General Topics |

August 1, 2014

BLS CAMP COMMEDIA REVAMP: Summer Camp Week #2 and Week #3

Before “Friends” and “How I met Your Mother”; before “I love Lucy” and “I Dream of Genie”; the most popular sitcom was Commedia delle’arte. It began in the early 1500s in Italy. Actors donned masks and spoke an unintelligible language called Grommelot or “emotional babblespeak”. (For an understanding of the impact the Commedia Dell’arte had on theater history, I recommend this video, published by The National Theater.)

Each scene, or Lazzi, consisted of characters from the same collection of stock characters, extrapolated from contemporary society. We studied eight of these characters. Each week the students were given paper mache masks that resembled the commedia mask the actor playing this character would have worn. Then, the students painted these masks, to reflect their interpretation of this character.

After the masks were completed and the students learned about how the characters moved and thought, it was time to do a BLS Revamp! The campers were challenged to work together to write a story using these Commedia characters. They created a problem based on the character’s desires and flaws. Then, they were asked:

“If you had the whole world’s attention, what would you want to teach them in order to make the world a better place?”

The campers from week #2 focused on the Trickster who likes to take advantage of the foolish and greedy Pantalone. The students created a story in which the Trickster learned that it is better to look deeper and discover the root of people’s flaws rather than taking advantage of them. Or, as they chose to put it…

“Pranking people and taking advantage of their weaknesses only makes people feel like things will never get any better”.

The campers from week #3 made Magnifico the Protagonist and explored the idea of learning to love yourself for who you are. Magnifico resorted to force and magic to earn the love of his people by trying to make himself beautiful but all of these attempts quite literally, blew up in his face! These enlightened artists will never forget that…

“You can only be loved for who you are and that the only thing that matters is who you are on the inside.”

I am so proud of all of the campers for challenging themselves to understand plot structure but more importantly, learning how to be creative and constructive as a team in order to spread such worthy messages into the community. Good Form, indeed!

July 29, 2014

3 ways to renew our efforts in reaching our goals

The feeling of frustration can take over when we are making mistakes, not getting the success we would like to see and we may feel like quitting. We may have a picture in our mind of what our results will look like, and it is just not happening. Interestingly enough our deepest moments of frustration come when our expectations and realities are not meeting each other. So how can we maintain persistence in effort?

Self talk – If we use self talk in a positive manner, helping ourselves to calm down and stay focused on the big picture we will be able to continue on our quest. The ideas that we suggest to ourselves will become our reality. If we suggest that this is a way waste of time – it shall become a waste of time. If we have a setback and our self talk suggests that this is catastrophic we will believe that it is. Ask yourself instead, “What is so great about this?”

Coaching – Do you have a mentor or a coach that you can talk to. Many times another person can see the big picture easier than we can, just due to their objectivity. Talking with our group of private supporters may be just what we need to get out of our own self pity.

Have you recharged your battery recently? When we are feeling challenged or frustrated it could be we are tired, hungry or need to exercise. For many of us, going for a walk, getting some exercise in or sitting quietly is what we need to recharge ourselves. Remember that recharging is different for everyone. For some it is being by themselves and for others some quiet time alone for reflection.

Everyone of us have different methods of recharging. For some quiet meditation and being alone with our thoughts can help us to recharge. Others find being around others and bouncing ideas around a method of recharging. Certainly though, surrounding ourselves with others who share our enthusiasm for our personal goal and who have shown themselves to be supportive and persistent in reaching their own goals will help us when we are feeling like giving up or quitting. Being persistent helps us be successful in reaching our goals.

July 16, 2014

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM FEATURING BLS SUMMER CAMPERS

Balanced Life Skills enjoyed their first week of martial, visual, and performing arts this past week. S SUMMER THEATER (2) tudents learned focus and respect and collaborated creatively in order to depict the fairies from William Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

Although they may have been depicting confusion and conflict among the fairy kingdom, these students worked together in order to create a beautiful set and make interesting staging and character choices to tell this story.

The older students, playing Titania and Oberon displayed strong leadership skills by helping the younger students and overcome stage fright. Everyone cheered on their fellow actors and reached deep within themselves in order to tap into the creative energy required for this kind of production.

Peaseblossom demonstrated an impressive amount of innovation by leading the charge to write an original story about deforestation so that the animal (and fairy) kingdom will always have a home!

Registration is open for Theater Classes!
FALL SESSION 9/2 -11/15
Strong Performers (Ages 5+) T/TH 5pm -7pm
Ensemble Workshop (Ages 9 – 18) M/W 5:30-7pm

June 26, 2014

SEE THE LIGHT!

That is right… The Performing Arts Department has lighting equipment and we are not afraid to use it! It is a very exciting time! We purchased four Par 56 lighting instruments, 1 Dimmer, Two stands, a control board, and a whole bunch of gels. Here is a little information about lighting design…

CONTROL BOARD: The control board controls the dimmers. You will adjust the control board in order to vary the intensity of the lights.

INSTRUMENTS: (A.K.A Fixture, Luminaire, or Unit) These are the actual lights; the lamp/bulb and the metal around it. We are using Par 56 Instruments. Par 56 instruments provide a wide range of lights and are great instruments for learning the basics of lighting design.

DIMMERS: Each instrument is plugged into a dimmer or dimmer rack. The dimmer rack varies the brightness of the light. The same way that a dimmer in your home does, except the voltage here is a little bit different.

GELS: Give the light color

GOBOS: Give the light shape; think of it as a stencil for the light.

HANGING LIGHTS: This is an activity for which the tech crew is responsible, prior to the actors coming in for tech week. Lights are hung at specific angles to give the light direction. It sets the overall tone for each scene. Then, when the actors come in during Tech Week, the direction may be adjusted slightly based on the height and position of actors.

Contact Ms. Ellen if you would like to learn more about Lighting Design!

June 24, 2014

“Creating original work to improve ourselves and the world around us.”

Balanced Life Skills is rolling out an exciting new theater program that will give students the opportunity to change the world. This program will teach students valuable life skills such as diction, movement, research and public speaking while harnessing their imaginations in order to tell compelling stories. They will also be exploring issues that are important to them and taking ownership of all aspects of production for piece that will engage the community and inspire people to become a part of the solution. Here is a look at what we have planned for the coming year. If you have questions about any of these programs, please contact ellen@balancedlifeskills.com.

Summer 2014

Summer Campers will explore the world of Shakespeare, Comedia Dell’Arte, and Kabuki
Students will explore Deforestation, Equality and War and make a presentation on these important issues at the end of each week
Kick It! girls perform at First Sunday Arts Festival
Click here to register for our summer camp!

Fall 2014

First 10 Week Theater Sessions begin
Participation in the Annapolis Fringe Festival
One – Two Day workshops offered that will include Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Fall Showcase for Performing Arts, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts
Click here to visit the performing arts page and learn more about our program offerings

Stay tuned to find out how else our students will change the world!

June 12, 2014

Striving

If you have read many of my posts, you’ve maybe noticed that no matter what sort of issue I am puzzling over, I always find myself coming back to yin yang theory and balance. When I ask myself what is good or which of two things is better, I always seem to conclude that everything exists in a continuum with its opposite, and that the two are inseparable, and the healthy range of behavior or evaluation on the continuum varies very much depending on the situation.

So to continue this trend, I want to talk about striving.

Certainly in certain contexts striving seems to be critical. When you are at a kungfu school, for instance. Kungfu is exactly the outcome of long-term, continual effort. We say here at the school, “Kungfu equals time multiplied by sweat.”

But striving so often seems to mean discontent and happiness, doesn’t it? We focus on the thing we want, the thing we can’t do, the unattained goal, and the distance to that goal seems so big and we feel we’ll never reach it and it is a terrible feeling. The other day, Shifu was talking about contentedness. He pointed out that, as an organism, all a person really needs to exist is nutrients – food and water. So unhappiness that rises not from hunger or thirst is the product of the mind and the mind alone. He compared us to trees – never having a mind, they grow and flourish without worry, as tall as their environment will allow.

One of my classmates replied with a story. He said he was in Peru once and a humble cheese-maker, who spent his days in his trade but mostly on his porch surrounded by his family, asked him, “Is it true that Americans are all very busy all the time?” My classmate agreed that was true. And the cheese-maker just started laughing as if that was the silliest thing he had ever heard. All of American wealth and prosperity and industry was a big joke to this poor Peruvian who knew he had what he needed. Shifu liked that story.

I have been stumped in trying to untangle the idea of striving into its continuum and opposite, its yin and yang. But I think this is because striving is actually the name we give the intersection of two more fundamental pairings: work and rest, and agitation and calm. Striving is the name for working agitatedly. It does not have a direct opposite of its own because it exists in a complex continuum with resting calmly, resting agitatedly, and working calmly. It is hard to see the value of working or resting in an agitated way, and indeed much of my time is spent trying to free myself from habitual agitation in any mode. But remembering the model of yin and yang, I am forced to reflect that agitation too has its time and place.

Because even balance has to be balanced with imbalance – perfectly balanced forces are static, and what is life if not dynamic?