This past week we continued to learn more stomps and mudras with not one, but two gurus! This week's steps were somewhat different from the kinds of stomps we have learned so far n past weeks. My feet, and especially my heels were sore by the end of each day, but as they say, the pain should only make your smile bigger. Our gurus said that their feet were sore when they were first learning these steps too, and there is no special technique to avoid it; your feet just have to get used to it!

I really liked the cup exercise that we did in class on Wednesday. I have HORRIBLE posture, and my family always pick on me about it, so this was really good practice for me to concentrate on sitting and standing straight, and not just falling back into my typical slouch. We lined up into two lines, and half of us were Ramas, and half were Lakshamnas. We used the mudras we had learned to walk down the line with our invisible bow and arrows, practicing our stylized travelling steps, trying to really focus on the characters we were embodying and keeping good posture. I really liked learning the song at the end of class on Wednesday. I was humming the tune for the rest of the day; it was kind of soothing. I can't remember all of the words, but the tune is engrained in my memory!

Thats all for now.

Moving on...new steps and video

This week we started learning about some of the mudras, hand motions and stomping patterns we will be using in our presentation of the Ramayana. Each pattern has several difference speeds, and sometime the speeds have different hand and head motions attached to them. I was actually concentrating so hard on getting all the movement and rhythms right and stomping loudly (because that's an important aspect of the dance) that I think actually bruised the bottoms of my feet a little bit! But no worries, I'm really enjoying learning this new and different genre of dance!

On Wednesday we watched a video of the Ramayana production that was put on my William and Mary students last year. It was so cool to watch the video and realize that these people were just like me and at one point were just beginners too. I definately had an easier time following the parts of the book that I had read so far, but even so, the dancers did a great job of getting their emotions and even some humor across to the audience. Seeing some of the dance steps and movements we have been learning about put into action also helped me put them into a better context. I can't wait to find out what happens next in the book!

First week over!

I ended up in this class by the miracle of being on Banner at just the right time. I had actually been planning on taking the Indonesian Gamelan class this semester in hopes of knocking out the first credit of my GER 6. I had signed up for it last semester and I was totally psyched to be in that class, until I found out that I was at the same time that I was going to have cheerleading practices every week. So, it was not to be. But I didn't want to give up so easily on my quest for GER 6. So I sat down and started to surf Banner once again, and I came across ICAP. I had originally told myself I wasn't interested in taking a dance class for GER because I wasn't at all interested in the Modern Dance class, but after reading the descripton for ICAP, I was intrigued. And alas, there was but one slot left in the class. So here I am.

I think that this class is going to be a great complement to my Anthropology Major, and is an apt replacement for gamelan. I was pretty nervous coming into my first day of class, especially since I had missed the first class, but the atmosphere was immediately calming, as I realized we were all feeling a little awkward and out of place in this new cultural experience.

My favorite part of the class so far has definately been all the stretching we do. As a cheerleader, I'm always looking for ways to increase my flexibility, and in class we have been exploring some new ways of stretching that I've never been exposed to. I was also shocked at the new muscles I felt burning. It's really interesting to me that doing these simple, and seemingly tranquil movements can work out muscles that I've never really thought of using before.

I look forward to learning more about the cultural aspects of performance and mastering all this foreign terminology as we go along. This should definately be a class unlike I've ever taken before.