Cheers!

(A Gorgeous Night, captured by moi)
(ROAR! lol)
(One of the coolest pieces of art in the British Museum)
(In front of the stage at The Globe Theater)
(Jesus In The Sand, on the River Thames)

These are just a couple random photos to give you a taste of my London trip. I took 300 photos during a 5 day trip, so these are just scratching the surface of what I saw & experience over in the Queen's hometown. This trip was probably the best part of my time abroad so far. I don't say that to discount Dublin in any way, because I've had & continue to have great times here, but during the London trip, everything came together for me. It was the perfect mix of exploration, discovery, education, inspiration, freedom, and comfort all in one vacation. Yes, I viewed this a vacation. Primarily, I thought of it like that because it was the only way I could mentally prepare for it without negative thoughts creeping in. You try traveling with the same group of 12 people who you've spent the last 6 six weeks in class with. I got nothing but love for the group, they're great folks, but spending as much time with each other as we do can make a brotha get agitated from time to time.

But I ain't tryin to dwell on any negative worries, let me tell y'all about the awesomeness of my time in the home of the Union Jack. 5 plays in 3 days, this was the plan & as you can tell, the itinerary was tight. On the first day, we got in, checked into our ridiculous hostel (more on that in a sec), and had about an hour to ourselves before we headed off for our first show. We had been up extra early, around 6am since we had to be at the airport at 7:30am that morning, so that first play (Creditors by Alan Strindberg; highly recommended) was a little rough to sit through. After the show & some dinner, we returned to our hostel & decided that we'd be better off staying in & getting some sleep rather than prowling around the city. Let me tell you about this hostel then. It's called The Generator and in my guidebook, it was listed as one of the most popular hostels in London. Sounds wonderful, right? Well, it wasn't exactly the dream hostel. First, true to its name, the hostel had a cheesy power plant motif to its design. Neon lights, sheet metal, orange & blue walls, a little metal fencing thrown in for good measure...you get the general idea. Next, the place is massive; there were about 800 people staying at the hostel. We saw at least 3 huge 20-25 people groups checking in while we were there, so just imagine the madness that could arise from such a scenario. On both the plus & minus side of things was the Generator Bar. On the plus side, the drink were cheap & the house mixed drinks were quality. On the minus side, the bar had these themed nights for each night of the week & we happened to check in on Karoke Night (insert horror movie music here). If you thought Karoke was bad in the States, conjure up a visual of a motely crew of foreigners taking turns butchering popular American songs from the 80s & 90s. It would of taken all of my dough for the trip to drink away the embarassment I felt for them as I killed time playing the world's worst game of snooker (the British cousin of pool). Actually, I think my snooker skills complimented the singing pretty well. A shame indeed, a shame indeed.

The next day we had free time around the city, went to see 2 shows, and were given a tour of The Globe theater. I got a chance to kill the majority of my free time in the National Museum (I'll pontificate on museums and such in another post) & then got my grub on over at Camden Market. The best part of the day though was our Indian dinner, which ended up being more of a feast than anything. This was an IES sponsored event, which meant they were picking up the check, which further meant I was indulging myself thoroughly. We get to the restaurant, Kwality, around 5:30pm & the fun started from there. Our program director, Ashley (its a dude), made the mistake of telling us that we could order like 3 or 4 appetizers & some drinks to start. Of course, we're getting the most delicious sounding dishes (sorry I don't remember them) and poppin' bottles of red & white wine to rinse our palettes with. He also orders us like 5 bowls of rice & mad naan on the side. What about dinner you ask? Why of course we get our choice of entree, no questions asked, so I really didn't want to imagine what that final bill looked like. For whatever reason, probably cause we we're shutting that place down, it was taking forever for our meals to come, which can only mean one thing: drink more wine. You know how a nice glass of wine enhances conversation? (isn't that like a scientific fact? if not, i'll prove it soon) Well, let's just say that we had more fun talking about any & everything than we had in awhile. When the food finally came, we stuffed our faces so much that even the White folk were scared about getting the itis. I've grown to really enjoy Indian food & its something I can imagine myself being completely in love with.

Saturday, day three. Alright, so you know that no trip anywhere is complete without a mention of one my embarassing moments. Ok, I have a reputation here for falling asleep during plays. I have my reasons for why this happens, but at the end of the day nobody listens to my valid excuses. Well, in order to keep myself from falling asleep, I decided that I would adapt my reliance on movie snack to include a reliance on play snacks also. My theory is that if snacked on something whenever I felt myself start to dose, I'd prevent myself from falling alseep & give me a quick dose of energy as well. Well, that reasoning definitely came back to bite me in the ass during our 4th London theater visit. We saw this show called Six Characters In Search of an Author (not my taste) and it was in this beautiful old Victorian theatre in the West End. Sometime during the second act, when my attention was grabbed again, there was a really quiet part where one of the main characters in the show was going through this revelation. I'm sitting there munching on my skittles, I finish the couple I have in my hand, and reach for another handful. I'm trying to be as quiet as possible, so I'm slowly reaching my hand into the bag sitting in my lap, but since I'm distracted by the play I'm not watching what I'm doing, and the next thing you know...Spppppssshhhhhh! The damn skittles splash all over the floor in front of me, in the middle of a classy West End theater. D'oh! Everyone heard & I know all the folks in my program knew it was my i'gnant self, so I was past embarassment at this point. Thankfully, my incident was trumped by a little old lady, about 6 rows up from me, later in the show. At the end of the show, one of the characers commits suicide & she shouts out "Come on! This is rubbish!" in her strong British accent, all while everyone else it silent & the stage lights are beginning to go out. People started giggling & let's just say that her sentiment was shared and the crowd showed this in their applause. Every show I've seen in Europe has had a double bow, meaning that they come back out to take a second, or sometimes even third, bow because the audience was so strong. This time, not so much; they barely received the double bow.

Ok, its extremely late as I'm writing this, so I'mma call it a night. More on London soon. I havent talked about my personal renaissance or the museums or seeing friends, so there's much more where this came from.

Peace & Blessings, y'all.

A Lesson In Theater Etiquette

One of my favorite parts about this IES program is that we get to see a lot of top notch theater as part of our Contemporary Irish Drama class. The Dublin Theater Festival is going on right now, and with that being a major festival, we're lucky to be able to see some its biggest shows. I've already seen UK legend Michael Gambon (Dumbledore from Harry Potter for us US folks) & we're getting to see Fiona Shaw (she's like the Meryl Streep of theater) perform next month , so its an experience I'm extremely grateful to have. But the one thing that bugs me about going to the theatre over here is that people don't stand or cheer for anything they like. It reeks of pretentiousness to me, and I know that probably makes me sound like the arrogant or ignorant American, but screw that, I'm just real about it.

We went to see a show called Dodgems this last week, which was really entertaining, I'd give it 3.5 outta 5 stars. I ain't know what was going on most of the time, but it sho did look nice! Lol, let me stop playin around. Now, Dodgems is a piece of physical theater, meaning that its about making images & utilizing space, dancing & movement rather than following a typical literary plot structure. There was some dialogue & stories being told, but it was essentially a dance piece. In the finale, the one brotha they had in the show did an amazing tap dance routine that brought the house down. I mean, this brotha was hoofin' (later we were told that he was one of Savion Glover's dancers from Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk) & of course, in the black tradition, I was ready to shout & show the brotha some love. But I was conflicted cause, while this brotha is hoofin' up a storm, everybody was quiet, so I ain't wanna be the uncouth Negro in the spot & I held back at first. But it got so bad that the brotha was hoofin' & he yelled out, "Where you at, Dublin?" & as soon he said that, my censor shut off. So, your typical "Get It!", "I See You!" etc etc refraints were shouted & probably a couple more things as well. Then at the end when it was done & the whole cast came out for their big bow, people were hesitating to stand for the ovation, even though I clearly could see that at least the other people in my program were ready to hop up with the quickness. Thankfully, my friend Emily hopped up just I was getting to the edge of my seat & a couple others followed suit as well.

Now, while I'm not the biggest supporter of standing ovations in the States, I still believe that if something is deserving of it, you give it to them. I think people back home give too many standing ovations that don't mean anything, but I know I'm only standing if I was moved in some way. Other than that, it'll be a polite clap. As a performer, the feeling of getting a standing ovation is like heaven on earth. To me, that means whatever I did, it you in a special place. And if that is true, the only appropriate response to me it stand up & cheer a lil bit (you ain't gotta get ignorant with it now). Over here in Europe, they don't stand or cheer for nothing, which signals to me that nothing is special to these people. I know that's probably not true, they probably do love certain things & not show it, but still you can't tell me every show deserves the same polite clap. That's like saying if Soulja Boy was Jay-Z's opening act, they both should get the same applause. How ridiculous is that? My point is: This whole polite soceity, we don't stand & cheer like y'all wild Americans, mentality is bogus. If you're moved, let the performer know clearly & definitively, its only right.

I Got The Feeling: Our 1st Performance

*Side note: I meant to post this awhile ago, but I've been fighting with Blogger over uploading my videos onto my blog. For whatever reason, it wasn't working, so I finally got the videos on YouTube & now all is good in the 'hood again. lol.

Monday, September 22nd was an excellent day for me on a couple fronts. First, and most importantly, it was a mini-showcase of the work we've done over the past 3 weeks. We heard about this showcase during our 1st week in class. The assignment was pretty simple, a playwright was writing a new play & she wanted us to stage a portion of her brand new play. So we were gonna do a staged reading (prepared by our acting professor), a movement piece (prepared by our movement professor), and a devising piece (prepared by our devising professor). In each class, we've done some intro stuff then went into a couple class periods preparing on this performance, so maybe we've had 2-3 class periods to prepare. Doesn't sound like a lot of time, hun? It isn't at all, but we do have each class for 2 1/2 to 3 hours a session, so we have enough time to make something bearable to watch.

The day finally came, after a few weeks of hard work & a weekend or nervous chatter amongst our small theater circle, and I was amped to do this (because I'm a ham & love to perform, duh). The audience we had for the showcase was a group of theater professors from the US who were attending a conference, which was nice because they were checking out our program & were excited to see us. And to my surprise & peace of mind, Dr. Bradley (the Theater Department Chair at Spelman College) came as part of the conference. I can't tell you how cool it was to see a familiar face from home, but for it to be a brotha that I look up to meant a lot.

We had a luncheon with the professors, then went to prepare for the showcase, then went afterwards to Smock Alley Theater (which The Gaiety School of Acting will be moving into in the coming years) for a tour of the facility & its plans for the future. So, that's the outline of my story, but what I really wanna share with y'all is part of our showcase performance. What I recorded for y'all is our Devising piece. Devising is basically like improv, in the fact that we don't work from a script & come up with a performance through certain inspirations. For this piece, we took 6 words (stillness, waiting, overwhelmed, incomplete, diminish, & despair) and were split into 3 groups of four, with each group having to come up with a piece of physical theater showing us moving from word to word. I recorded the other two group's pieces, since I obviously couldn't of recorded mine. We did have one of our advisers record everything, so hopefully I can get my group's part from her one of these days. Here are the videos: