feeling the UWP burn

* sorry for the delay folks - it's amazing how busy UWP makes you!*

here's a recap for week 3 for me:

monday –

we learned about culture shock. this was something that I had thought I had known a lot about already, but apparently not – so I was glad to learn something new. Individually, we evaluated ourselves on where we laid on the "Culture Shock Curve." This was a line that looked like part of a sin wave: it had a crest, trough and peak. It was laid out on a graph that measured mood on the y-axis (up and down) and time on the x-axis (side to side). so over the culture shock curve you would reach different stages. the stages started at honeymoon (high mood, early time); would gradually decrease to the trough at Confrontation (low mood, middle time); then would increase up to Adjustment (middle mood, later time); and eventually get to the peak on the other side of the curve to Adaptation (high mood, longest time). I found myself close to the Adaption phase (at this point in the tour) because I have been living very comfortably in my own home and knew my culture very well. however, I was not at the very top of the culture shock curve because I was still adjusting to the new UWP culture itself. I was totally not use to being around 70 people for 50 hours a week and the whole performing arts thing is still foreign to me.

tuesday -

UWP legacy round table – today was really cool because we were able to speak with a variety of UWP alumni who traveled back in the days. some of the members traveled in the early nineties and others traveled in the eighties or even late seventies. It was great to get their perspectives on UWP and some advice to carry forward on our UWP experience. in our small groups of ten students, our table had the opportunity to meet, Kristin Stork (’92, ’93), Chris Mygatt (C ’81) – who traveled with my Uncle Brian Fisher, Paul Limoges (’93-94), Linda Erly, and Barry Gore. one of the greatest things I heard came from Chris Mygatt when he said, “Stay in curiosity and don’t get stuck in judgment.” Beyond that, if I didn’t learn anything new, I was able to make some quality connections for the future. UWP creates such a massive network.

wednesday -

more singing and dancing. more workshops. lunch. more workshops.

thursday -

we had a full walk through of our show today. in the show list i had surprisingly way more parts than i had ever expected. and unfortunately, i was listed for one of the major dances i had not remembered. so i had to quickly relearn that one and as i did, i realized that we still have more parts of the song to choreograph. just great. more dance steps to remember. but other than that, the walk through went fairly smoothly and we had a good time practicing in front of the whole cast. i was extremely pleased with many of the ladies, whom i had never heard sing before. one girl, therese from sweden, i never would have expected to sound so good. but she did! we have quite a few female ringers in our cast for singing and dancing.

but back to the walk through - i had many front line dancing parts which utilize specialty costumes. these costumes can be up to 30 years old in some cases. so we have to be careful when using them.

friday -

i was definitely feeling the uwp burn. i was so tired, so fatiqued, and a bit insocial. when you are hanging out with 80-90 people (which includes the staff) for close to 50 hours a week, learning new dances and songs, trying to remember the other dances and songs you already learned, i guess its only natural to get exhausted. thank God its almost the weekend. and we get 2 full free days!

today we also took our head shots for the show and other uses.

i learned a number called "gumboot" and a the rest of the dance steps to the "keep the beat song." at this point in the week my head and body is fried. i am struggling for energy and trying not to mix up dance steps. the worst part is when i'm in this condition is that i lose my concentration. so while i'm in these dance workshops, i'm supposed to be doing a nice-looking jump step, but in reality i'm just doing something that comes from the movie karate kid. oh man, if only we each had personal videographers following us around on days like that.

we went down to a local church to have a cast meeting. here we lined up our chairs and shared with the cast our proud moments and appreciations for each other. i drew one person's name who i did sincerely appreciate. his name was kyle and he has had an amazing attitude since the start of the program. he has even maintained his great attitude after splitting his head open (and getting two staples) then somehow contracting a major skin infection in the last week. i would just want to quit and go home. but kyle is good man and has high spirits and shares it with the group. i appreciate that.

well, look forward to the next blog post. this (current) week we are preparing for our first show! its August 12th at 7:30 pm in the Pinnacle Events Center. Come!