So where did *this* damn bruise come from?

One of the most intriguing aspects of rehearsals has to be the appearance of totally inexplicable bruises and scrapes.  I was going to say "unexpected appearance", but after a few productions I've come to expect them.  I dare say that in the days when we just got happy and fat (if there were any such), lumbered on stage and sang looking up to the audience from the sweet point on the stage, this wasn't the case, but nowadays... oh yeah. 

I approached the rehearsal stage rather carefully today, having managed to hurl myself rather spectacularly from my bike a couple of days ago.  (Nothing serious; skinned knee and elbow.  Can't imagine how I have got away unscathed in four years of cycling here previously, especially given the prevalence of lightning-quick toddlers darting through parked cars.)

Anyway, scraped knees and elbows are pretty much par for the course, given that cycling has been my chosen mode of transport for more than four years now.  However, looking them over, it was rather amusing how many other unnoticed bashes and scrapes they joined and blended into happily on a social level. 

I mean, seriously, how on EARTH did I get a dark-blue double-centred bruise on my upper thigh in the last couple of days??  There's no way any of the action in the opera I'm rehearsing (usually the culprit) or anything that's running is to blame.  

Just has to be the rehearsal genie to blame.   Not going to go there as concerns howling with laughter and throwing oneself all over the stage at the slightest opportunity.  Absolutely nothing to do with this particular topic.

Definitely.

And that's all I have to say . . .

So, once more to the ballet.  And to a real appreciation of the other arts and how they focus the mind on aspects of one's own craft which might need more work.  I watched a light descend dramatically low into a stage full of dancers at one point, and thought, gawd, had those been opera singers, two minutes would have sufficed for *someone* to have failed to heed any of the thousand warnings from stage management and been carted off to hospital with a bleeding forehead...

I know I've said it before, but they are so physically AWARE - of course the athleticism and the flexibility is amazingly impressive, but, well, I can't hope to achieve that (it's useful, though, as a comparison for those members of the lay public who believe that "anyone can sing" . . .  yep, most of us can howl happily through a tune in the shower - but those who power through an evening of opera on stage are to the shower-singing what ballet dancers are to those who happily tread all over their partner's feet after a couple of beers in the pub . . .).  The physical hangover of a good evening at the ballet is, for me, at least a couple of days of finding myself balancing on one foot whilst trying to extend the other gracefully (thank goodness for yoga in this respect.  Most of the time, I don't actually fall over.)

Thank you to my dance colleagues who gave so much tonight (whilst I am very aware that what we as opera singers do is generally no picnic in the park, we very seldom sweat so hard that a sudden turn will send an arc of sweat droplets flying from our foreheads and catching the stage lights.  That's, like, proper physical work.)

And then I get to cycle back home past the above panorama.   Yep, my life is good!

On the Importance of Posture

Thing is, you see, I thought I knew all about posture.

When I was in music college, I paid my way by working as a secretary in the School of Dental Hygiene (yep, just as fascinating as it sounds) on weekday mornings, and studying singing the rest of the time.  The sheer psychological / physical effort involved in swapping hats over and over again (as a secretary you are (a) often sitting hunched over a hot keyboard all the time you're there and (b) expected to put yourself aside to make your bosses' lives as smooth as possible; as a singer you need to be upright yet free, and frankly to put yourself first) was not doing wonders for my shoulders, which were often to be found stuck to my ears.

So I took advantage of cut-price Alexander Technique lessons and gained back the physical freedom of childhood (yes, I had to work at it, but my goodness, the work paid off).  The feeling of free and easy bodily balance, both when static and in movement, was so exhilarating that I resolved never to lose it.  Ever since then I have been aware of slight imbalances and tensions, and have corrected them at the first signs, however long it took.

The results aren't bad, either.  It helped my singing a lot, and I often get compliments on my good posture.  Or people thinking I'm a lot taller than I actually am (well I put that down to posture but it could also be my addiction to vertiginously high heels...).

I was even aware of the psychological aspects of posture, especially since having watched this excellent TED video (WELL worth your time to watch, whatever your calling in life).

So basically tootling along feeling pretty pleased with at least that aspect of my existence, and probably looking irritatingly smug about it.

Then...

Well, this week has seen the start of the Onegin rehearsals, and I have thrown myself into the challenge of portraying an old lady with the onset of dementia.  From the start I knew that I wanted tension in my fingers, producing slightly clawed "arthritic" hands, and a slight forwards stoop to my shoulders.  I welcomed slightly uncomfortable shoes from the costume department (the designer was rather amused that I asked to be made as shapeless as possible but drew the line at my hopeful request for a bosom drooping down to my knees) and allowed my neck to express a fear of the world around me.  I am experimenting with just how much to slow my movements down.  Subtle things - really trying not to "portray" old age as such; aiming rather to allow the audience to feel the aches and physically sympathise.

I think it's going pretty well, actually.  I mean, I can consistently apply the above and yet still sing freely (ahem, when the Russian words don't fly off into the ether, that is).

EXCEPT - my goodness I really hadn't banked on those small and totally physical shifts having such a pronounced effect on my mood.  Despite enjoying the rehearsals immensely, I could feel misery creeping up upon me virtually by the minute.  And it was a vicious circle; as the insecurity descended, my shoulders stayed stooped even when grabbing coffee with my colleagues in the canteen.  I found myself avoiding eye contact even with friends, and feeling, for no good reason, utterly desolate.

This was just a few days of submissive, beaten posture, worming itself into my psyche and trying insidiously to destroy my confidence.  It really is that powerful.

Very luckily for me, my best friend is something of a yoga expert, and recommended various postures as defence.  I incorporated those into my (shamefully spotty) yoga practice, and felt the results straight away.  For those interested, they were downward dog for quieting the mind, back bends and raised arms for optimism and energy, and various power postures.

So that particular crisis has been averted, and I am left in awe of the sheer power of the mind/body connection, and determined to counteract my bad posture while acting this role with supportive postures before and afterwards.

However as I look around me I see - everywhere - bad posture.  People slumping over computers, slouching tiredly in the bus, scuffing the pavements as they scuttle past me in town...  How much misery around us - and in us - is due to this correlation?

So please, if you haven't done so already, take the time to watch the TED video I linked to above.  Or if things are chronically bad, do search out an Alexander Technique practitioner - or maybe Feldenkrais if Alexander Technique is not for you.

Sorry if this comes across as evangelical, but this week has been something of an eye-opener for me in this regard and I simply want to make as many people as possible aware of the clear and present dangers of bad posture.

__________________

Photo is, as always, completely unrelated!  A rainy day coming through the graffiti-enhanced underpass looking out onto the Rhine, with a neon-turquoise-lit cruise ship as focal point.  I like that tunnel!

Been to the ballet again.

Cycled back with, as usual, my head exploding with observations and questions and frankly trails of wonder.

There follows a selection of these.  As you'll see, there is no way that this lot can be edited into anything resembling a coherent narrative, so I'm just going to leave them roughly as they were...

Dear god.  HOW is it possible that we share the stage with such surefooted, gracile creatures?  I mean, we literally tread the same boards.  We look down on the same people waving their batons at the same orchestra.  We even on occasion share the same composer (tonight was Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake - as of March next year I shall be singing Filipyevna in his Eugene Onegin in the same theatre).  We are all surely doing our best to interpret and communicate the music...  yet, oh yet, we are such worlds apart.

There's all these people knowing to a millimetre where they are in relation to the staging and to each other, and I have been trodden on more times than I care to mention and have had to resort to tripping the tenor over in order to remind him he's meant to be speaking to me.

I wonder if  I could learn to do that with my hands.

Ouch.  I DEFINITELY could not learn to do that with my legs.

Interesting how no-one ever goes up to a dancer at a party and says "Come on then, give us a quick pirouette", whereas we opera singers get asked to "oh go on, just sing something" all the time.  How come it's assumed in all these TV talent (haha) programmes that anyone with a decent voice could be an opera singer, whereas there is pretty much no evidence that anyone has ever said of a bloke with a decent sense of rhythm and who managed not to fall over whilst getting on down at his aunt's wedding, "Oh I bet he could make it as a ballet dancer"?  I am the first to be totally in awe of the physical commitment and hours of practice that the dancers put in.  However we singers are also usually the product of several intensive years of study.  Weird.

Actually I am not totally averse to modern dress on the dancers (this generally means the poor buggers leaping around in not much more than their knickers).  Being visually aware of the demands made on the musculature of the body, especially for the ballerinas, who, hidden by the traditional tutu and tights, can seem to float in a preternatural manner, brings them firstly closer to us humans (yes, the tautness of that muscle betrays how much effort she has to employ in order to hold that leg up there) and then of course takes them immeasurably further away (no, damn it, if I attempted to bring my leg up halfway there it would, with reason, go on strike and probably never work the same again).

Except I rather like tutus.

Even when the blokes are wearing them too.  And both sexes in certain scenes of this production look topless, the men being actually so and the women wearing flesh-coloured tops.  

Interesting how homogenous the dancers look when all dressed the same.  Is this a function of their profession, or of holding themselves in the same positions whilst dressed the same, or what?  Certainly wouldn't apply if you went and mixed in opera singers amongst them :-)  (Certain amount of covert sniggering in the aisles...).

Actually however I like having a decent cleavage! (Oh how un-PC!)

(At half time, squeezing through the throng of sweaty dancers) - oh poor boy, he has goosepimples on his thighs, must be damned chilly, I wouldn't like a costume like tha.... WAIT!!! I am squashed right behind the lead male dancer, him wearing pretty much nothing, and that in tight flesh tones, and I am commiserating with his virtual nakedness?  Do I not realise how over 50% of the population would kill for such a view?...

There are exceptions.  But on the whole, opera singers do not look anything like that in their knickers.

What can I do to better myself in terms of physical awareness on stage?  In terms of graceful moment?  Of surety of aim, of expressiveness of form?

There's always so much to learn.