Thursday
We might as well be strangers It’s fair to say that when I entered this process I felt like a deer in the headlights, I had no ideas and this scared me even though it was only day one. Before every module I have chosen before I have always had a sense of what was to come and I have always considered myself a creative member of a group situation. I had doubts, I wrote an email to swap to multimedia about three times and never sent it, something stopped me. To me solo was the opportunity I needed to showcase why i’m here. It was going to make me fall back in love with the subject that had lost its magic to me due to essay pressure and third year blues. This would be me, this would be Ashleigh’s work, Ashleigh’s writing and Ashleigh’s performance. This creates problems, will I be good enough? Can I survive without the support of the group I’m so used to working with, there may be nobody to let me down on my own. . . But what if I am to let myself down? There would be nobody to blame other than myself and it took some real soul searching to answer that question. I often do think I help in leading a group project with the help of another strong creator, but what if when I sit down to do it alone I realise this isn’t true? I don’t think I’m old enough to know myself very well, there are situations I cannot imagine dealing with because I have not been in them, I am not venerable on the surface and I’m quite snappy, but then I arrive home and I re play what I’ve said to someone again and again and worry about it, I’m the person who will think for an hour about something I said when I was sixteen. This course is going to be a lot about self discovery, what if I’m not ready? Me, myself and I may as well be strangers. My views on how I live my life are very influenced by the theory of performativity, perhaps this is why I’m a drama student, I believe heavily in the mask we put on day to do, we do our hair and get dressed and we put on our characters knowing that we will be seen by people, our audience in day to day life are the people we pass on the street, the bard himself got it right when he wrote ‘The worlds a stage!’ Well after todays lesson the idea of not being supported was totally blown out of the window. We created a nest, a save haven, a circle of trust. Yes, I may go on that stage alone but my process will not be lonely, I do have support and I do have a team; my fellow solo artists. There’s been a task set for tomorrow already, this is daunting and this is sort notice, but I get it. I understand not torturing yourself over a piece and letting the ideas flow under a short time restriction and the material to be organic and real. Our task is to create something autobiographical, as an amateur writer this is my comfort zone. . however it is also very far from my comfort zone, because it’s about me. I do not overshare, my thoughts usually stay in my head, when I have an argument I tend not to tell people because I don’t want it to reflect badly to me or the party involved, I like other people’s stories, listening and chipping in to make a sarcastic comment or something that is probably going to make someone laugh. I am a common example of someone who can give it but can’t take it so opening up would be hard. I now have two choices, do I keep it light and test the water or do I dive straight into this sea and see my peers true reactions to a true me? Maybe I can do both. I like humour, I believe in satire, the way to take fear and sadness from something is to joke about it, I feel this gives you power over the situation and I want to work with this in a way that others before me have like Victoria Wood and Whoopie Goldberg, they take a situation and twist it at the last minute and I appreciate this. What if I made this the last time I did hide, what if this is the start of me getting back to me. I still have no ideas about a show, I still don’t know what I’m going to do and I’m no closer to an end goal but it’s been a touching and welcoming start that left me both quite drained but excited for the next days session.
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