Wednesday, February 24, 2010

velvet pants.

yesterday in dance performance, giorgio's brown, crushed-velvet pants ripped right down the butt seam when he was demonstrating something. google images doesn't have a good example of brown, crushed-velvet pants, so just know that they were definitely one of a kind.

we had pasta for lunch and dinner today.

i'm going to rome this weekend. roma roma ma-a! yes, lady gaga.

greece hostels are officially BOOKED. so, so, SO pumped! if you google image "greece," this is what you get:


that is all.

also, i wonder who reads this. it's not private and the link is on my facebook page, sooo... yeah. i hope you like it. if you don't, that's okay. i eat more gelato than you do.

Monday, February 22, 2010

electric feel.

you have to love dancing to stick to it. it gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. it is not for unsteady souls.

-merce cunningham

Friday, February 19, 2010

cabaret.

last night was our second cabaret, an evening where we can all show each other what we've worked on. the theme for this one was that we had to incorporate material from our classes. all the dancers got together and performed a structured improv. one of the girls will post a video on youtube/facebook soon, so you can all see! other acts included the mfa students doing a tribute to brian burroughs, a visiting professor from ireland who we miss every day, the undergrad theatre kids, claire and jessica being absolutely hilarious, and jasmine playing the guitar/singing a few songs she wrote.

the best part of the night was that students from oklahoma who are also studying in arezzo came to the villa. it was nice to see new faces, speak some inglese, and perform for strangers. a few of them stuck around after the show and i think sometime soon a bunch of us will hang out.

in other news, i currently know three chords on the guitar. i also got a little cough/cold thing, which blows. a bunch of us are sticking around arezzo for the weekend to relax after the past two weekend trips, so i'll have time to recuperate.

but before that, ricardo is throwing mensa part part deux. wahooo!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

ocean of noise.

Venice. Whoa my god. We left right after ballet on Friday after picking up some snacks and pizza for the four hour ride. After arriving at a train station outside of the actual city, we made our way to our hostel, dropped off our bags, and took a shuttle into Venice.

For those of you from Goucher/Baltimore, think Fells Point on Halloween. The streets were full of people dressed up in gorgeous, elaborate costumes and masks. It was basically one giant party in the Piazza di San Marco. After getting all we could out of the night, we caught our shuttle back to the hostel around three in the morning, and somehow managed to get enough sleep for the busy day ahead of us.

I woke up at eight to get ready to leave around nine. Five of us hit up the usual tourist attractions: Palazza di San Marco, the Basillica, and the Guggenheim (my favorite by far). We also took a leisurely boat taxi ride down the Grand Canal, which was beautiful to say the least. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of juice so I don’t have any pictures to prove I was there. Hopefully once it’s warmer and calmer (without Carnevale), I’ll make a second visit.

A few of us got back to Arezzo around one in the morning after a very interesting and chaotic journey to the train station. All I’ll say is that it involved getting lost in crowds, running to and in train stations, getting on the wrong train, and then leaping over people’s luggage to finally get on the right train. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be sitting on a train in my entire life. The whole mess also proved that everything always works out somehow.

So that’s Venice in a nutshell.

In other news, two girls hosted an impromptu jazz class Thursday night since we didn’t have any work due the next day. Naturally, we dressed to impress in our finest 80s/crazy workout gear. It was nice to de-stress and just dance like a bunch of crazies. I felt like I was at the ICS (camp reference. perry/mac i know you're making fun of me and i don't care).

Now, after a long week of classes and an exciting weekend trip, the Villa Godiola is without hot water. I haven’t showered since Thursday night, but at least I feel rested after sleeping for twelve hours. Courtney and I plan on heading into town later for dinner and then I’m going to go to bed to get ready for the week.

Oh yeah, it snowed a little here. Nothing compared to the blizzard at home, though.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

sleepyhead.

i'm tired and still have seventy pages of plato to read, but i just wanted to post this mini conversation really fast:

- i'm learning how to play the guitar reallyyy, reallyy slowly.
- so you can cover lady gaga songs?

hah! i really am learning, though. a girl here knows how to play and every once and a while she'll show me a few chords. it's tricky, but fun.

okay, plato time.

Monday, February 8, 2010

kodachrome.





these were taken by jesse, a staff member at the accademia. we all wrote three separate things on three pieces of paper and hung them on an olive tree.

1. write something you've learned about someone here.
2. write something you like about yourself.
3. write something you want to learn while you're here.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

i'm gonna be (500 miles).

A week had gone by and most of us hadn’t left the villa except to go to ballet twice. Even though we all know ADA is a different type of abroad program which requires extreme focus, by Friday we all started getting a little villa fever.

So off we went to Florence on Saturday. Initially drawn by the Chocolate Fair, this would be the perfect opportunity to explore another Italian city. After arriving, getting lost, and dropping our bags off at the hostel, we were off.

The chocolate fair was soooo good. So good you were literally surrounded by chocolate and could smell it in the air. I tried a lot of free samples, drank a cup of melted chocolate, and bought a small bag of six assorted truffles. I don’t even like chocolate that much, but I think I do now.

Shopping, dinner, and gelato were next. Nothing too blog-worthy happened here. I spent money and ate things.

Afterwards, all nine of us ended up going to Space (a discoteca) to have fun and dance, yada yada yada. I learned that Italians are creepy and Australians are crazy. And no matter what people say, I love Lady GaGa.

Today we checked out of the hostel, grabbed cappuccinos, met two guys from California backpacking around Europe who spent the night in a carousel by the duomo, and said “hey” to David. Michelangelo’s David. THE David. You’d think the museum it’s in would be big and obvious for tourists to find, but it’s just a hole in the wall. After passing it within the first fifteen minutes, we proceeded to search another hour before realizing it had been under our noses the whole time. I guess that’s part of traveling, right?

Now, after purchasing a leather jacket from a nice man named Lapos, and riding a train for an hour back to Arezzo, I’m ready for dinner at a pasta place Scott, the founder of ADA, claims is life changing.

Next weekend: Venice for Carnival.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

let it be.

If you haven’t noticed by now, all my posts are titled after songs. I did this for two reasons: 1. It means I don’t have to be clever and think of one. Instead I just go digging through my itunes library for a song that applies and 2. Grey’s Anatomy does the same thing with their episode names and I like it. I mention this now because I really didn’t want to title this one after the famous Beatles song— way too cliché. I had to, though, because it’s just way too perfect for what I’m about to talk about.

Yesterday was our first day with Giorgio Rossi. This name didn’t mean too much to me before coming to ADA (Accademia dell’Arte), aside from a few previous ADA dancers telling Courtney and I how much we will love him, so don’t worry if you’re wondering who he is. All you need to know is that he is wonderful. Half Italian, half Swiss, around 50 years and not intimidating in the slightest, Giorgio is constantly reminding us to just “let happen.” If you know me at all, that alone could explain to you why I love this man. His english isn’t the best, but instead of the language barrier making it difficult to learn from him, it does the complete opposite. Having a limited vocabulary forces Giorgio to strip concepts down to their most simplistic form, causing us to think differently about the movement we’re making with our bodies as we dance. Instead of worrying if your toes are perfectly pointed or if your arm is at the right angle, just do what you’re doing, enjoy it, and have that be enough.

If all of that flew way over your head, sorry, but this is a blog about me dancing in Italy. It was bound to happen sometime.

This weekend I’m going to Florence to see a show and explore a certain chocolate fair of sorts. It’ll be nice to escape the Arezzo bubble for awhile before I get back to write a philosophy paper and choreograph something for the next cabaret.

I haven’t bought Juno yet. But don’t worry, I will soon.