As expected, Barcelona was an experience filled with unplanned adventures, unanticipated detours, and the unwitting commitment of several cultural faux pas. Like the time we thought we climbed Montjuic, but really I think we just climbed a small hill that is potentially specifically cordoned off for old men to play bocce ball. Or the time …
Category Archives: Courses
Flying (or not flying) by the seat of our pants
I am a notorious planner, addicted to schedules and reliant on lists. Besides making the unpredictability of next year almost more than my slightly neurotic personality can handle, it makes the adventure that I am currently undertaking entirely uncharacteristic. I’m sitting in the Miami airport, 7 hours into a 5 hour layover, considering exactly what …
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Idris Goodwin’s Five Absolutes for Writing
After three days of performances in Armstrong Theater, we were all ready to start Spring Break. Idris dropped some wisdom on us before we went on our merry way, to encourage us to keep writing, revising, throw it in the air, and repeat. For those of us who are lucky enough to be in Old …
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Coconut Coated
As I promised in an earlier post, here is a recording of Xander Fehsenfeld’s “Coconut Coated”. Sweet brilliance. When we hit the road and made our class debut at Atlas Prep Middle School, the 7th and 8th graders melted into the chocolatey goodness of Xander’s words, and Sunday night was no different. The crowd of …
Classy Class in Shove Chapel
Today was a revealing day. We’re currently in the process of a major work of collaboration within our groups, and we performed 5-7 minutes of excerpts from what will soon be performed as 25-30 minute plays for our final productions. The public will be invited, so come one, come all! Here is the facebook …
Week two wasn’t too weak
‘Twas a productive week. It was a marathon of scenes, monologues, and choreopoem collaborations. We read many examples and excerpts from plays and poems and then spent the week writing and revising our own. The magic seeps through in the revisions, so we’ve been told. Idris tells us “The performance writer writes in real time. He/she …
Disney is My Religion
Last night we read “The Happiest Place on Earth: Disney’s America and the Commodification of Religion,” (Mazur and Koda). It argues that for many Americans, salvation is a commodity. Disney is competing with religion by offering the same products: “mythologies, symbols, rituals, and notions of community by which consumers organize their lives.” Disney provides lessons …
My Sunday at Grace Baptist
One of our assignments is to attend a church (or other religious congregation) of our choice for the duration of the block. One of the churches that our professor said could be interesting was Grace Baptist Church, a fundamental church that interprets the King James’s Bible literally. This is the one I chose. I knew …
Schoolin’ the Middle Schoolers with Poetry
The first week of Idris Goodwin’s class, Writing for Performance – Watch the Clock, was a creative week of performance poetry. This is my second class with good ol’ Goodwin (good young Goodwin, rather), and has already become one of the most bonded groups of students I’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with …
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Civil Religion in America
Today in class we debated whether or not there is a civil religion in America. Again, we used Durkheim’s definition of a religion: a unifying set of practices. We discussed the rituals we participate in (like voting or saying the pledge of allegiance) that reinforce American’s shared value system rooted in democracy. We talked about …
