure in this body of mine, and have, as a late 20-something adult, come to love it, jiggly bits and all.
Recently, Ive become fascinated in trying out other forms of movement on this body of mine. I am a bellydance enthusiast, hoping to get better at it, not for performance-sake, but for my own personal edification. To me, bellydance is all about embracing the things that current American standards of beauty try to take away from me. When I do a belly flutter, my belly really flutters. Because I have one. To American popular audiences, that's probably not appealing. But to me, it's amazing and makes me feel like a million bucks. Like burlesque, bellydance gives me a sense of confidence in my body, because of what MY body can do. This is of course a very reductionist analysis of these forms of movement; I'm just trying to make some sense of these particular points for myself.
It's so odd to me, as I never really think of myself as a person whole lacks confidence. I've always been fairly secure in myself, and in my self-worth etc. But underneath that, even for me, there's a fair bit of insecurity in my own skin. For me, the way Ito deal with that has, unconsciously, been through developing a movement vocabulary based on the unique capabilities of a body like mine. While I love hearing my boyfriend tell me I'm beautiful (and he does, often), there is a great deal of power to be harnessed in occasionally seeing it for oneself. I'm grateful for the opportunities I had in my life for this kind of positive growth, and for the people who've been supportive of these pursuits. I like liking my body, and hope to be able to do so for the rest of my life, and want that for every girl and woman I know.
Love,
TGI
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"That Girl" Stood on the Hill of Tara!
Much as I loved being in Dublin, and experiencing the bustle of tourists (not particularly), I absolutely loved my excursion out of Dublin to The Hill of Tara and to Newgrange, an ancient "passage tomb." While admittedly not a very religious person, as most religious institutions anger and confuse me, I am a very spiritual person, with a great deal of faith in a higher power etc. I found being at Tara to be a profoundly spiritual experience. Now, I recognize that this is a little weird. But bear with me.
Tara, the Hill of Kings, is an ancient archeological site, considered to be a sacred place associated with ancient high kings of Ireland. Possible used as a high sat, or perhaps as a ritual site, the area is now devoid of buildings and structures for the most part, and is predominately a wide open green range of gentle hills. It's difficult to explain, and even while I was there, trying to jot some notes in my journal, I was having trouble translating the experience into words. My journal entry devolved into a stream of sonsciousness ramble. It was amazingly quiet at the top of the hill. Not silent, as it was a very windy morning. But, because the wind was so sharp, it was honestly the only sound you could hear. I stood on top of the hill, looking out over 3/4 of Ireland with the wind burning in my ears. I travelled to Tara with tour group, and because it was so cold, we were the only adventurers atop the hill at the time. So I stood in peace and a quiet free of manmade sound and just was therefor awhile. I had a brief quiet cry up there, I think because it was so beautiful, and sort of a reminder to me how amazing this year is for me, this chance to see and do things that I had begun to think were never going to possible for me.
Coupled with that it also the intense energy of the place. Say what you like, but I do think that spaces and places have particulars vibes/energies/feelings, whatever you want to call it. For example, no theatre space can ever replicate the magic of the Playshop Theatre for me, at my undergrad. No place will have that energy for me. And, were I to revisit the space now, long out of undergrad, it might not feel the same. But I can still call up that feeling for myself, that memory of being in that place. In places like Tara, that idea of place and energy is necessarily tied up with a feeling of spirituality (as are most places in the natural world for me). I suppose I tend to gravitate towards stories of faiths and religions where women get a voice and a role. While not a practicing Catholic, I will probably always think of Mary as a friendly face, a better listener than the dudes she works for. In the same way, while being in a place like Tara, surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, it's comforting to think of that Mother Earth image, some sort of nurturing female-ish presence out there, having some power in our world. Anyway. Those are things I was thinking about on Tara. It was a painfully beautiful experience, and I'm sorry that I can't do it justice in words for you.
After Tara, we bundled back up into the blessedly warm tour bus and headed off to Newgrange, a powerful place in its own right. An ancient stone age site, it's called a passage tomb because human remains were found inside. Most likely however, its not a tomb in the traditional sense of burials, but rather a ceremonial place where ashes and offereings were placed, perhaps for the dead. I got to go inside, which was a total headtrip. Although the outside has been reconstructed, the inside is just as it would have been (barring a few health and safety changes) in the Stone Age. Totally amazing. The entry passage is long and narrow - even I had to duck and turn sideways just to get through. Then the passage opens into a small central chamber, with three little rooms surrounding it, thus creating, interestingly enough, a cruciform shape inside. As you stand in the central room, it would be completely dark without the floodlight on the wall. Completely. The entry passage has actually taken you up a small hill, so you are standing above the level of the door.
Newgrange is quite amazing though, in its solar alignment. There is a small opening over the door to Newgrange. On the winter equinox, the shortest day of the year, as the sign rises, the light penetrates this roof box, and, almost magically illuminates the inner chamber. For about 15 minutes, this black room is bathed in light from a window that cant be seen from the inside of the chamber. While we stood shoulder to shoulder in this stone wonder, our guide turned off the artificial lights, plunging us into total blackness, even on a sunny November afternoon. Then. she turned on a small lamp positioned at the roof box. The light streamed into the chamber, allowing us to see our feet, he walls around us, hints of faces. I stood in total and utter amazement. I was floored by the ingenuity and technical precision of our Stone Age ancestors, building Newgrange 500 years prior to the construction of the Pyramids at Giza. Amazement at considering what this experience would have meant to those same people - assurance that the days would once again grow long, that summer would come, that another season had been survived. I could have watched that demonstration 100times and still been agog every time. This was by far one of the coolest days of my life. Hands down.
So that was my big excursion out of Dublin proper. And I though about for the rest of the trip, and am in fact still revisiting it in my mind. An idea for a performance has sort of hatched, and I've been playing with that this week. It's not about Tara or Newgrange directly, but more about the idea of time and duration, how long things and experiences last. Anyways, it gave me a lot to ponder.
The rest of th trip was suitably grand as well. I saw John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre with Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsey Duncan, which was just lovely. It was a powerful production, with excellent synergy of design, direction and acting. A definite highlight, as was getting shake Alan Rickman's hand afterwards! In addition, I met some fun people who provided excellent company for the rest of my trip. I spent my last evening in Dublin hanging out with a gal from Australia, with whom I listened to an incredible Irish band, made of a grandmother and her grandson (and they ROCKED), molested statues in central Dublin (which I have the pictures to prove) and crashed some rich blonde girl's private birthday party (but only because we heard someone playing Britney Spears' on the piano from inside and had to investigate). Once inside, we accepted free Jameson from an embarrassingly drunk and even more embarassingly old man before making a hasty retreat. So from the spiritual to the ridiculous. Awesome. So that's it. Farewell, Ireland. And back to the grad school grind...
Love,
TGI
Tara, the Hill of Kings, is an ancient archeological site, considered to be a sacred place associated with ancient high kings of Ireland. Possible used as a high sat, or perhaps as a ritual site, the area is now devoid of buildings and structures for the most part, and is predominately a wide open green range of gentle hills. It's difficult to explain, and even while I was there, trying to jot some notes in my journal, I was having trouble translating the experience into words. My journal entry devolved into a stream of sonsciousness ramble. It was amazingly quiet at the top of the hill. Not silent, as it was a very windy morning. But, because the wind was so sharp, it was honestly the only sound you could hear. I stood on top of the hill, looking out over 3/4 of Ireland with the wind burning in my ears. I travelled to Tara with tour group, and because it was so cold, we were the only adventurers atop the hill at the time. So I stood in peace and a quiet free of manmade sound and just was therefor awhile. I had a brief quiet cry up there, I think because it was so beautiful, and sort of a reminder to me how amazing this year is for me, this chance to see and do things that I had begun to think were never going to possible for me.
Coupled with that it also the intense energy of the place. Say what you like, but I do think that spaces and places have particulars vibes/energies/feelings, whatever you want to call it. For example, no theatre space can ever replicate the magic of the Playshop Theatre for me, at my undergrad. No place will have that energy for me. And, were I to revisit the space now, long out of undergrad, it might not feel the same. But I can still call up that feeling for myself, that memory of being in that place. In places like Tara, that idea of place and energy is necessarily tied up with a feeling of spirituality (as are most places in the natural world for me). I suppose I tend to gravitate towards stories of faiths and religions where women get a voice and a role. While not a practicing Catholic, I will probably always think of Mary as a friendly face, a better listener than the dudes she works for. In the same way, while being in a place like Tara, surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, it's comforting to think of that Mother Earth image, some sort of nurturing female-ish presence out there, having some power in our world. Anyway. Those are things I was thinking about on Tara. It was a painfully beautiful experience, and I'm sorry that I can't do it justice in words for you.
After Tara, we bundled back up into the blessedly warm tour bus and headed off to Newgrange, a powerful place in its own right. An ancient stone age site, it's called a passage tomb because human remains were found inside. Most likely however, its not a tomb in the traditional sense of burials, but rather a ceremonial place where ashes and offereings were placed, perhaps for the dead. I got to go inside, which was a total headtrip. Although the outside has been reconstructed, the inside is just as it would have been (barring a few health and safety changes) in the Stone Age. Totally amazing. The entry passage is long and narrow - even I had to duck and turn sideways just to get through. Then the passage opens into a small central chamber, with three little rooms surrounding it, thus creating, interestingly enough, a cruciform shape inside. As you stand in the central room, it would be completely dark without the floodlight on the wall. Completely. The entry passage has actually taken you up a small hill, so you are standing above the level of the door.
Newgrange is quite amazing though, in its solar alignment. There is a small opening over the door to Newgrange. On the winter equinox, the shortest day of the year, as the sign rises, the light penetrates this roof box, and, almost magically illuminates the inner chamber. For about 15 minutes, this black room is bathed in light from a window that cant be seen from the inside of the chamber. While we stood shoulder to shoulder in this stone wonder, our guide turned off the artificial lights, plunging us into total blackness, even on a sunny November afternoon. Then. she turned on a small lamp positioned at the roof box. The light streamed into the chamber, allowing us to see our feet, he walls around us, hints of faces. I stood in total and utter amazement. I was floored by the ingenuity and technical precision of our Stone Age ancestors, building Newgrange 500 years prior to the construction of the Pyramids at Giza. Amazement at considering what this experience would have meant to those same people - assurance that the days would once again grow long, that summer would come, that another season had been survived. I could have watched that demonstration 100times and still been agog every time. This was by far one of the coolest days of my life. Hands down.
So that was my big excursion out of Dublin proper. And I though about for the rest of the trip, and am in fact still revisiting it in my mind. An idea for a performance has sort of hatched, and I've been playing with that this week. It's not about Tara or Newgrange directly, but more about the idea of time and duration, how long things and experiences last. Anyways, it gave me a lot to ponder.
The rest of th trip was suitably grand as well. I saw John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre with Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsey Duncan, which was just lovely. It was a powerful production, with excellent synergy of design, direction and acting. A definite highlight, as was getting shake Alan Rickman's hand afterwards! In addition, I met some fun people who provided excellent company for the rest of my trip. I spent my last evening in Dublin hanging out with a gal from Australia, with whom I listened to an incredible Irish band, made of a grandmother and her grandson (and they ROCKED), molested statues in central Dublin (which I have the pictures to prove) and crashed some rich blonde girl's private birthday party (but only because we heard someone playing Britney Spears' on the piano from inside and had to investigate). Once inside, we accepted free Jameson from an embarrassingly drunk and even more embarassingly old man before making a hasty retreat. So from the spiritual to the ridiculous. Awesome. So that's it. Farewell, Ireland. And back to the grad school grind...
Love,
TGI
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
"That Girl" Went To Jail and a Pub... In That Order!
Well, I’ve returned from Ireland and I have so many stories to tell! I had an amazing trip – my first international jaunt (excepting England). I didn’t have a particular plan in mind when scheduling a trip to Dublin. I had some time off from class, a few extra bucks and a long-standing desire to see the Emerald Isle, home to Guinness, ancient Celtic history and The Quiet Man (three of my favorite things). So, on November 9th, off I went. I booked a cheapo ticket through Ryan Air, cheap because travelling with them is about as luxurious as being caber-tossed by a drunken hairy lumberjack over the ocean. Crammed into a tiny little seat on a pared-down jet (read: no between seat armrests…ick), we were subjected to commercials from our “friendly” cabin crew every five minutes, selling the entire commercial pantheon, ranging from five hour energy shots to watches to first-born children. Well, you get the point. Amazingly, the one thing they weren’t selling, the only item I would have bought, was coffee; their coffeemaker wasn’t working. Le sigh. But, after 5 glorious, decaffeinated minutes, yours truly stumbled in Dublin Airport, breezed through border patrol and heading out into the GREAT Green Way.
I opted to stay in a hostel in the western part of the city, to be close to the touristy stuff, but not too close to tourist traps like Temple Bar. My hostel was decent, though after a mix-up on their part, I wound up in an eight bed room, instead of the cozy four bed I had booked. But it was all right. To be honest, I’m such a heavy sleeper that I am sort of the ideal candidate for hostel travel. I took a bottom bunk and barely heard the Seven Drunkertons when they stumbled in shortly before my alarm would go off each morning.
I spent my afternoon in the city doing a mixture of terribly important things. First, while waiting for check-in time, I stopped at Ryan’s Pub on Camden Street for my first local pint of the good old “black stuff.” And I must say Guinness really does taste even better in Dublin. And of course, by better, I mean like molten heaven. With a side of puppies and rainbows. For serious. After dropping off my own teeny little bag at the Ritz Hotel (har har), I started off on my second important mission of the day: Getting lost in every spectacular way possible. I started wandering with a map that was several years old, borrowed from a classmate. Now, I could have Rand McNally holding my hand and I’d still get lost, so me and an outdated map? Forget it. After walking in circles, I broke down, visited a bookshop and bought a non-Stone Age cityfinder. Much better.
With the help of my map and at least 6789 locals, I spent the day looking at the outsides of some beautiful places, and stumbled upon the small Focus Theatre, coincidentally opening previews for Men of Tortuga that evening, for which I promptly bought a ticket . The play was really well done, in an intimate black-box setting that I’d kill to work in. Very reminiscent of Allegheny’s beloved Playshop, which is still my favorite theatre ever. The four men in the cast worked well together, and had perfected their American accents. Aside from a few sticky blocking moments, it was overall a very thoughtful and engaging production, and definitely a nice little surprise, as I’d not heard of Focus before.
Wednesday was a great day. I trekked out Kilmainham Gaol (muuuuuch further away than it looked on my decidedly not to scale map). Now, I shan’t give you a full history lesson (even though it’s fascinating stuff!) but you should know that the jail was built in 1796 and was originally concerned quite modern. The prison figures heavily in the histories of the Famine, Easter Rising of 1916 and the War of Independence. While Kilmainham was open into the 1920s, during its last years it was used to hold only political prisoners. The stories surrounding the Easter Rising were particularly heartbreaking. On Easter Monday 1916, rebels, in an effort to publically to sever ties with the British, seized control of strategically important buildings in Dublin, including the Post Office, in front of which leader Padraig Pearse read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. The siege lasted several days, over the course of which much property was destroyed and many civilian lives lost. Hundreds of men and women were arrested as a result of the rising and imprisoned at Kilmainham. 14 of the leaders were swiftly court marshaled, and within three weeks, executed on the jail’s grounds, including Joseph Plunkett who married his fiancée Grace Gifford in the prison chapel a mere five hours before he was killed. The final execution, that of Joseph Connolly, is considered to be the tide-turner in public opinion for the Rising. Because of all of the damage done by the rebels, public opinion was initially quite negative. People jeered when the leaders were first taken to Kilmainham. As a result of the swiftness with which their deaths were ordered by the British however, the mood began to change. Connolly’s execution was particularly brutal. He’d been badly wounded during the rising and was held at hospital prior to his death, not at the jail with the other leaders. On the day of his execution, he was carried into the stonebreaker’s yard on a stretcher. He couldn’t stand, so the British soldiers tied him to a chair and then shot him. This final cruelty helped the public to see the rebels in a positive light, allowing the Rising of 1916 to pave the way for Irish independence a few short years later.
Okay. I know I said I wasn’t going to give you a history lesson. But it is just too interesting and too powerful not to share. I realized while on the grounds at Kilmainham how little I know about Irish history. I just kept thinking about the strength and conviction that it would take to stand up for one’s country and beliefs that way. I’m not sure that I have the fortitude for it, but I certainly grateful for those who do. I felt quite moved standing in the stonebreaker’s yard, marked at either end with a black wooden cross, demarcating the execution sites. It was quiet, and my fellow tourists were not chattering, but rather just being ‘in’ the space. I got choked up, which surprised me, as it’s not my history… but there is something enduring about people who stand up for their convictions, and, more importantly, for the good of their fellow man. Very very strong stuff. I took some pictures at the jail, which can be spotted here if you’re curious.
Incidentally, the story of Kilmainham’s restoration is quite amazing. Abandoned after the 1920s, it quickly became derelict. Due to its key presence in much of Ireland’s struggle for independence, a campaign began to restore it and open it as a museum. An all-volunteer team, many of whom were former political prisoners, spent 30 years getting Kilmainham ready to reopen. Because of their hard work, Kilmainham is now a monument, a landmark in the fight for Irish freedom.
After Kilmainham, I took a long walk to clear my head and sort of digest all of that experience. And where did I walk to? The Guinness Storehouse of course! Terrifically good city planning to put the Guinness brewery a 15 minute walk away from a humbling museum like Kilmainham! And that was just Day One…. Wait till you hear about the rest of my trip!
Love,
TGI
I opted to stay in a hostel in the western part of the city, to be close to the touristy stuff, but not too close to tourist traps like Temple Bar. My hostel was decent, though after a mix-up on their part, I wound up in an eight bed room, instead of the cozy four bed I had booked. But it was all right. To be honest, I’m such a heavy sleeper that I am sort of the ideal candidate for hostel travel. I took a bottom bunk and barely heard the Seven Drunkertons when they stumbled in shortly before my alarm would go off each morning.
I spent my afternoon in the city doing a mixture of terribly important things. First, while waiting for check-in time, I stopped at Ryan’s Pub on Camden Street for my first local pint of the good old “black stuff.” And I must say Guinness really does taste even better in Dublin. And of course, by better, I mean like molten heaven. With a side of puppies and rainbows. For serious. After dropping off my own teeny little bag at the Ritz Hotel (har har), I started off on my second important mission of the day: Getting lost in every spectacular way possible. I started wandering with a map that was several years old, borrowed from a classmate. Now, I could have Rand McNally holding my hand and I’d still get lost, so me and an outdated map? Forget it. After walking in circles, I broke down, visited a bookshop and bought a non-Stone Age cityfinder. Much better.
With the help of my map and at least 6789 locals, I spent the day looking at the outsides of some beautiful places, and stumbled upon the small Focus Theatre, coincidentally opening previews for Men of Tortuga that evening, for which I promptly bought a ticket . The play was really well done, in an intimate black-box setting that I’d kill to work in. Very reminiscent of Allegheny’s beloved Playshop, which is still my favorite theatre ever. The four men in the cast worked well together, and had perfected their American accents. Aside from a few sticky blocking moments, it was overall a very thoughtful and engaging production, and definitely a nice little surprise, as I’d not heard of Focus before.
Wednesday was a great day. I trekked out Kilmainham Gaol (muuuuuch further away than it looked on my decidedly not to scale map). Now, I shan’t give you a full history lesson (even though it’s fascinating stuff!) but you should know that the jail was built in 1796 and was originally concerned quite modern. The prison figures heavily in the histories of the Famine, Easter Rising of 1916 and the War of Independence. While Kilmainham was open into the 1920s, during its last years it was used to hold only political prisoners. The stories surrounding the Easter Rising were particularly heartbreaking. On Easter Monday 1916, rebels, in an effort to publically to sever ties with the British, seized control of strategically important buildings in Dublin, including the Post Office, in front of which leader Padraig Pearse read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. The siege lasted several days, over the course of which much property was destroyed and many civilian lives lost. Hundreds of men and women were arrested as a result of the rising and imprisoned at Kilmainham. 14 of the leaders were swiftly court marshaled, and within three weeks, executed on the jail’s grounds, including Joseph Plunkett who married his fiancée Grace Gifford in the prison chapel a mere five hours before he was killed. The final execution, that of Joseph Connolly, is considered to be the tide-turner in public opinion for the Rising. Because of all of the damage done by the rebels, public opinion was initially quite negative. People jeered when the leaders were first taken to Kilmainham. As a result of the swiftness with which their deaths were ordered by the British however, the mood began to change. Connolly’s execution was particularly brutal. He’d been badly wounded during the rising and was held at hospital prior to his death, not at the jail with the other leaders. On the day of his execution, he was carried into the stonebreaker’s yard on a stretcher. He couldn’t stand, so the British soldiers tied him to a chair and then shot him. This final cruelty helped the public to see the rebels in a positive light, allowing the Rising of 1916 to pave the way for Irish independence a few short years later.
Okay. I know I said I wasn’t going to give you a history lesson. But it is just too interesting and too powerful not to share. I realized while on the grounds at Kilmainham how little I know about Irish history. I just kept thinking about the strength and conviction that it would take to stand up for one’s country and beliefs that way. I’m not sure that I have the fortitude for it, but I certainly grateful for those who do. I felt quite moved standing in the stonebreaker’s yard, marked at either end with a black wooden cross, demarcating the execution sites. It was quiet, and my fellow tourists were not chattering, but rather just being ‘in’ the space. I got choked up, which surprised me, as it’s not my history… but there is something enduring about people who stand up for their convictions, and, more importantly, for the good of their fellow man. Very very strong stuff. I took some pictures at the jail, which can be spotted here if you’re curious.
Incidentally, the story of Kilmainham’s restoration is quite amazing. Abandoned after the 1920s, it quickly became derelict. Due to its key presence in much of Ireland’s struggle for independence, a campaign began to restore it and open it as a museum. An all-volunteer team, many of whom were former political prisoners, spent 30 years getting Kilmainham ready to reopen. Because of their hard work, Kilmainham is now a monument, a landmark in the fight for Irish freedom.
After Kilmainham, I took a long walk to clear my head and sort of digest all of that experience. And where did I walk to? The Guinness Storehouse of course! Terrifically good city planning to put the Guinness brewery a 15 minute walk away from a humbling museum like Kilmainham! And that was just Day One…. Wait till you hear about the rest of my trip!
Love,
TGI
Saturday, November 6, 2010
"That Girl" Loves Bonfire Night!
Hiya --
I've just had the nicest Friday in the history of Fridays. Determined to have a productive day, I woke up early. Well, early for me. So 8am. I know. I'm a wuss. After the coffee was a'brewin', I embarked on a little professional networking thru social networking, which yielded an almost instant reply from an artist who's work I greatly admire. And that lead to an email exchange, which then led to a tea meetup in two weeks. Yahoo! Not bad for TGI at 8:30am!
After that, I started work on some text for a performance piece I've been thinking about. During the first block of my course, we had a guest lecture from Emily Orley, a place-specific UK theatre/art practitioner. She introduced to me an interesting technique called "place writing,' a good jumping off point for creative writing. I've never considered myself a creative writer. I can talk for hours, I can express myself through movement/gesture, and I'm comfortable using someone else's words to tell a story, but I choke when it comes time to point the pencil to paper in an imaginative sort of way. In this approach however, you use to me what feels like a catalyst: a place, defined not necessarily as a geographic location, but rather as a particular, describable point/object. So this 'place' could be a passage in a book, describable for not only the words but also their placement on the page, the smell of the book, the type etc. A place could be an object, like my cluttered desk drawer, a seat on the Central Tube line, or the clawfoot bathtub at my parents' house. The point is that this 'place' has a history and a makeup all its own, and that combination can be elucidated through writing.
Now, to those of you who are writers, this probably sounds pedantic and dull. But for me, it's a welcome restriction that actually helps me get writing, instead of staring at a page being nervous about writing. I wrote about my ring. I've worn the same ring for almost seven years now, on the middle finger of my right hand. I take it off very infrequently, usually only when I performing etc. So I used it as my place. I started out describing its physical characteristics (engraving, signs of age) and its placement, and then my wiritng started to morph into the object's history. I started writing about how, occasionally, I wake up and my ring is missing. I must take it off in my sleep, with no recollection of doing it. It'll go missing for a few days, before it turns up in my pillow, or under the bed.
I started thinking bout that in relation to the engraving on my ring, which is from Song of Solomon and deals with the notion of being "beloved." Why do I take my ring off? To give that away? To become someone's beloved? Or simply because, for whatever reason, it gets in my way in my sleep? Whatever. Not really relevant points, but they do make for interesting writing explorations, especially for someone like me, who is the biggest block to my own creative writing.
In any case, I've been fascinated with this exercise, and have been trying to use it to develop some short texts for performance pieces. I spent yesterday developing a little snippet from this material I gathered about my ring, and it is taking an interesting shape. I'll post some of it here in a few days, perhaps.
So that was yesterday morning. A productive creative morning. And my day wasn't even half over! Then I trekked onto campus to meet-up with a fellow student and create another performance. I'm trying to be dedicated in the off times, and really use them to explore my own performance vocabulary. I've been stewing around a storytelling type performance, influenced by the thinking I've been doing about my grandmother and memory etc., after seeing Krapp's Last Tape. I'm working on an idea that I'm going to continue expanding, using objects to trigger memory. In this case, I'm using objects that call up stories I have about my grandmother, like a set of keys, a bell, a ball of yarn, birdseed etc. In keeping with the explorations of fragmented memory however, I'm trying to weave these memories of mine with snippets from her later life, when her memory was impaired. For example, the ball of yarn reminds me of how skilled my grandmother was a craftswoman. She could knit or crochet in the neatest, fastest way, while keeping her eyes fully on the tv or her grandchildren. It was like second-nature to her. In later life however, not only had she lost this ability, but she slowly became even unable to wind a ball of yarn. Every once in awhile however, while we sat and talked,her hands would be rhythmically moving, empty, but moving almost as if they were remembering some of the actions involved in the craft. I'm interested in explore that, and that's what I'm trying to do with movement and text.
I also have this idea of selecting a lot of objects, but only having space for some of them. Out of a collection of 30 objects that I bring, audience members would chose say eight of them and set them in their places in the performance space, out of my sight. That way, until i see them, I don't know what stories to tell.
In the same piece, I'm working with Julie Taymor's idea of an ideograph, a simple pictorial gesture used to encapsulate an entire character/theme. In this case, I'm trying to use my gesture to represent the two grandmothers that I remember: regular memory, fragmented memory. It helps me make the shift between the two stories I'm trying to tell.
It probably sounds very strange, and not very interesting, and perhaps it isn't to anyone but me. But I'm really captivated by it. The little five minute performance of this sort that I worked on yesterday has given me a lot to think about, and I'm going to work on developing it this week, with an eye to show it again in two weeks, in a more developed format. So there's that.
After all of this, I took a much-needed evening off to enjoy Bonfire Night in London, the celebration of the failed Guy Fawkes' plot to blow Parliament sky high. And how is it marked? With bonfires and fireworks displays of course! Strange, right? But hey, I'll take any excuse for a fireworks show, especially one in November! The display we went to see was set to music, and it's hard to enjoy oneself when fireworks are exploding to the tunes of Guns n Roses and Madonna. All in all, a nice little night, followed up with drinks and a rush back to the Tube before service ended for the night. Nice.
So that's that. This weekend holds a bit more theatre, a lot of reading, and a little relaxing to gear up for my IRELAND ADVENTURE this coming week!
Love,
TGI
I've just had the nicest Friday in the history of Fridays. Determined to have a productive day, I woke up early. Well, early for me. So 8am. I know. I'm a wuss. After the coffee was a'brewin', I embarked on a little professional networking thru social networking, which yielded an almost instant reply from an artist who's work I greatly admire. And that lead to an email exchange, which then led to a tea meetup in two weeks. Yahoo! Not bad for TGI at 8:30am!
After that, I started work on some text for a performance piece I've been thinking about. During the first block of my course, we had a guest lecture from Emily Orley, a place-specific UK theatre/art practitioner. She introduced to me an interesting technique called "place writing,' a good jumping off point for creative writing. I've never considered myself a creative writer. I can talk for hours, I can express myself through movement/gesture, and I'm comfortable using someone else's words to tell a story, but I choke when it comes time to point the pencil to paper in an imaginative sort of way. In this approach however, you use to me what feels like a catalyst: a place, defined not necessarily as a geographic location, but rather as a particular, describable point/object. So this 'place' could be a passage in a book, describable for not only the words but also their placement on the page, the smell of the book, the type etc. A place could be an object, like my cluttered desk drawer, a seat on the Central Tube line, or the clawfoot bathtub at my parents' house. The point is that this 'place' has a history and a makeup all its own, and that combination can be elucidated through writing.
Now, to those of you who are writers, this probably sounds pedantic and dull. But for me, it's a welcome restriction that actually helps me get writing, instead of staring at a page being nervous about writing. I wrote about my ring. I've worn the same ring for almost seven years now, on the middle finger of my right hand. I take it off very infrequently, usually only when I performing etc. So I used it as my place. I started out describing its physical characteristics (engraving, signs of age) and its placement, and then my wiritng started to morph into the object's history. I started writing about how, occasionally, I wake up and my ring is missing. I must take it off in my sleep, with no recollection of doing it. It'll go missing for a few days, before it turns up in my pillow, or under the bed.
I started thinking bout that in relation to the engraving on my ring, which is from Song of Solomon and deals with the notion of being "beloved." Why do I take my ring off? To give that away? To become someone's beloved? Or simply because, for whatever reason, it gets in my way in my sleep? Whatever. Not really relevant points, but they do make for interesting writing explorations, especially for someone like me, who is the biggest block to my own creative writing.
In any case, I've been fascinated with this exercise, and have been trying to use it to develop some short texts for performance pieces. I spent yesterday developing a little snippet from this material I gathered about my ring, and it is taking an interesting shape. I'll post some of it here in a few days, perhaps.
So that was yesterday morning. A productive creative morning. And my day wasn't even half over! Then I trekked onto campus to meet-up with a fellow student and create another performance. I'm trying to be dedicated in the off times, and really use them to explore my own performance vocabulary. I've been stewing around a storytelling type performance, influenced by the thinking I've been doing about my grandmother and memory etc., after seeing Krapp's Last Tape. I'm working on an idea that I'm going to continue expanding, using objects to trigger memory. In this case, I'm using objects that call up stories I have about my grandmother, like a set of keys, a bell, a ball of yarn, birdseed etc. In keeping with the explorations of fragmented memory however, I'm trying to weave these memories of mine with snippets from her later life, when her memory was impaired. For example, the ball of yarn reminds me of how skilled my grandmother was a craftswoman. She could knit or crochet in the neatest, fastest way, while keeping her eyes fully on the tv or her grandchildren. It was like second-nature to her. In later life however, not only had she lost this ability, but she slowly became even unable to wind a ball of yarn. Every once in awhile however, while we sat and talked,her hands would be rhythmically moving, empty, but moving almost as if they were remembering some of the actions involved in the craft. I'm interested in explore that, and that's what I'm trying to do with movement and text.
I also have this idea of selecting a lot of objects, but only having space for some of them. Out of a collection of 30 objects that I bring, audience members would chose say eight of them and set them in their places in the performance space, out of my sight. That way, until i see them, I don't know what stories to tell.
In the same piece, I'm working with Julie Taymor's idea of an ideograph, a simple pictorial gesture used to encapsulate an entire character/theme. In this case, I'm trying to use my gesture to represent the two grandmothers that I remember: regular memory, fragmented memory. It helps me make the shift between the two stories I'm trying to tell.
It probably sounds very strange, and not very interesting, and perhaps it isn't to anyone but me. But I'm really captivated by it. The little five minute performance of this sort that I worked on yesterday has given me a lot to think about, and I'm going to work on developing it this week, with an eye to show it again in two weeks, in a more developed format. So there's that.
After all of this, I took a much-needed evening off to enjoy Bonfire Night in London, the celebration of the failed Guy Fawkes' plot to blow Parliament sky high. And how is it marked? With bonfires and fireworks displays of course! Strange, right? But hey, I'll take any excuse for a fireworks show, especially one in November! The display we went to see was set to music, and it's hard to enjoy oneself when fireworks are exploding to the tunes of Guns n Roses and Madonna. All in all, a nice little night, followed up with drinks and a rush back to the Tube before service ended for the night. Nice.
So that's that. This weekend holds a bit more theatre, a lot of reading, and a little relaxing to gear up for my IRELAND ADVENTURE this coming week!
Love,
TGI
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