Was that a run on sentence? Probably.
But nevertheless, let me update y'all on the rest of the weekend after I got tired of just sitting around in my room.
Knowing nobody and having nothing to do, I decided to go outside and explore the campus a little bit and I ended up in this shady grassy area and read. The campus is beautiful. Brick buildings with fields of green grass and tall trees. It's pretty breath taking (especially when it's really sunny and a nice cool breeze blows through the campus). I eventually got tired of reading (which meant that I literally started dozing off) and headed over to the dining commons. Let me tell you, Bates dining hall food...so good!! I know people complain about Plaza Cafe being pretty bad, so it's no comparison, but if anybody's been to the dining halls at USC or UCLA, it's like that, but with better choices (including vegan and no gluten foods) and better ambiance because all the walls in the dining area are windows and the Dining Commons have super high ceilings and let in all of this sun light. It's nice :p
So now, I'm going to bullet point the next couple of highlights from the weekend:
1) After dinner, we saw Doug Varone and Dancers perform in the Schaeffer theater. The company was absolutely amazing and so breath taking to watch. However, I do have to say that I kind of wish Doug's company wasn't the company that we got to see that Saturday. Having traveled for 14 hours and having not showered or anything, I will admit to having troubles staying awake. I was super exhausted, but I did pick up enough energy to watch the final (of three) pieces that Doug presented that night and I was so mesmerized by all of the dancers. The choreography was complex, quick, and kind of all over the place, but all the dancers had such weight to their movement and were just absolutely beautiful to watch. This company is definitely one of my favorite companies now.
2) After the show, I waited around in my room for a little bit just chilling and trying to stay awake because I had received a call during the performance telling me that my luggage was going to be delivered to me that night by 11pm. And lo and behold, at a 11:30, I got luggage and was able to finally shower. Needless to say, I passed out that night.
3) I didn't wake up the next day until 11:30am or so, but I felt so much better and felt quite rejuvenated. Sunday was spent basically just relaxing and getting familiar with the campus. I spent most of the afternoon by the lake on campus reading (Morgan would love that spot) :)
We also had orientation and stuff, but that's not all that exciting. Here's where the exciting part of this entry begins because...
We finally had our first day of classes!!!
So you're probably thinking that the first day didn't go so well because of the title, but in reality, the first day of classes was absolutely AMAZING!! We literally went from 9am to 5:30pm (with breaks between classes and a lunch break between the 2nd and 3rd classes), so been in class all day just felt like a week. An absolutely wonderful week, but a fairly busy one at that.
So here is my schedule:
9-10:30am: Modern V with Natalie Desch (one of the Varone company dancers)
11am-12:30pm: Modern Repertory with Doug Varone
2-3:30pm: Making Dance I with Victoria Marks
4-5:30pm: Business of Dance with Kim Konikow
Modern V:
SO AMAZING!!! Natalie didn't really hold back even on the first day. We went straight into doing full on movement. It felt like from warm-ups in the beginning to the across the floors at the end, we were just doing a whole bunch of phrase work. It was soooooooooooo awesome!!
Modern Repertory:
Yes, I get to work with Doug Varone. Yes, he's setting a new work on the students of this particular class. Yes, it's pretty freaking amazing :) It's only been one day, but I'm already so inspired (not only by Doug, but also by the other dancers in the class). Doug works really quickly and is just so much fun to be around and talk to. Highlight of this class, however, has to be at the very beginning of class when Doug is taking roll. He calls each one of us one by one and asks us about where we're from and about where we go to school. So when it comes to my turn, I tell him that I just finished at UC San Diego. Doug then goes to ask me who teaches there and of course my first answer would obviously be: Allyson Green. Doug's response: "O! Ally!"
Doug Varone is friends with Allyson Green and calls her Ally. Our department freaking rocks :) (PS: remind me to give Allyson a hug from Doug :P)
Making Dance I:
So this probably was my least favorite class today. It's basically a composition class, which is really nice, but a lot of what we did today I've already played with and explored at UCSD and I feel like I'm going to want more from this class, but we'll see. I'm actually really trying to get into Christohper Aiken's Advanced Improv class which is at this same time, so I'm trying to switch classes. The only problem is that this improv class is full and has been full from the very beginning; it doesn't look like it'll open up anytime soon. However, I've been having conversations with Nancy Salmon, who's in charge of class registration and what not and she said she would talk to Chris. However, she had asked me about my background in Improv and I had told her that I had been improvising for about a year (and mentioned Deborah Haye and what not), but she said that Chris would probably say "no" because it is an advanced improv class, but I feel like I've probably done more than a year of improv at UCSD and it's only been this last year that improv has become something of interest to me. So this makes me a little nervous especially since after talking to Nancy I found Chris at dinner and had asked him about his class and he had told me to just go to his class tomorrow. So we'll see. I hope it's not going to be as hard as Nancy makes it out to be :p
Business of Dance:
This class I found surprisingly interesting. Kim Konikow isn't a dancer, but comes from a very strong arts administration background and I think the class will be super helpful especially when it comes to CDC, so I'm really excited for this class now just to learn about what it takes to make art and put art out into the community, especially since that's what we as the Collective Dance Collective are trying to do :)
All in all, the first day at the Bates Dance Festival was soooooooooooooo amazing. I kind of didn't expect it to be as good as it is, but I definitely now know why Bates is considered one of the strongest summer dance programs out there (which is also weird because it's in Lewiston, Maine, which is basically this low income deserted mill town in the middle of no where Maine).
I'm excited for tomorrow :) I'll keep y'all updated!!
TTFN,
Calvin
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