Week 9 at UCC

This week began with the ensemble gathering in a circle to complain about how much we were given to do for the previous week. Afterwards we performed the minute long solo pieces we had created during the reading week, however I was unaware that it had to be exactly 1 minute so my piece (which lasted for about three minutes) has yet to be fully unveiled to the ensemble). It was cool to see the different relationships each person had with their own piece. We moved onto a new form of fire based movements but this time we took the form of ping-pong balls and therefore moved with the rigidness and form of a ping-pong ball. My approach to it was to jump around the space frantically while maintaining great levels of stiffness. Eadaoin aptly set the scene embodying “champion ball hitter person”. Afterwards we adopted the same immersion in inanimate objects with this edition being a lightbulb. Once the light switch was tuned on by regular Eadaoin we had to emit light through posture and our faces as if we were those glow sticks you snap like a chiropractor.

Tuesday was demanding for the ensemble, Jools had us refining our movement pieces for a while. Both Eadaoin and Jools split up to work with us further on our lost piece. Jools pleasantly surprised me with the combining of both groups she was given to enhance the supermarket scene they have been working on. We were now backing vocalists to the parents and children in an almost barbershop quartet style but one that was hired for a funeral.

Upon reaching Friday it occurred to me how close we were nearing to the end of the semester (which meant there were a performance coming up) and therefore explains the greater demand of focus and work from the ensemble. After we had our discussions about “Soldier Standing” (which we had seen the night before) we spent the entirety of class refining our Lost pieces. I didn’t find much time to reflect on the piece as I was simply focusing on the task at hand. I’m not sure if I’ve reflected all that much throughout this weeks classes as I just take the exercises as second nature by this point. Hopefully that fulfils some sort of goal Eadaoin and Jools have. I will be sorry to see this ensemble piece end within the coming weeks.