Gaia: Performance Pod

My first Opera performance!

http://Janiac02.gaia.com — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:39:04 GMT

This fall I will be in my universitiy's production of "Hänsel and Gretel", as Hänsel. This will be my first acting experience, so I'm a little nervous, but excited at the same time.
I'm currently scrambling to learn the music by the Sept. 3rd run through. This seems like it's going to be a ton of fun, and also a significant amount of hard work. Either way, it will be an enriching experience, and I can't wait to start!

Re: Diving back in...

http://vthames.gaia.com — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:43:43 GMT

Oh, I know I'm too late, but hopefully that audition has led to bigger better things. I wish you well in your return to being onstage. Has your time directing informed the choices you make now as an actor?

Just dropped by to say hi

http://vthames.gaia.com — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:40:30 GMT

My name is Valerie and I am a singer/actress. I am heavily involved with my community theatre group and also sing in my church's choir. I have finally given myself permission to take the art that I love seriously, so I am moving to New York in the fall. I currently work in a hospital and it serves my desire to help people, but I have always seen that job as my plan B. I figure it has to be annoying to my patients to have a nursing assistant who keeps breaking into song. I need an intervention! Have been writing a lot lately and I am just excited to see where life takes me.

Diving back in...

http://coffeelover.gaia.com — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:18:47 GMT

So after almost 8 months of not being on stage, I'm going to an audition tomorrow. It's been weird with my new job having to be in the director's chair, which I find so much more harrowing than being on the stage. As a director, there is so little control you have in the end. Yes, there's rehearsal and overseeing the design and putting it together. But when it comes time for that opening night - all eyes are on this collaboration and yet I'm in the seat furthest away - totally unable to do much of anything in the event of a disaster. If I'm the one on stage and the scenery comes down around me, I know what to do. I know what my character would do. I'm prepared. I have control. I'm up there and bring it on!

Can't wait to get back on the stage...

Talking it up!

http://yvonnemarieladd.gaia.com — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:03:40 GMT

Hi I am working on several things in my life. Besides tending and keeping my home in order and myself up. I have been helping homeless children by donating what ever I can. I love these homeless children and am very concerned for their lives. I'm not able to do much but I do what I can. I am going to have a bake sale of cookies and see what kind of money I can raise for them.
I'm also working on my book of poems, oh I'd like to get it published but the time just isn't right, right now.
I am a survivor of abuse and my poems tell of this abuse. I look back at the first 21 years of my life and think it is not good, but I look at my life now and say it is very good. Here is one of my poems that I have written. Poetry is an art in itself, and I like poetry a lot.

Mask Preview

Exploding destruction rips to shreds
and tosses heaping piles of confusion throughout
torn pieces of flesh pulse and ache in a child, this child
Quick and sure reality
pictures of ugly evil and pitiful sakes
forbidden tracts stomped and ruined
hurt so deep and wide in a child, this child
Terror and fright kicks and fights a child, this child,
An iron child
make believe? No! a child, this child
intruders brutal force, pain so keen
a piercing pain, iron child's fierce return
Laughter, grabbing and stabbing pain
lust entangled, a madman? games?
Insane! a stone cold reaction fuels anger
in action, in a child, this child, an iron child
worlds pass in and out
mixed emotions play and prey viciously about
reality? rage? terror? pain? Racked with confusion in a child, this child, an iron child
spread out to be devoured

:-)

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:27:38 GMT

Hello All!!

Y/Our Love is an inspiration to All!

Bless You!

Grow On!!

Thank You for Share-ing!!

:-)

My Gift To You

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:50:45 GMT

This is a short story I wrote a few months back one night at work when we weren't busy. Let me know what you guys think! It's one of the few things I've written that I was actually quite proud of without needing to be convinced by someone. :-P So, here it is........

"My Gift To You"

He sat on a bed by a window in a gray hotel room, listening to a faucet drip. "How maudlin," he said to himself in a voice so low only his Imaginary Friend could hear. "How maudlin, indeed," he replied, his voice so deep-ish and pleasant that it seemed unreal. Seemed unreal? Like the snake whispering in Eve's ear.

He got up, walked to the faucet, turned it off, still heard it dripping in the back of his mind. "Is something leaking out of my brain?" he said, knowing the question was stupid and allowed the last words to trail off into breath, loathing himself for the current state of his affairs. "Is it really such a stupid question?" the Voice Without A Body said into his right ear delicately, slowly, allowing each word to seep into his consciousness as if this were the question on which all other questions hinged. Maybe it were such a question.

He changed his clothes, thinking that maybe the new attire would give him a new outlook on life. "Change your clothes, change your mind," the Voice cooed so softly that no one else could hear, which would matter only if anyone else were around.

The sun outside seemed different today. Not yellow but another shade of gray. "Is this Kansas?" he said thinking of Dorothy and her dog. The Voice didn't answer back. "Is this Kansas?" he said again, demanding that his creation take part in this underplayed melodrama, a kitchen sink drama without a kitchen sink since he couldn't afford such a nice hotel room.

No answer.

No, a kitchen sink would be too much. A bathroom sink. They're smaller. Fitting, since everything he felt seemed so petty.

"Screw you," he said and continued to walk. "What good is an imaginary friend if they won't play with you?"

But he couldn't help feeling it anyway.

He walked from the hotel to the drug store. A short walk. Not pleasant but he didn't complain. He had to escape the room at least for a little while, even if he was just exchanging one sort of gray for another. "Maybe I should get my eyes checked," he said, half serious, wondering why everything appeared so lackluster, and half trying to lure out his friend again, hoping to elicit some sort of response from his sometime companion.

Still silence.

This was unusual, he thought to himself (since no one else seemed to be around to listen any longer). The Voice since he had wished it into being never remained silent for long. It may use silence as a response but to remain so was nearly unheard of. The Voice's own existence depended upon its chattering, and like all other sentient beings, it's primary concern was to endure. It is odd, then, he thought, that it should simply cease. It was as addicted to consciousness as much as the next psychosis.

In a double flash of realisation, he recognized both the absense of his melancholy and its subsequent return. "Was that your plan all along?" he asked it. But it was not there.

"Five cents," the man in the store said.

"What?" His mind was anywhere but here.

"Five cents," the man said again, less patient.

"Very inexpensive," he said trying to smooth out his indiscretion while handing the man the money.

Back in the hotel, he sank into the mattress of his bed. "But this bed isn't really mine," he said with a slight pause as if he expected a response out of instinct, "it's just on loan." He closed his eyes. He fell into quiet sleep.

When he awoke without dreaming (for wasn't life a dream enough?), he emptied himself into the toilet and washed his hands at the sink. In the mirror he saw a pale and skinny body naked, hair cropped close to the scalp, eyes saggy with bags and blackness, tired eyes despite rest. "I really ought to get some sun," he said.

A knock on the window.

A little surprised, a little confused, he stood still.

A knock on the window.

"Hello?" he said, still unmoving, still unsure what to do.

A knock on the window.

Afraid, more because he was alone without his creation than because there was somebody knocking on his tenth-storey window, he creeped out of the bathroom.

There, at the window, was a girl, no more older than he. She had radiantly yellow hair like the sun and wore a dress of green cotton, clean and nice. Her eyes sparkled blue as she looked at him, hers meeting his. She seemed like a mermaid without her tail, fascinating and stranded. He imagined her to have a beautiful voice, that she sang softly to herself in idle moments or when her mind wondered to thoughts unrelated to all that happened around her. Her eyes beckoned for him to open the window for her, to let her in from the cold winds that arrise when gray day descends into black night.

He walked to her almost in a trance. Her eyes beckoned him. They sparkled.

The shimmering of her hair.

The green of her dress like pine, like Christmas.

Her skinny limbs, willowy frame.

How vibrant she was, standing on that balcony he had never noticed.

How full of life but how sad she was.

He wanted to let her in, to touch her, to be with her, another human being, any other human being.

He opened the window, but she did not move. Yet her eyes beckoned and shimmered still.

"Don't you want to come in?" he asked.

No response but the shimmering of her blue, blue summer eyes.

"Aren't you cold?"

Silence. Nothing but that enticing gaze.

He took a step out onto the balcony, one foot planted firmly and then another. He wrapped his arms around her protectively, and she spoke softly into his ear in a deep-ish, pleasant, unreal voice, like the snake in Eve's ear, "This is my gift to you." A Voice he recognized from countless conversations.

The wind rushed around him, feeling it with every cell of his naked body. The wind felt pleasant, and though he was face to face with his impending doom, he no longer felt the melancholy, and he was no longer afraid. In the last moment before, he formulated a final question, in case the Voice was still listening, his creation, "Is this what I wanted?"

No answer.

Re: Co-Writing / Editing a Book

http://waterheart.gaia.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:01:37 GMT

Thank you Mark,what you said about going to very deep levels rings true,when I meditate in an awake state I find that the water supports a much deeper space than land.I can relax into the water and it supports me.In the deeper relaxing comes this meditation space ,if I hold out long enough I just disappear for timeless periods. I will try to use my land dreams to work on the watery ones...thanks Rafael

Re: Co-Writing / Editing a Book

http://markbukator.gaia.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:35:20 GMT

Hi Waterheart,

Water is representative of consciousness. Like water, we could not survive without it. It surrounds us and makes up most of our body mass.

I don't claim to have all of the answers or any of them for that matter, but I SUSPECT that because you spent time meditating in warm water, you may have actually been able to go to a much DEEPER layer of consciousness within the dream state. A layer so deep that your conscious mind has no memory of it or may not be able to INTERPRET the imagery or energy so it chooses to dismiss it AT THIS TIME.

This does not mean that you will never be able to remember or interpret these deep dreams. Before you go to bed, gently ask your dream self to assist you in remembering and interpreting these deep dreams. Keep writing that dream journal. Write down ANYTHING that you remember, even if it is just to say that I remember having a dream, but don't remember it.

Sooner or later you will remember more and more and even more.

- Mark -

Re: Co-Writing / Editing a Book

http://waterheart.gaia.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:16:38 GMT

Hi Mark, I have been keeping a dream journal on and off for a while,at lest to where I can remember them.Now I have also been spending long hours in warm water meditating and went out,maybe fell asleep,for 5 to 6 hours,but I have been unable to bring it back...I wake up and there is a blank...Is it something about the water and the un-concious mind? Do you have a take on this?Rafael

The Residency @ chashama

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:57:35 GMT

Hey, everyone! I've been neglecting the Pod lately, I know, but I've been super busy trying to prepare an application for a six week residency at a small theatre on East 42nd St. Since performance and rehearsal space generally eats up around 70% of our show budget, if my company gets this, it would be a GREAT thing. The project I'm applying with is a play I wrote a couple years back called "The Asexual Revolution" and I had to revise it to add stage directions. (I generally dislike writting stage directions.) And also, to just make it generally better. If anyone wants to read it and give me some feedback, you can find a PDF of the script at this link. (Sorry about the ads.) Thanks, guys! I'll be back next week!

Re: hello

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:34:59 GMT

Hey, waterheart! Great to have you here!
Lines are a tricky business. They come with practice. The more in the moment you are, the easier it is to forget them. The trick, for me, is threefold:
1) I memorize my lines EXACTLY as their written. There's clues to your character's mental workings in the smallest minutiae. The fact that they use a word differently than I would have... It gives a subtle difference in the meaning and that meaning reflects how they think and the difference between my thought process and theirs. It helps me begin to construct my character in an organic way, piece by tiny little piece.
2) I create an emotional life for myself that at that point in time those are the only words I could possibly say. There's no other choice to say anything different. This ties in a lot with the first method.
3) I memorize my lines without inflection, totally by rote. If I memorize lines with an inflection, it traps me in a line reading, effectively taking you out of the moment and into "autopilot." The bad part about going into autopilot is that when your castmates do anything different it will throw you. Also, sometimes actors who fall into this autopilot-ness, will "wake up" and really begin to live that moment on stage. When they do, their lines fly out of their heads because their memory web has been destroyed.

Wow. I didn't mean to write a whole thing. I'm obviously hungry for the stage. It's been a month since my last performance, and I think I'm going through withdraw.

How was playing drums in Zimbabwe?

hello

http://waterheart.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:59:28 GMT

just want to say hello and that I felt that just living is an art.I did play drums in a band in Zimbabwe,it was known as Rhodesia back then.....Worked as a roadie in Europe for some cool Groups,Pink Floyd,Who and others in the 70's and it showed me the effects of music on group conciousness....powerful stuff,getting 50.000 people to the same moment in time.I came to California and played again for a while,did some acting,now theres a world unto itself....Movies were tedious,but theatre was exciting and dangerous,I got complacent and forgot my lines,,,,,in Laguna at the playhouse in front of 400 people,now there is a rush!thank God for all the improv classes.lol....Now I feel that my water work is an art and I have the rest of my life to play with it.

Re: Co-Writing / Editing a Book

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:59:23 GMT

I figured that I didn't communicate my ideas properly. No harm done. :-)
Bright blessings!

Re: Co-Writing / Editing a Book

http://markbukator.gaia.com — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:03:41 GMT

Point taken Adam,

I misinterpreted your Wednesday 12:18 post to say something different that what is saying. I took it to be a discounting of Self and of your talents, to be ONLY a vessel and the messages are not for you.

- Mark -

Re: wish list / feedback

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:19:43 GMT

Hey, Bryan! I've added a board just for sharing art. I realized that there was no place designated to simple just post things to share (without necessarily seeking advice or discussion).

So, everyone, feel free to just get it out there!

Re: I'm Bryan

http://deacongunn.gaia.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:17:10 GMT

Groovy! I started playing piano in sixth grade and stopped after I moved to New York (which was almost four years ago). I really wish I could get back into it but with the time I have to spend on other projects, it's sort of fallen to the near bottom of the list. (I don't even have a keyboard in my house anymore.... I go to my old school to use their pianos.) I wrote for a while too, but the desire to compose has pretty much left me unless it a means to an end, such as composing music for one of my shows. I wrote scene change music my senior year of high school for a play, and it was fun but challenging since I couldn't write whatever just came to me and sort of had to inroduce the next scene or continue the "mood" of the previous thing. Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying I don't take my piano playing as seriously as I used to.
I am at work and was unable to listen to your compositions, but I'm going to as I go to sleep when I get home. I was able to hear the beginning of the first one and found it serene and lovely. ;-) So it'll be good music to relax me to sleep.
It's great that you're interested in so many different disciplines! Acting is a tough deal, especially for the stage. But the stage (veruses film, voice over and all that other stuff), is far more rewarding. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the instant gratification of laughter and stunned silence and the strange feeling you can feel when you know you've taken people from a dingy East Village theatre to a whole new environment.
I hope some of the songs you posted have lyrics. If you didn't post any, please feel free to share!
Take care and thanks for joining us!

Why I perform?

http://making-it-all-click.gaia.com — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:31:59 GMT

I perform because it makes me feel more connected and alive.

Here is an example of what I like sharing:

http://www.the-metatelepathic-clinic.com/justforyou.html

Re: wish list / feedback

http://making-it-all-click.gaia.com — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:09:15 GMT

Yeah, I agree. I like this space....first class all the way! Do you have a place where people can post their music? like here:

http://www.the-metatelepathic-clinic.com/justforyou.html

I will look around to see if I did not overlook it!

I'm Bryan

http://making-it-all-click.gaia.com — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:06:54 GMT

I started playing piano when I was 4 yo and stopped aroun 17 yo. I played for my high school glee club and was the first pianist for the gospel choir at my university. I write my own material. I have a desire to do new age-jazz mix.

One of my coolest interaction with musicians is my interviewing Steven Halpern, and getting to know Alicia Keys, who I met before she got famous. I intend to have a record contract, while working that in with a career in holistic journalism in podcast and article format.

I'd like to do some acting one day too. I like writing poetry, which started with me composing lyrics to go with my songs. I like R & B, jazz, new age, and some pop. Looking forward to interacting more here.