Wrapping up First Year!
Production Exposure: Recording Department The week after Pecong closed, me and two actors from Group 48 were assigned to the Juilliard Recording Department during our quarterly "Production Exposure." We got to see the people behind the cameras during Juilliard shows and events and how they work their magic. At the end of the session we got to play around in front of a camera and they showed us how they edited the audio and lighting of a sample video like this:
A video posted by Regina De Vera (@regina_devera) on May 16, 2016 at 8:51pm PDT
Poetry Open Mic In the morning of our last day (May 13, 2016) we had a Poetry Open Mic to culminate the year by sharing one of the poems we've selected out of the many poems we've submitted for Poetry class during the first year spring semester. The entire Drama Division community was there to support us first years. This was the poem I wrote and shared for the event:
PRINCE CHARMING
I did not ask for my broad shoulders my strong arms or towering gait.
Everybody thinks I’m supposed to rescue the fair-skinned woman Marry her And live happily ever after.
That was what we were all taught to do.
Why can’t she save herself?
Don’t eat a red apple from a witch. Don’t prick your finger with a glowing needle. Don’t give up your voice to an octopus. Get out of your fucking stepmother’s house.
It is you, not a true love’s kiss It is you, that will break the spell.
Regina De Vera (May 7, 2016)
It is difficult to answer questions such as "how was your first year?" or "what have you learned?" How does one encapsulate in words a journey that is fundamentally altering and revealing? The deepest changes I've seen in myself consist in how I perceive my own life and my own journey. The idea of a "finished product" once dominated my process and how I saw myself in the context of the work and how I perceived the different phases of my life. What is more important now are the questions, because facts and information always change. The questions that remain within me are no longer viewed as representations of what are "missing" in my life so much as they are puzzles that I allow to come together when they are ready to come together. It is a continuous unfolding. And there will always be puzzles to figure out and grapple with and that is okay. I would take this ongoingness of my life, this continuous going towards something and wouldn't exchange it for a plateau, a desert or quiet Sunday afternoon ever again.
