has it really only been two weeks?

so i'm two weeks deep, and it has felt almost like 2 months has passed since the beginning of staging. yet, time still has flown by. UWP has this strange effect of making time go by fast, but making it feel like eternity. maybe you have to experience it to know what i'm talking about.

to recap my week:
on monday, we had a leadership panel. sitting in tables of about 8-10 students, we were given the opportunity to meet and listen to seven community members. most of the speakers were involved in some sort of consulting business, but each had vastly different backgrounds. sharing their leadership experiences, i discovered a commonality between the five speakers i met: they were better listeners than talkers. that's not to say they aren't good speakers, but just even bettter listeners. they were more willing to listen to what you had to say than what they wanted to tell you. very interesting. these people were able to cultivate a relationship with us within the 15 minutes they had. that must be why they have been so successful in their journeys. this concept was probably the greatest thing i pulled from the day. (Breton Shepherd and Rajul Pandya, UCAR)

Culture Jam - this was an opportunity to showcase some of your talents while representing your culture. i heard from many former students that they wished they did something for it, but they never did. it wasn't going to happen to me. so i pulled together some friends in the cast and we came up with an act that ended up opening the whole performance. check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IoP4Qs6174

we did more dancing this week. lots more. it was both good and bad. the first workshop was wicked hard and i think i have forgotten almost every step from it. the second workshop was much better. the instructor wants me to focus on the foxtrot segment. i think i am getting much better at that one. but i still need lots of practice. my partner is great too and has an awesome attitude. there is definitely a learning curve to this whole dancing deal. the real question is why do they keep putting me in workshops? i feel so out of my element. i like the challenge.

on thursday we took part in a denver city scavenger hunt. being a semi-local, i knew most of the answers to the scavenger questionnaire, so i decided not to take the lead on this one. i helped when i could, and naturally ended up as the tour guide and picture keeper. we had a great time getting strangers to pose in our pictures. we were most successful at the capital building (see right).

after the group scavenger activity we were able to tour the Denver EPA building. this was particularly interesting to me because we have had such a great focus on sustainability and eco-efficiency in my graduate courses. I was able to understand many of the concepts behind the green building that the EPA operated in. on the tour they showed us a few floors and the bathroom. the thing i found most interesting was the subfloor duct system and the green roof.

the green roof consists of the majority of the roof covered in plants. these plants seemed to be of the desert variety, able to tolerate high heat and low amounts of water. the green roof has many benefits. it helps reduce the wear and tear of the roof from weather thus increasing its life range and it also dramatically reduces the heat on top of the roof. rather than having a 150 degree roof, it keeps temperatures around 80 degrees. this helps to save on heating and cooling costs within the building. i would take pictures, but they weren't allowed.

then i had another dance workshop - we learned the footloose and hop section of the show. both of these sequences are fast! im still surprised how much talent and effort it takes to dance a 1:30 minute section in a show. and what a workout. im still enjoying it - yet i find it extremely difficult linking all the individual steps to each other because i forget them so quickly. my problem is that i focus on the current step - i need to think about what comes while doing the current one. arg.

later in the week, we practiced our show run-through with something they call "blocking." basically this means stage positioning and sequencing; it's stage logistics really. i'm getting more and more excited for the show as the final product is becoming more clear each day. i am very curious to see how this will all piece together in the end. i only hope it will flow more smoothly before our first show on the 12th.

friday - more dancing baby! we learned the Jai Ho dance from the indian movie Slum Dog Millionaire. Then we learned the love medley sequence of dances. there are over 20 songs in this medley. if you think it's hard to dance to all these, just imagine how difficult it would be to play an instrument for each of those songs! one of my dance partners, annie matthews (left), is awesome. she has a great attitude and is fun to work with. i am getting more confident with each new number. even one week of dance experience helps.

now some free time. finally. this weekend was low-key and relaxed. just what i need before another week (that feels like a month) of UWP. i enjoyed all of it, except for my homework i had to complete for my monday night class.

and another discovery i've made: school is so boring in comparison to UWP. i'm glad i'm almost done with it!

tour dates and times

come one, come all. come see me sing, dance, and hopefully not fall.

here's the lineup for our tour dates and times. i would love to know if you are coming. let me know in advance. i can get you ticket information and exact show times.

U.S.A. TOUR

Denver, CO

August 12^th – 7:30pm

Pinnacle Events Center

Aspen/Snowmass, CO

August 13-17, 2009

Durango, CO

August 21-23, 2009

Chino Valley, AZ

August 22-25

Lake Havasu City, AZ

August 24-30

MEXICO TOUR

Leon

August 31-September 6

Queretaro

September 7- 13

Veracruz

September 14-20

Puebla

September 21-27

Mexico City

September 28- October 4

EUROPEAN TOUR*

Lulea, Sweden* October 6-8

Sundsvall, Sweden* October 9-13

Stockholm, Sweden* October 14-22

Vanersborg, Sweden* October 23-27

The Netherlands* October 28-31

Warsaw, Poland* November 1-3

Zabrze, Poland* November 4-6

Hamburg, Germany* November 4-12

Berlin, Germany* November 13-19

Cottbus, Germany* November 20-24

Odense, Denmark* November 25-27

Varberg, Sweden* November 28-December 2

Uppsala, Sweden* December 3-7

Tampere, Finland* December 8-11

and away we go

hey everyone -

thanks for checking in. my name is (an)drew fisher thompson. up with people (UWP) is finally here. never would i expect to see myself traveling in a cast of 70 students from 17 countries performing in an UWP show, until our very first day - july 10th - when i received my official name badge. the iconic UWP star logo and blue background neatly displayed "Drew Thompson" and below it "USA."



holy cow.








so i'm writing this blog a bit late. i'm currently in school finishing up my MBA at the university of denver, daniels college of business. my five straight years of education at du has almost come to an end. this summer school class is much more time consuming than i previously imagined. last week i finished a 20 page paper worth 50% of my grade. hope i did ok. with that said, i haven't much time to get around to doing any journaling or blogging. i will try to keep you updated as much as possible and as fast as possible, but no promises. you know how it is. this blog is also a means of preserving memories for myself as well.

well, here are some reflections on my first week with UWP:

first exposure - registration:
am i really doing this? really? i mean i feel like i was pretty much born into this. like its my destiny or something. after i filled out all my paperwork and got my ducks in row, they gave me my name badge. i have to wear this? i looked around the room and saw about 20-25 people i hadnt met before. after maxing out the convos with the people i knew personally - mainly staff members - matt erley, phil woods, cheryssa jensen - i had to go socialize with all the other people in the room whom i would be with for the next 5 months. awkward. so awkward. get me out of here. i made small talk with a few people and 45 minutes had passed before i knew it. i pulled the homework card and told everyone that i would see them at the opening session.

shoot. now i really have to finish my school paper. no excuses.

opening session for host fams and students:
oh man. im sitting in the same seats in the sherman center now as a student as i did when i was just a host brother a year prior. weird. that means i have to pay attention and listen. oh wait. i have to sing and dance, too? shit. i suck at that. who the heck are all these people? i found michael worcester and breton shepherd. these guys were legacy kids too - their parents traveled in UWP a long way back and knew my parents. i then met some real faces to the few students i had talked to on facebook in the weeks prior. i felt much more comfortable. and soon began to get over the shock of the program until...

first week of UWP:
here i am on a monday morning (very early by my standards) with a bunch of kids waiting for the day to begin. it started with a lot of ice breaker games, name games, similarities and differences, etc. it was a long day but fun. i get real energized meeting new people. and these people had lots of energy. but i could tell that many students were sharing the same hesitations that i had.


here comes modules. modules are a nice way of saying informal group auditions. shit, again. this is where i had to sing and dance and speak and try on a costume. the latter was by far the easiest. the former, not so much. my singing experience consists of me belting the lyrics of a song i knew and my dancing experience - well - im pretty much alergic to dancing. i break out in hives, my throat closes up, gets hard to breathe. you get the picture.

i was grouped with a bunch of really cool guys - micheal and breton were in it too. we sang, danced, read a poem, and tried on our show clothes. not so bad, really. i mean, its not to say that i wasn't really nervous, but it wasn't as painful as i expected. maybe i was just content with my performance in all areas. considering it was the first time i had done any of that. but i was nowhere near the talent of The Reed aka the moonrider himself.

throughout the week, our cast had the opportunity to meet each other formally in activities and informally between breaks. our days were broken into sections of education, singing practice, cast fitness and movement, and lunch (my personal favorite). altogether it wasn't as painful as i expected.

my castmates are amazing. there are close to 70 of us in total from 17 different countries. i'm still learning all their names and getting to know them. this will take time, but with all the memories and experiences we will share, it makes it much easier to do this.

by the end of the week, the staff put on a show presentation. this was awesome. by seeing what we would be performing it gave me a much clearer idea of what to expect and where i might fit into the overall picture. i have seen many shows in past years and enjoyed them, but this one - its going to be good. real good.

its july 19. we perform august 12. shit, again.