Movement & Dance I- September 30

A tendu, a la seconde.

I absolutely despise my legs and butt right now. 

Every movement in ballet is precise and deliberate. I've noticed my despisal most when I do a Degage a la seconde or derriere, or when I do a Grand Battement devant. These are also the things I'm corrected most in. It feels like my legs have somehow forgotten how to leg, and refuse to cooperate with me. I swear, every pass through I've managed to screw up something else for Steph to correct. I can never get my knees locked enough when I move devant, or I'll go off on a weird angle and suddenly I'm halfway to a la seconde and I look like I'm having a stroke. 

I think part of the problem is that I'm still too much in the thought process of figure skating, where all your power comes from strong hips and bent knees, whereas now, the focus is on precision and grace, which stems from flexibility, and tight, engaged muscles in your core.

Come next week, I'm going to start looking for more definitive differences between figure skating and ballet, especially with movement and muscle engagement.

Movement & Dance I- September 28

Our 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th positions for port de bras.

I hate my arms. They're stupid and feel so wrong. When we do barre work, they feel like they're always on the verge of becoming velociraptor arms. They don't stay. I start to work on my legs and suddenly my elbows are tucked under my ribs like a poor-formed violinist. It seemed like every 2 minutes Steph was fixing them again. It was even worse on my port de bras. I've been trying to emulate the way Caitlyn and Kenzie move their arms, but they both look so graceful, and I look like I'm trying to awkwardly stretch my triceps and shoulder blades. And I know it comes with practice, but still, I hate my arms.

Also I despise sautés. 

Week 3- Ohana

Spencer and I waiting to start filming at Younge-

Dundas Square.

Much to my utter delight, I got to start my week with the always lovely Spencer Swanson, who accompanied me to Toronto to film background footage for a concert. It was fun and we ate SO MUCH Cora afterwards, because Cora is basically the greatest restaurant chain ever created. I love the days when I get to see Spencer. They're so few and far between, but they're the best days.

Motown at Mirvish, September 23

Anyway. There was something about this week. I don't really know what it was, something just sort of happened. I'm not sure when it was, either. It could've been in Toronto, or on the Motown buses. It might've been in Design, but suddenly, we weren't 75 people who all had classes together, we became a family. As John Green says, it just happened "the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once". I think we really started to feel it in Design class though.

Bryce and Caitlyn in their costumes. 

For Bryce's costume we took our 

inspiration from the navel officers in 

Pirates of the Carribean. For 

Caitlyn's dress, we took inspiration 

from both Elizabeth Swan's 

wedding dress in Pirates of the 

Carribean, and Mme Thenardier's 

dress in Les Misérables.

Thursday morning, we finally get to class, and there's Magi waiting for us, with huge tubs of tissue paper, butcher paper, tape, ribbon, and so much craft supplies, and an assignment-- 2 hours to make costumes for a certain time period, and we could only use what was given to us. Maybe there's something magical in reverting back to childhood and making costumes out of tissue paper, dolies and ribbon, but it was so much fun!

Look at all the pretty costumes! All of them are 

made out of tape, paper, and craft supplies! (L-R: 

Eriq, John, Ryan, Alysha, Sedona, Dana, Kenzie, 

Sabrina, Luciano, Bryce, Caitlyn & Scott)

Everyday, we just become closer and closer, not only as a program, but as a family.

When I came to school, I knew I'd get an education, maybe some friends in res, and a few in my program. What I wasn't expecting was a family. The people on my floor, in my squad, and in my program aren't just random people, they aren't even friends. They really, truly and honestly are ohana. Because after all, "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

Ohana.

Movement & Dance I- September 23

This is a very angry post, so I'm going to add a
couple happy pictures, done by Jessie Wortley.

So for the past couple classes, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I've somehow managed to get stuck dancing either by, or beside [guy in my program]. And it's not that I don't like [guy in my program] so much as being around him in dance makes me want to pull my ears off.

I'm not a dancer. I'm trying to be one, and I'm trying to work harder at becoming a not terrible dancer, which tends to take a lot of mental strength and concentration, especially if I want to avoid doing something like hitting someone, running into them, or falling over. When I'm more secluded, or dancing by people who understand this, I can function okay, because I'm left to my own devices, and I can focus and not break anything. However when I'm constantly being distracted, that's a different story.

Jessie recently did a projet on image
paralellisms where she took a photo of me in the
midst of a tendu, then a second one of me
writing. She got the second highest mark!

Take today for example. We're dancing at the barre, and I'm starting to get into my head space where things aren't quite real anymore. When I get to that space, it's just me and the barre, and nothing can get at me or under my skin. I'm JUST starting to get up into that realm when [guy in my program] starts being [guy in my program]. He stops listening and paying attention, he's loud, he refuses to dance, he starts trying to talk to me, and makes faces when I ignore him. At one point he hoisted himself up onto the barre and tried to somersault over top of it.  I get that he might not like this class, but some days I want to smack him upside the head and tell him to get his ---- togther.

This isn't even the first time he's done this. Monday, when we were doing pilates, he kept putting his dirty socks in my face. At one point he started trying to stick his toes up my nose! It's like working with 4 year olds all over again.

I know that I'm not a good dancer, and I'll never be one, but I'm absolutely infuriated with [guy in my program] at the fact that he not only doesn't care about whether he learns anything or not, but he doesn't even care that he's stopping other people from learning.

Movement & Dance I- September 21

So today we finally got to meet our ballet prof, Stephanie, but as we didn't have Christobelle, we couldn't do any ballet, so instead we did pilates.

It was kind of nostalgic to do pilates, as I used to do it for kicks when I was younger. It was weird to have some long buried part of my brain remember what to do, while all my core muscles went "YOU CAN'T DO THIS! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! ARE YOU INSANE? YOU! CAN'T! DO! THIS!" But, I mean I did do it, so ehhh!

Anyway, this is really all I have to say about class today. Oh, we did the sunrise salutation. That was fun. So yeah. Sorry this wasn't more dynamic.

Week 2: I'm in Love and Filled With Crippling Self-Doubt

First things first, I'm so in love with this school, that I continually feel like I've actually fallen into a parallel universe, or into the plot of some cheesy college movie. Like, look at this campus! It doesn't even seem real! I'm writing this on a Muskoka chair beside a creek! If it weren't for the fact that the doors not only work, but go somewhere, I'd seriously like this was some elaborate hoax, or a very well put together movie set.

Further proof that my school is probably

prettier than your school.

I'm in love with my program. Honestly, if high school was like this I would've been there every day come hell or high water.

The Stratford Festival Theatre Workshop. All 
the set pieces are built here, then a tractor-
trailer moves them over to the theater.

I'm in love with the people in my program. These are honestly the most beautiful and talented people I've ever worked with. Like, it's not even statistically possible that our program is this good looking. I honestly can't think of a single person in my program who isn't totally stunning at least a half-dozen different ways. And my God, the talent. Choir is probably my favourite class, because it's 90 minutes of listening to some fantastic ladies trilling like birds, and fawning over how rich and deep the guys sound.

I don't think I'm allowed to say what this is for, 
but what I can say is this is 400-year-old 
furniture shipped over from London, and it'll
be used ALOT next season.

But with all this comes the lovely aftershock of self-doubt. I'm absolutely in love with this school, and I can't imagine myself taking a bachelor anywhere else. However, the reality of the situation is that MT will only be taking a couple of us back next year. Last year, I only had about a 1 in 10 chance of getting in, but this year it goes down to roughly a 1 in 36 chance of getting in. So I mean there's that, which is absolutely terrifying.

It's a really fast walking snap, but 
this should give you an idea of 
how many costumes there are in 
The Warehouse. (SFT owns The 

Warehouse, and uses it for
storage, and runs a costume
rental service as well. The back
half of The Warehouse is the
SFTWorkshop.)

Along with that though, is the crippling and continuous self-doubt of how did I even get into school here? Everyone in this program is so unbelievably talented, and I'm just... me. All these dancers, singers and actors. Every week there's another person who's missed class because they're at a modelling shoot, or audition, or they're filming something, and I'm just over here like "I was an extra in a student film once". As depressing as it is the reality of my situation is that I either need to get a lot better, or I need to be prepared to switch schools.

PRROOOPPPPSSSSS!!!!!!

Oh, I'm an idiot. We went to Stratford this week and did a bunch of things. We went through the workshop where they build all the sets and props, we went through the costume shop and got to see tons of the costumes from the 2014 & 2015 seasons, and got to go through places that you're only allowed when you're an employee. We also watched The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. It was a really good, and I enjoyed Acts I, II & III, however I have no clue what happened during Acts IV & V as I got sick during intermission. I did get it together by the end of the show, so I could go back in and see the change over from The Taming of the Shrew to Love's Labour's Lost. Thank God I did, I would've been so mad if I missed it.

Panoramic shot of the entry-way of The Warehouse. Conor moved. (L-R: Christal, Mikayla, Florencia, Sarah, Caitlyn, Kenzie, Khalil, Natalie & Conor)

Movement & Dance I- September 16 (Or How I Became A Velociraptor in Jazz Shoes)

Me in ballet class.

When I was in high school, my best friend Spencer and I had this running joke that we wanted to get degrees in performing arts, then run a Performing Arts school for dinosaurs. I don't remember how it got started but for months, whenever we got bored or ran out of things to talk about, we'd just start talking about our dinosaur school.

I bring this up, because on Wednesday, we started on ballet fundamentals. (Note: Most of the class has dance training, and about a 1/3 of the class has been trained in ballet.) I feel like the only way to accurately describe the experience would be a velociraptor in jazz shoes. I could get my arms into second position just fine, it was more of a matter of keeping them there, that presented the challenge. This was a problem that a lot of the class had, actually. Caitlyn says that the struggle with arms comes from continually focusing on your feet so intensely that your arms start to sink, and your elbows form into chicken wings. (I think I look like a velociraptor when my elbows drop, because my fingers start to splay open, like claws.) 

Second position arms.

I wasn't fairing the greatest with my tendus either. Going forward and to the side was okay, extending to the back was where I'd start to screw up. I'd tendu to the side, but then instead of tenduing behind me, I'd pretty much just go back out to the side again, so tomorrow I need to really focus on stretching farther back.

Reflecting on it now, it could have been a lot worse, and for how hard it is, I'm excited for more. 

Movement & Dance I- September 14

"Don't you hate it when you're trying to play basketball, 

and your head's in the game but your heart's in the song?"

We did another lesson of yoga today, and to quote High School Musical, my head was not in the game. Caitlyn told us to empty our minds, put our thoughts on a high shelf and come back to them later. So I would take a deep breath, put all my thoughts away... for like 10 seconds and then they'd start trickling back into my head again. Over and over this would happen, and it was driving me insane.

I'm not good at yoga, I'll probably never be good at yoga, but when I'm focused, I can at least manage to not fall over. I honestly couldn't have kept it together if I was paid. Honestly, I was going a little stir crazy. It's been five days, and I still have no clue what my head was doing. Oh, Jacob also got stung by a wasp right beside me, and I had to take him to the clinic, so that also really didn't help with the whole “keep your brain on yoga, not on other things”. So I fell down a lot. I ended up giving up on using a towel as a mat because it just made all the slipping even worse.

By Tuesday though, I at least had the comfort of knowing I must have done something not wrong, because I had that soreness in my abdominal that you get from doing lots of crunches. So while it was borderline infuriating that my mind was wandering like a curious 2-year-old, at least I got a bit of a workout in. Thank God I got it together by Wednesday though, because we started ballet.

Week 1b: So We Wrote Speeches Today

I licked his elbow. Welcome to improve.

In 50 words, y'all should be proud of me.

Hello, my name is Brittany Martin. What I learned during my first week at Sheridan is that boundaries are meant to be broken. Creativity isn't found in comfort; it's found pretending to be a chicken, crawling on the floor, or even by licking someone's elbow. Safety breeds stagnation, courage breeds creativity.

Week 1a: Reflecting on the First Week

So the first week of school is done, and I'm now into my second week, which means we're starting to work on individual and group projects, and we're getting into the finer points of our schedule. One of my favourite parts about this program, is that they don't shut us away in the school, and they don't hide us from view like we're the awkward, unkempt children of the corn. They take us places. We go to theatres and see amazing shows, do talkbacks with the actors, and watch set changeovers. We meet people and network in our respective industries and it's the best! Tomorrow, we're going to Stratford to see The Taming of the Shrew, as well as tour their production warehouse and watch a changeover. 

My friend Jessie Wortley is in the Bachelor of Photography program at Sheridan. She shot this 

photo for an assignment. Pictured are five members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon (ΓΑΥ), the name we 

made up so we can stop calling ourselves "The Squad".

(If you didn't know, Stratford runs multiple shows per season-- Shakespeare, and a variety of classic and modern plays & musicals of different genres. Right now they have 13 shows running in 4 theatres, with almost all actors and crew working multiple shows. To allow every show to have a fair chance at matinee, evening and weekend shows, and to prevent actors/crew being double booked, everything is on rotation.)

Anyway, I went back to Elmira this weekend, so it gave me a chance to be more introspective about my time and life here. Although it's a lot of change (and I'm not exactly known for my calm in the face of adverse change) I feel like I'm adjusting really well to school. It's busy, and tiring, and stressful, and so many body parts hurt, and I suck at ballet, but I love every second of it. It's painful and challenging. I feel stupid and inferior, and constantly question how I even got into this program, but I don't for a second regret it.

The burn in my thighs, the ache in my core, the litres of water I drink every day to sedate my constant thirst from singing, the constant feeling of SOMETHING throbbing, and yet I'm so happy. This is my life, and it's so rewarding seeing how much I improve, even day by day.

It's not just the schooling that I love, it's the people. I was only home for about 28 hours, and I received about half a dozen texts from various people asking where I was, when was I coming back, and wanting updates on how close I was to Oakville. I feel so loved and happy here. My friends affirm and care about me, and I love loving them back. Not only that, but everything about this school is fun. People in my program get bored and start belting show tunes and Disney. We ballroom dance together before choir. I went lobster hunting with ΓΑΥ at 11pm last night. I sat in Commons tonight for two hours hanging out and jamming with a bunch of people from the building. Every day of my life, I wake up here and feel loved. There truly is no better feeling. 

But by far, the most important lesson I've learned this far... Mondays and Wednesdays are always, always leg days.

Movement & Dance I- September 9

Content Note: If a post starts with a class name (ie M&DI) then it's a journal for school. Since they're meant to be introspective, the styling and the voice will be different, but it's still me. I'm going to start dividing them up, so if you just want to read the actual blog posts and not the journals, or if you're only interested in one particular class, it'll make it easier. Oh, by the way, yesterday I had my first Movement & Dance class. It was a lot different than I expected. We're doing yoga right now, then ballet foundations in a couple weeks.

We dance in leather flats like these. Pointe shoes
are only used by MT-level ballet students if they
got that far before school.

The first class was a lot different than what I was expecting. I don't really know what I was expecting, but lying on a towel and breathing definitely wasn't it. Even now, I'm struggling to think about what to say, other than it was really relaxing to just lie there, breathe and stretch. I thought a lot about my spine and really started to appreciate just how flexible it really is. Not only that, but while lying there, I began to truly appreciate how lucky I am to even be able to walk, let alone dance. I was in a car accident in March and was taken to the hospital on a spine board because of neck, shoulder, back and chest pain (indicators of a possible spinal injury). No one said it, but the look on the paramedic's face when I said I had neck & back pain told me everything, even before she put me in a spinal hold: if my spine's injured, something as simple as sneezing could be the difference between walking. As I'm taking a dance class now, I obviously can walk. Regardless, it was so surreal to be slowly moving my back to Katelyn's commands while thinking about how different my life could've been if I'd been less lucky that night.

EMI: Home

At the Jays game September 2 (From left: Kenzie, 
Jessie, me, Sean, Meghan, Molly, Austin & 
Kathleen)

So about 6 months back I got accepted into the Performing Arts Preparation Program at Sheridan College in Ontario. Then, on August 30th, 2015, after six long, painstaking months of waiting, I FINALLY started the next chapter in my life and moved Oakville about a week ago. The first week and a half has been a blur of people, plans, and strangely enough-- baseball! (Yes, I can't believe it, but thanks to Sean's teaching, I discovered I actually LIKE baseball. At least watching it. I still suck at playing it.)

Abi and Matt at Bronte Beach, September 4

The week started a little rocky, an unfortunately timed "down" happened to coincide with the first couple days of early move-in. Towards the end of the second day, Kathleen and I were coaxed out of our dorm by hunger, and ended up being the best thing we'd done so far. We made friends. It was great. Not only did we meet people from our floor, but from other floors and the other Rez. It turned out to be a great night, and start friendships with some of the coolest people I've ever met. And yes, our floor does have a ridiculous amount of Seans. Four, to be exact.

Sunday night's Floor Flag Challenge got a little 
out of hand (pun intended), and we became walking 
art instead. (Left to right, Back: Radio Voice Sean, 

Kenzie & Jessie. Middle: Backpack Sean, Ahmed, 
Molly & Kathleen. Front: Unknown Guy, me, 
Meghan, Pretty Eyes Sean.)

Anyway, now that I've had a week of just messing around, meeting people, a trip home and two beach days, class has finally started and things are feeling so real now. A couple of my classes have journals as part of our final projects, so I've decided that I might as well just blog everything so you guys can see what I'm up to as well. (For those wondering, the journals are meant to be introspective, and make us think about what we've learned in class, and what we done well, need to work on, and our personal progress in a course.)

Sean and Meghan up a tree at Bronte 
Beach, September 6

I can honestly say that going to college has been the best decision I've ever made. Reuniting with old friends, making new friends, meeting people from the other side of the country, and even befriending some international students. My classes are so much fun, the profs are amazing and I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends to make. Starting college has been like swimming. I've been underwater for so long it felt like my lungs were about to burst. When I came to Sheridan, it was like I had finally surfaced, and I could breathe again. It's the best feeling in the world, and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for me.